So, I was reading this story on what might threaten iTMS, and what Apple might have up its sleeve to respond to such threats, and a quote in the middle really jumped out at me:

Meanwhile, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates followed with a few jabs of his own — proclaiming that mobile phones should replace the iPod as the primary device for listening to music, and hinting that Apple shouldn’t get too comfortable with its current position.

Now, I heard that Bill Gates said Apple shouldn’t get too comfortable on top, and I have no reason to think he wasn’t implying what that says he was implying — aside from it being a really dumb idea. I know a lot of people with iPods. I know a lot of people with mobile phones. All of the people in the first group are also members of the second group, so I guess iPod users largely already have mobile phones they could use instead.

The thing is, an iPod is a great mobile music player — I don’t know anyone who has a mobile phone that’s even a great phone. Is there really a growing demand from people who want to replace their lousy phone and good music player with one device that’s both a lousy phone and a lousy music player? Even if there is, who would want to be the major player in that end of the market?

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