I love my iPod, it has become a indispensable part of my life. But having used it for a quite sometime I can see its limitations. It isn’t as good as its market share; in fact I think iPod’s huge market share is more a sign of Apple’s competitors’ weakness.

MP3 player is currently in a situation similar to that of PDA market in early 90′s: a device that the geeks embraced initially and later the crowd jumps in. But later as Smartphones appeared in the market, people started moving away from standalone PDAs. It is no secret that mobile phones with multimedia capabilities have started hitting the market. It will not be long before we see a mobile phone with 10 GB Flash Memory and 5 MP camera, which will be a killer combination, until of course something better is released. Apple itself might come out with such a product, the supposedly under development iPhone.

If other companies need to take a shot at Apple, they need to do what Hyundai has done to the car market: pack as many features for a slightly lower price. There are a lot of features that iPod could have provided from the beginning like WMA support, radio, compatibility with other music stores, etc. A value for money product exploiting these shortcomings is sure to bring down Apple’s market share. SanDisk, Samsung are my favorites in this direction.