Video iPods anyone? Research group says future bright for video-enabled players
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Aug 28, 2007 at 6:57am
There’s talk that Apple will hold a Sept. 5 special event to introduce new iPods. If it happens and “true” video devices are among the introductions, they will come at an opportune time, according to a new research report. And fullscreen video/audio players will continue to grow in popularity in the months and years ahead, the report adds.
The AppleInsider site says the new iPods will introduce “as many as four iPod models could be made available within coming weeks, the majority of which would be based on NAND flash memory rather than the hard disks used in fifth-generation models.” The direct replacements for the fifth-generation iPod and the iPod nano are said to rely on a heavily modified version of Mac OS X, according to the rumors site. There may be a both a fullscreen video iPod and a more “regular” video iPod in the works, both based on OS X but with different designs for different purposes, adds the ars technica web site.
If and when fullscreen video iPods arrive, they’ll certainly have a bright future (with “future” being the key word), if a new report by the In-Stat research group is any indication. Driven by increased broadband penetration, declining price points, and a growing catalogue of online audio and video content, the market for MP3 players and portable media players (PMPs) will remain strong over the next five years, the group says. According to In-Stat’s latest primary research, the main reason consumers are purchasing portable MP3 players and video-capable PMPs today is for the devices’ audio playback capability, the high-tech market research firm says.
“Only 11 percent of survey respondents say they will purchase a PMP primarily for its video playback function,” says Stephanie Ethier, In-Stat analyst. “Still, the cost of incorporating video into portable devices continues to decline. As a result, In-Stat expects shipment growth of video-enabled PMPs to outpace that of audio-only MP3 players by the end of 2008.”
Recent research by In-Stat found that worldwide unit shipments for audio-only MP3 players and PMPs combined will reach 275 million units in 2011, up from 182 million in 2006. Of the 2,408 respondents to In-Stat’s latest survey of US consumers, 52 percent own an MP3 player or PMP.
In-Stat doesn’t expect music-enabled cell phone shipments to displace dedicated PMP/MP3 player shipments any time soon. However, the research groups says there’s an opportunity for cell phone manufacturers to capture those consumers who are considering cheap, audio-only MP3 players.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
