The iPod. Five years innovating?
The iPod just turned five. I remember buying mine in Orlando at a CompUSA store just a couple of weeks after Apple launched it. At the time there were no podcasts so I used it the way it was intended to be used, to listen to my music library and it was a vast improvement over anything I had used before. At the beginning, my IBM colleagues where not impressed. Today they all have iPods. The revolution that the iPod caused can only be compared to the launch of the original Sony Walkman during the seventies.
Five years later, the iPod hasn’t changed much. Sure, the scroll wheel isn’t really a wheel anymore, the HD capacity as grown steadily, iPods now play videos and can even play games but even with all the innovation talk that surround Apple, technology improvements are incremental. Turning great ideas into actual products takes time and since companies like Apple usually depend on off-the-shelves components they really cannot create revolutionary products easily. Of course, where Apple is really shines is in the area of software development. During the last five years iTunes has evolved much faster than the iPod and gone from a simple MP3 player and CD ripper to a fully fledge digital media library. There are decent competitors to the iPod on the hardware side, but no real iTunes competitors.
It is clear to me that the iPod is ready for a major overhaul. The rumored iPhone, coupled with a successful iTV could give the iPod another couple of years of success with the public in a highly competitive marketplace. Once released, the iPhone will be greeted with cheers by expectant crowds. However, the iPhone already exists. In fact there are many iPhones, created Sony-Ericsson, LG and BenQ, among others. When Apple announces the new iPhone it will likely bear many similarities to those existing products. However, what we are looking for is better software that will allow for a better user experience, better integration with existing applications such as iTunes and iChat. Those who say that software cannot help make a company differentiate itself from the competition are wrong, dead wrong. They just cannot write good software. This is true in the Consumer Electronics space, but also in the Enterprise.