What should Apple do with the iPod?

Market it against the Nintendo DS.

I bought iPod Touches for my 2 oldest kids and my wife last Christmas. So, this year, instead of buying $30-$40 games, they have been able to buy several $2 games throughout each month.

It's been a blast, the savings are starting to really show, and they even like the games better.

I think as long as it remains profitable, they should keep it. The R&D costs are already well recouped so it's basically little more than a profit center. I understand Apple doesn't exactly need the money, but I think it would be a bad idea to kill off a licence to print money like the iPod.

Please please please make a waterproof one. The only reason I use my ipod over my phone for music is because I do not like to sweat all over my phone when I work out. Also for running in the rain (maybe for battery life on a long plane ride). If they made a waterproof ipod nano that would solve all my problems. Also if they for that direction just make headphones and a case that I can use to swim with. There is h2oaudio.com (which is awesome) but I would rather it just come straight from apple.

</2cents>

It will become like the Mac business. Routine updates with nothing to announce unless it's special; unibody fabrication or designs like the Air.

That is until they reset their business.

The iPod product will be rebranded and remain iOS device that does everything but have a phone. iPod rebranded with iPhone form and function, except no phone functionality.

A Mac line, iPad line and a handset line. Face it, calling is now a feature on a computer. It's not a phone with features.

The only graph that matters there is the first one, and no one should be surprised that units have dropped. They should be surprised that they've dropped so little since the iPhone does everything the iPod does and more.

% of revenue presented like that is misleading. The iPhone and the iPad are selling like hot cakes and making a ton of money, but they're not iPods.

Revenue growth at around -6% may look bad, but that just means they're making 1.48 billion minus 6%. If you don't think that's a lot of money, you're mad.

iDevice revenue breakdown.... what's the point of that graph?

Here's what Apple should do with the iPod. Keep innovating. $1.48 Billion is a lot of money. It's a business in it's own right.

IT'S MORE THAN A BILLION DOLLARS!!!!

Obviously they don't have to do anything with it, it's still profitable and has high margins. There's obviously some potential to grow though.

The touch is basically a prepaid phone with no phone chip. They could add that phone chip and absorb the margin hit through scale in China, etc. Bound to happen sooner or later.

The nano is a redesign away from assaulting the global watch market (over $40 bln this year).

The shuffle, I could seem them innovating the form factor, why not abstract it right into the earbuds.

The classic is dead, growth wise so they can keep selling it but don't think it'd shock anyone if they shut it down tomorrow.

For what it's worth, I have a relatively large music collection (100gb+) and used an 80gb iPod for two years before getting a 32gb iPhone. The difference in usability was /huge/, to the point where I didn't miss the 50gb of space. If I didn't have a smartphone and had the option of a 128gb iPod Touch, it would be a no-brainer for me.

Personally, I don't think anything would be lost by discontinuing the iPod Classic, as long as something with a sizeable capacity replaced it.

Apple would be nuts to get rid of the shuffle. Keeping the iTunes ecosystem strong is really important, as the kid with a shuffle today is best served by an iPhone in the future.

Keep it around. Its a hook to get people to use the mac ecosystem. That's the product that started the resurrection of mac. I'm sure Apple will keep it around and keep on making minor changes to it overtime.

They should do nothing. Keep upgrading the capacity upgrading periodically.

I bet that in the same keynote as the next iPhone release, Apple will rename the iPod Touch to just "iPod".

With the iCloud service ramping up, I suspect that the iPod classic may get PC-less syncing at some point. But then it would have to include some sort of wireless option as well.

200M iPod users are nothing to sneeze at: they represent an enormous pool of potential iPhone and iPad users, and Apple has been using the iPod Touch as a "gateway drug" for iOS for years now.

The Retina display 16G iPod touch has to be the lowest margin product in Apple's lineup, due to its place as a low cost stepping stone to the more expensive iOS devices.

It would be cool if they made the Nano a wrist mounted remote display for the iPhone, though.

They should make it into a phone.

Apple has always been one to do what THEY think is best, and then make everybody follow along. They did it with iOS and flash, basically saying "hey we don't like this, you shouldn't either, so we aren't going to let you use it." for better or for worse, this has always been Apple's Modus Operandi, and whether or not you believe in it, judging by their stock prices, it's worked.

One of the biggest killers of the iPod is the fact that the iPhone is no longer exclusive to AT&T. How many millions of people bought an iPod because they had Verizon and didn't feel like dealing with AT&T? This is only going to get worse with the iPhone 5, which will presumably be on all major carriers.

I think the emergence of Android has made all altogether killing the iPod unrealistic. I have yet to see an Android phone that handles music as well as the iPod does, and Apple knows this. I think what is going to happen is that Apple will revamp the line again in a year or so, and do something to make it relevant. I would say the iPod touch, ironically enough, is the one in the most danger of being killed off, what with it's big brother iPad owning the tablet market and the iPhone doing everything that it does and more.

I still see a lot of nanos at the gym, but there are also a lot of people just using their iPhones / Droids. (And for actual street running, the nano is a bit better being smaller and lighter and not $600 to replace when you drop it.)

I actually hadn't thought of the rumored new iPhone 5 design as a possibility of it being the next iPod Touch. Maybe that's why we haven't heard any iPod Touch rumors yet?

The ipod shuffle is awesome, I use it everyday because it's tiny and I don't care what happens to it. I almost never use my ipod touch or classic.

Not everyone needs or wants a smartphone yet. Keep it.

I think they should bring back the "old" Nano. A lot of people haven't bought the new one as they still like tactile controls and want a screen large enough to watch a video. They also don't want an iPhone or to pay for the touch. They shot themselves there.

There has been a lot of innovation with the iPod but some of it hasn't always been that great. Consider the "stick" shaped shuffle which reverted back to the old design in the latest revision. I consider the touch-based iPod Nano to be the same sort of unnecessary crock.