'Still Tastes Great, Now Less Filling'

Does the World Need More Music Players?

The big Consumer Electronics Show -- affectionately known as CES -- kicks off in Las Vegas today. We're going to see a lot of really cool gadgets announced at this show. But we're also going to see a raft of annoying new MP3 players from Asia. I'm always stunned by the sheer quantity of new players electronics companies are still coming out with. Sure, some have some cool gimmicks or slight improvements over your average player. (And some boast features of dubious value). But in the current market, profit is impossible.

Dudes, it's over. Apple wins. When the dust settles from the recent holiday buying season, we're all going to stand in shock and awe over how much Christmas cash moved in Apple's direction for iPods, accessories and iTunes music gift cards.

Before the holiday season, Apple owned something like 70 percent of the global music player market, with the remaining 30 percent divided up by thousands of products and hundreds of companies. I'm betting Apple's share actually moved North in Q4 2005.

The iPod has thrust Apple to the center of international design influence, spawned hundreds of imitators and after-market iPod products, caused panic and navel gazing in the music, movie and television industries, driven microprocessor manufacturing to record levels and legitimized for-pay music and TV downloads.

There's absolutely no way that, at this stage in the game, some company is going to come along and eke out a living from the crumbs left over by Apple. It's just a matter of a couple years until media-playing functionality and massive storage is automatically built into cell phones -- that's the only thing that will threaten the Apple dynasty. All these new MP3 players coming out of Asia are really just so much wasted R&D.

The only smart game in town now -- and it's the game these Asian companies should be focusing on massively -- is building the ultimate media-player phone.

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What is it? Send YOUR guess (be sure to say where you live). If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the next issue of Mike's List.

LAST WEEK'S MYSTERY PIC: No, it's not a "portable seat," a "high-tech pipe bomb with LCD screen that displays the countdown," or even a "lunch box for anorexics" as suggested by some readers. It's a low-cost laptop developed at MIT for children in poor countries as a replacement for textbooks and for communication. Mega-congratulations to Alan Tigerson from Sacramento, California, for being first with the right answer!