I agree the doom and gloom is tiresome and poorly substantiated. That being said, the phone market is not the same as the music player market. The iPods segreg

I agree the doom and gloom is tiresome and poorly substantiated. That being said, the phone market is not the same as the music player market. The iPods segregated themselves among different use cases and different needs. The Shuffle was always pitched as the "active" iPod (see: the clip on the back), the Nano the everyday iPod, and the iPod Classic the one for the serious enthusiast who needs enormous storage above all else. The smartphone market lacks such segmentation. Everybody wants a phone that makes phone calls, receives texts, and runs apps. There's not really any room to segment price-wise except to simply make the same thing but cheaper.