“The iPod’s No Longer A Player, It’s A Platform.”

Intriguing thesis from John Welch, who makes a good case that the iPod’s success has more to do with ease of development than music. “… Every one trying to crack the iPod’s dominance is missing a really important point: Third Party Hardware Developers. The iPod has scads of hardware developers cranking out toys at a furious pace, the other guys have none. The reason for it is pretty obvious if you think about it. Developing for the iPod is dead simple compared to the other folks.” Within that, the real; key, he argues, is the dock connector that works with most iPods excluding earlier models and the shuffle. The proof: a growing of manufacturers accommodating iPods.
You could do some chicken-egg arguing — one reason iPod accessories are ubiquitous is because Apple owns so much of the marker — but he makes some points worth exploring, particularly in light of the iPod Nano launch this week and the recent death of the Rio player. (via Robert Scoble)

Comments have been disabled for this post