Back From CES: In The Not-Too-Distant Future, Dedicated Music Devices Will Be So 2006

Comparing today’s iPods to home answering machines, Sun CEO ScotT McNealy predicts, “It’s going to be hard to sell a lot of iPods five years from now when every cell phone is going to be able to automatically access your library wherever you are.” His vision of the future, shared at a Sun panel at the Computer History Museum, has music being stored on networks accessible by multiple devices. As CNET’s report notes, “Sun has a vested interest in the view: It hopes to sell the hardware and software that would be used for such a networked service.”
But the issue raised is a good one and it’s not limited to Apple products or — although centrally stored media and information should only grow as an option — to networked music. How long will dedicated music devices be the method of choice for listening? I’m test driving Verizon’s V Cast Music right now, courtesy of a demo phone provided by the company last week at CES. It came with an accessory pack that included a 1-gig mini-SD memory card now selling for $109. SanDisk and Verizon already have announced a 2-gig version due soon and have plans for a 4-gig card. When that happens, if I buy the additonal memory, (no msrp yet, as far as I know) I will be able to store as much music in a phone as I can in my current Creative Zen Micro. There are a lot of issues yet to overcome, and I’ll be writing about those when I look harder at V Cast Music after the full Jan, 16 launch, but it’s becoming easier to see the potential of this particular device convergence. Add the possibilities of a central network storing those songs for you so you can download items from your own library at will and it becomes even more interesting.

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