I don’t think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, however good Apple may be. I think you can draw parallels here with the computer — here, too, Apple was once extremely strong with its Macintosh and graphic user interface, like with the iPod today, and then lost its position.
If you’re thinking about getting an iPod, here’s my advice:
I have 4 iPods.
1 is my wife’s mini, which she is loving right now.
2 are the 40GB models
1 is the Shuffle.
I use the Shuffle the most. It’s the cheapest, lightest, etc. In practice, while it was nice to have my entire CD collection available, I was always selecting everything and shuffling anyways. So having 10+ hours of music in one tiny lightweight thing works out better then having to lug around even as something as small as the iPod. Every few hours of listening, I recharge it and swap out whatever was on there for a new 10 hours.
So for weight and simplicity, I like the Shuffle the best.
On the other hand, the mini works better for my wife, because she likes to listen to books on tape, and she’s more selective then I am about music. So with the mini, she can have one book on tape, and several hours of music, and she’s good to go.
