The iPod Is The Car of The 21st Century

It has been said that the automobile did more for the sexual revolution than any other single factor. You see having a car meant having mobility. And being mobile was quite a new thing back then. Pretty soon one thing led to another and cars were ferrying lovers all over the place. But who could have imagined that would take place?

Now, I guarantee you, when Henry Ford was thinking up the design for his first batch of cars sex did not figure prominently into his plans. I am sure he considered many more relevant things like: cost, speed of production, distribution, you know, all those little details that help a business survive. Mr. Ford no doubt spent considerable time refining his vaunted assembly line, and with good reason. His insight into mass production paved the way for his dominance in the emerging auto industry.

There are some interesting parallels between Mr. Ford and Mr. Jobs. Both were business men of no small acumen, both created a new industry and then dominated that industry with a superior product and both men were remembered by history as pioneers in their field. However, unlike with Mr. Jobs and Apple, we have had plenty of time to look back over Mr. Ford’s legacy and evaluate its both positive and negative effects.

A positive effect of the car was the creation of ambulances, a negative effect was drive by shootings. But who could have predicted either of those things 100 years ago? You see, predicting the future accurately is very difficult. But if you decide to try your hand a prognostication let me warn you of this major pitfall, you will be wrong most, if not all, of the time. Don’t believe me? Want proof? No problem. Just imagine yourself standing beside Mr. Ford as the first few cars rolled off the assembly line. He looks at those shiny black autos and then turns to you and says “Where do you see cars in 100 years bob?”  That’s quite a difficult question, but lets examine it so that we might fully understand the difficulties involved in being a predictor of the future. 

The obvious approach towards determining the future of the car is to look at its main effect. You see, the main effect, or 1st order effect, of the car was faster transportation. That was fairly straightforward right? Now think about all of the 2nd order effects that the car produced: stop lights, paved roads, oil industry, end of horse-drawn era, emissions standards, NAPA, license plates, DMV and the list goes on. That was a little trickier but still logical analysis could have guessed at most of those. But let’s further consider those 3rd order effects: NASCAR, Indie Car, hydraulics, sound systems, fuzzy dice, monster trucks, etc. How do you predict things as random as this? Now, the 1st order effects are obvious because that was what the product was intended to do. The 2nd order effects were not nearly so obvious but still an intelligent person could have reasoned them out given enough time and data. But those pesky 3rd order events seem to defy logic. Because no matter how smart you think you are there is no way that in 1925 you would have been able to predict that people would buy a car, lower it down, put lights under it, put a fiber glass wing on it, a needlessly loud set of speakers in it and then hang a pair of fuzzy dice beside their crown air freshener. That kind of prediction was simply beyond the scope of reality. Nor would you have imagined that a grown man could cover a car in products names, drive in circles and then get paid millions of dollars to do it? This is where logic breaks down and pie-in-the-sky guessing takes over.

Now, you are probably wondering if you stumbled onto some auto history site by mistake. You might have looked up to make sure the URL is correct a couple times by now but fear not, for you are on the right page. And there is a point which I am coming to now.

The iPod is turning into the automobile of the 21st century. You see, the 1st order effects are that you can play lots of music via a small elegant hand held device. The 2nd order effects are the huge industry that has grown up to support iPods. These include the ITMS, cases, speakers, armbands, radio turners, power supplies etc. Now what is so interesting is that we are finally seeing those 3rd order effects. What would that be you ask?

Podcasting

Yes, podcasting has grown into quite a popular little hobby, and it shows no signs of slowing down. It is a logical, if hard to predict, effect of the widespread use of the iPod. And this is a huge leap for the iPod because it’s breaking out of its original purpose to fill other, more diverse, needs. The car is no longer for the super rich instead it’s an everyday product that has ingrained itself into our culture. That secured the car’s place in history and if the trend continues Apple will have crafted the next “big thing” in American society.

What’s next you ask? I don’t know, but I have a few guesses. Ready? Ok. The iPod is eventually going to give way to the ViPod, a video enabled iPod. That will be the future, for a little while at least. And of course a whole other industry will spring up to support the ViPod. But what will eventually happen (I predict) is that people will start to see the entire iPod family as not just a music/video player but rather as a useful portable computer that they interact with daily. Think of it as the ultimate assistant. All of the fun of the iPod, combined with the features of a palm pilot with the storage of an external hard drive. Its going to be the handy dandy little digital thingy that everyone is going to own and use all of the time. Who knows, it might turn into a device similar to Mr. Data’s tricorder.

Or, at least, that is how I see it going. Many people just don’t realize just how big a head start Apple seems to have over its competition. And now that the mainstream media is picking up on the iPod/podcasting phenomenon it’s only going to accelerate things. Mark my words, the iPod is going to morph into a powerful ubiquitous tool in the next decade and Apple is going to become very rich in the process.

So, if I were you I would invest in that crazy little company from Cupertino because big things are in the works. Don’t believe me? Just ask Mr. Ford.