Are smart phones making MP3 players obsolete?

[camisadelgolf]

I use my mp3 player as a musical instrument. I'd be reluctant to use my phone since I'd be losing a lot more than an instrument if something were to get damaged at a show.

[dougdirt]

I use my computer for music far more than I use my phone or mp3 player (which I haven't touched in years). I use my phone in the car at times and when I go for bike rides. The one problem I can see at this point though is that your phone probably doesn't have 128 GB of space for your entire music collection. You can still get mp3 players that you can hold your entire collection on.

[fearofpopvol1]

Not yet, but it may be the future. The battery life on phones are just not good enough yet to be able to absorb people emailing/texting/making calls/playing music/games without charges every few hours. And since things are going to go on the cloud, that's going to eat up battery life as well to grab that information, so again, I'd say not yet.

[dougdirt]

Originally Posted by fearofpopvol1

Not yet, but it may be the future. The battery life on phones are just not good enough yet to be able to absorb people emailing/texting/making calls/playing music/games without charges every few hours. And since things are going to go on the cloud, that's going to eat up battery life as well to grab that information, so again, I'd say not yet.

Also a very good point.

[cincyinco]

Meh, my SG3 has 64 gigs of space. Plenty for music. I use it for music in the car, streaming or stored media. Don't have too many issues with battery life. Mp3 players is think are a dying medium.

[Wonderful Monds]

Originally Posted by medford

I'm not sure about Pandora and its cabilities, but you can purchase an entire album in itunes, then listen to it in order if that is your preference. You can stream that from the cloud.

But while we're on the topic, I do wonder how long "full" albums are going to be made. I come from the view point that I couldn't play an instrument to save my life, I have no idea what goes on behind the scenes when making an album and how certain songs make an album and other don't, however with a few exceptions, it seems like most albums from the 80s all the way up to today have songs that you really like, songs that are decent, songs you can skip over, songs that you love but others don't, etc... and most albums have at least 1, 2 or more songs that you don't really enjoy.

I assume when an album is made, the goal is to get approx 45-to an hour worth of music onto the album/CD so that the album is "filled". With more and more music going straight to itunes, is there a need to add "filler" songs to an album to use up as much space as possible. Is it going to be worth the production cost of a less than ideal song if there is no longer a need to add 10-15 minutes to an album full of otherwise fine songs? Will a band be willing to add that less than ideal song to fill out the album, rather choosing to spend more time working on the song and improving it rather than rushing it to the public.

That might be true about the biggest name label's latest promoted "bands", the Clear Channel endorsed acts. But those who are actually interested in making music instead of just selling it, the album will always be as vital as the song. No real artist fills their record with sub optimal songs

But the Clear Channel business model will be dead sooner than later anyway.

[wolfboy]

Originally Posted by Razor Shines

I pay for the premium Spotify and can stream full albums, make playlists, whatever. I use it on my computer and phone. My wife uses the same account on her phone, for one $9.99 monthly fee. I have no use for an MP3 player.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You can run two devices on one account?

[*BaseClogger*]

Originally Posted by wolfboy

You can run two devices on one account?

As long as they aren't both playing at the same time...

[bigredmechanism]

Originally Posted by OldRightHander

Anyone think MP3 players are going the way of CD players or that there will always be a place for them because of people like me who don't want a phone call to interrupt the music? Just curious if I'm the odd man out here.

I think they are going that way, but probably not as drastically.

I still use my iPod classic that I bought what seems like ages ago. Not that my phone couldn't do it, but I have a ton of music on my iPod that I don't have to motivation to upload it to my PC or to a cloud. (I had to wipe my hard drive a few months back, and so there is no copy of the iPod's contents on my computer anymore.)

I say not as drastically because the durability difference between an mp3 player and a CD player/CDs is crazy. When you have CDs scratching all the time, it's easy to see why switching to mp3 players took hold so well. As it was, cassette tapes lasted longer than them. Not to mention performance. The best discman I ever owned still skipped if I ran up or down stairs. That issue is completely resolved with mp3, and I'm surprised I even thought of it right now.

I don't see it being as pressing of an issue with mp3 players, though; my iPod feels and is more sturdy than my smart phone.

All in all, I think they are going obsolete, but I imagine people that already have them will continue using them for a while so long they don't break.

[reds1869]

I still use a phone that is just a phone and prefer the sound quality of physical discs. I'm apparently a traitor to my generation. I do use my iPod quite a bit but I drive a ten year old car that doesn't have a line in, so Cds still feature prominently for me.

[Roy Tucker]

I think if you can accurately predict the answer to this, you could make a lot of money. Smartphones gutted the PDA market and you needed to be very prescient to see that coming.

Moore's Law continues to hold true and smaller/faster/cheaper computing hardware and propeller-head geek developers continue to enable unforeseen developments. I've given up on predictions.

[Revering4Blue]

How life was before smartphones [Comic]

http://dottech.org/85855/how-life-wa...tphones-comic/