Steve Wozniak predicts death of the iPod

Apple co-founder also voices concerns over the iPhone

Iain Thomson in San Francisco, vnunet.com 08 Oct 2008

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, better known in the industry as 'Woz', believes that the iPod is on its way out and has revealed his discomfort with some aspects of the iPhone.

Wozniak told The Daily Telegraph that the iPod has had a long time as the world's most popular media player, and that it will fall from grace due to oversupply.

"The iPod has sort of lived a long life at number one. Things like that, if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, kind of die out after a while, " he said.

"It's kind of like everyone has got one or two or three. You get to a point when they are on display everywhere, they get real cheap and they are not selling as much."

Wozniak also commented on the iPhone's proprietary nature and locked service provider, and compared it to Google's open Android platform.

"Consumers are not getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down," he said. "I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you're allowed."

On the broader front Wozniak said that he could see the technology market being hurt by the worsening economic situation.

He suggested that companies would extend their IT equipment's replacement time and that this would hurt the hardware and software industries.

Wozniak also warned that many Web 2.0 companies are being overvalued and that this could lead to a second technology crash.

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