it will last for a long time, if provided that it follows iPod footstep. Just look the example of iPod, still considered as the most popular media player ever. Eventhough at the introduction of iPod, Apple has never venture into portable player or music market, but still they manage their way and leads the market now. Maybe it's now the same case for iPhone as they never venture nor have experience in mobile market. Yeah they will be hot for long if it follows the footstep of iPod.

Mmm...btw if it is because of trend or fashion, iPhone will soon change its design and form factor for another reincarnation. Just look at iPod, it already comes through changes as it's in market.

the mobile phone industry is like that already. even nokia and sony ericsson came up with new revisions of phones with distinct sets of features every year compared with their predecessors.
sony also done that in music player industry. they also came up with more models with more features as time goes. yeah and it plays music really good, plus it becomes more open to the standard music formats, not just using the ATRAC format, in the new revisions of its players. this is great for the industry.
so about upgrading to the next model every year, it is about the technology. it advances as time goes on. that is the only issue. and it is good if the enhancement of technology brings more goodness to us.

This post has been edited by LaskarCinta: Feb 18 2008, 06:12 PM

yup, given that iPhone itself is a kind of smartphone that stands on its own league and built using a proprietary platform, extensive 3rd party software support is a must in order to keep this unit in market. as for media player market, there's nothing much to do on iPod as previous models from other manufacturer only developed with basic functionalities. but for iPhone it's a different story. other smartphones in the market already got a huge library of softwares available for their devices. iPhone is built around the powerful OSX platform with great hardware potential that yet to be unlocked, but if it doesn't meant to be tasked with great 3rd party apps it is such a waste then. hope something great will come shortly after the SDK release.