This long post on marketshare and context is a good tonic to the mostly meaningless numbers that get tossed around. I particularly liked the section on music players, with this summary:

In fact, the 30 million iPods sold so far this year and the 22 million sold last year are the best proof that users are choosing not to use their mobile phones to listen to music, but rather paying a significant premium to get a dedicated music player!

The next time you hear market share numbers being thrown around, consider the context. Numbers don't speak for themselves, they require critical interpretation.

That brings to mind a book I recently read: "The Origin of Brands", by Al and Laura Ries (see her blog here). The major thrust of the book is that products do not, for the most part, converge - rather, you see a lot of divergence as new product niches get created. Music players and phones are a great example of this - like many people, I own an iPod (mini) and a phone. Phones have to have a numeric keypad, which leaves a limited amount of space for other controls. For every phone I've ever owned, the interface to things not related to making calls have sucked - many times, the stuff related to calls also sucks. I can't really see how to add music with that interface sucking as well.

Then there's the music industry obsessions that come along. Say I had a phone that played music. My current phone has (barely worthwhile) internet access. I'd expect any music phone to allow wireless downloads of music - but no:

The handy iTunes menu interface on your ultra-sleek Motorola SLVR lets you scroll through your playlists, select a song and play it -- complete with any accompanying album art. You can even shuffle songs right from the main menu. And putting your music on the Motorola SLVR is as easy as syncing to iTunes, the world’s best digital jukebox. Just connect your phone to your Mac or PC, then choose the songs you want to sync or let iTunes choose them for you -- autofilling your phone with a random selection from your iTunes library.

If a music phone is to serve any purpose at all, it ought to allow wireless download anywhere the phone works. Otherwise, it's just a less than optimal iPod with crappy controls.

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