I can not agree more on this point. It is amazing all the other smart people in the business do not realize or acknowledge this. Maybe they are just too scared to think straight.

It is really amazing to me. Look at the MS promotions this article points to. Who wants to watch a movie on a Palm Pilot? I mean, it's possible that somebody will figure out an indispensible add-on to compete with the iPod, but it's not going to happen with video, unless it was a videophone that you could stream your own movie from, or some formula that nobody seems to be thinking of. Make a slicker player, sell it for cheaper, make it more compatible -- that's how to compete with the iPod.

Yes, for music there should be a device that aims for the good audio reproduction and does not break from careless handling.

For portable video, I doubt that portable movie player is going to be a big hit. Instead it should be more like a cross between PDA and a remote control, but boosted with a big storage which you can use to carry your favourite videos on and on which you can upload data wirelessly from your camera and you can remote control your camera etc with it. It should also wirelessly send data like video to your friends TV set. It would have a small screen for previewing what you are going to send to the larger screen.

But in my view this kind of big enough storage for video with large bandwidth wireless connectivity in such a compact device is still a couple years away.

Steve is not giving the trend to convergence its due.

Video is clearly stupid, but and iPod that is also your phone and your pda? If Apple does not do it, someone else will. My TMobile Sidekick does everything BUT music; how long is that going to last?

Of course portable video will be popular. remember how Sony brilliantly followed the multimillion seller Walkman with the ever popular Watchman? You Don't? Oh, never mind.......

Very funny.
Lets face it, the only thing that is going to be toast is CRAPPL's Itunes.
Already, Steve Jobs's loud boasts about selling 100 million songs on Itunes by the one year anniversary has come to dust, managing to sell only an underwhelming 70 million.... and this was even after including the free 100 million songs on offer from Pepsi! People just weren't interested enough even when Itunes was offered free simply by buying certain Pepsi products.
Where is the missing 30 million? Why its gone to Windows Media Player sites like WalMart, Napstar, buy. com etc etc, which are continuing to grab maket share from CRAPPLE and eat CRAPPLE's lunch, every single day when they wake up in the morning.
From a high of a massive over 90% share a year ago, CRAPPLE's Itunes is now accounting for closer to 50% share of paid Music downloads...and that is even before Virgin and Microsoft have enetered the market!
Expect Itunes to account for less than 30% share of paid downloads by Christmas and then deteriorate rapidly from there as CRAPPLE once again gets clobbered as usual by Microsoft and becomes yet another statistic o the Microsoft roadkill. :)
So long CRAPPLE suckers!

Smithy once again show the intelligence of the average Microsoft zealot.

Well done.

Paul :"Smithy once again show the intelligence of the average Microsoft zealot"
Very funny.
Listen: We don't have Microsoft zealots. People who like using Microsoft products (96% of the computer using populace on the entire planet) tend to be well balanced, sensible, well adjusted, smart, personable individuals with good perpestives on what most matters in life (hint its not some computer code) .
However when it comes to the CRAPPLE and Linux crazies, that's another matter altogether.
You could search the whole universe and you still couldn't come up with a bunch of fanatic psychopths who can even come close to how incredibly insane, the nutcases of the open source community and the CRAPPLE nasties are.
The only question currently on most sane people's minds is: Who are the craziest? CRAPPLE nasties or the Linux open source nut cases?
Inquiring minds need to know.

Smithy says "The only question currently on most sane people's minds is: Who are the craziest? CRAPPLE nasties or the Linux open source nut cases?"

Clearly it has to be the open source fools! Seriously, who in their right minds would toil away building something just to so corporations like IBM, HP, Novell, and the dozens of Linux distributors can get mega-rich off thier work with nothing in return?

Smithy is in his dream. Most people uses pc windows is because they are cheaper, and they are locked in and are afraid to change to something better. They also don't buy their software since tons of pirated windows softwares are out there.

So windows has 95 percent of marketshare, how come these crappy music service can't sell songs when 2% users based Apple can? Because windows users don't buy when they can steal, that's why!

I don't hate windows users but speaking as a mac user, we are being discriminated every day simply because we used a mac. People keep telling that we have less than 2 percent of market share but that equals to 30 million plus user, are they going to ignore 30 millions people for using their products? When ipod and itunes music store come out and mac users prove time and time again that we are willing to spend money, but again many developer and vendors just ignore us and not given us a chance to spend money on their stuff.

I have an iMac, an iPod, and a beautiful baby dell laptop. They both run iTunes. They talk on 802.11 its great.

As a usability designer, I solidly agree with Jobs particularly about foreground and background activities. However, avoiding convergence of an ipod and mobile phone, both which are becoming ubiquitous to some and are usually carried together, is a bit silly.

Apple know that they can do particular things the best. At the moment, music is one of them - video is not, mobile phones are surely not, so until it is necessary, i dont expect to see an apple phonePod any time soon, although I do hope to see some mobiles with cf slots. 2GB of music on my phone would be just fine for me, just needs a decent speed interface.

From a high of a massive over 90% share a year ago, CRAPPLE's Itunes is now accounting for closer to 50% share of paid Music downloads...and that is even before Virgin and Microsoft have enetered the market!

dear sir,
pl.contact my email id.