Apple has carved out a new product market - the mainstream WiFi mobile platform

When Apple entered the Digital Audio Player (DAP) market in 2001, the company wasn't the first. There were lots of players in the game. Creative, Rio, and even Sony had been making digital audio products for years. But then Apple reinvented the MP3 player. It had so many game-changing advances that, as profound as it sounds, portable electronics can now be measured as "before iPod" and "after iPod".

Check out the video of the introduction here to see how far behind the competitors were...

Although much subtler and with deliberately less fanfare, Apple has shaken up another market: the market for WiFi mobile devices like iPod Touch and iPhone. By taking the iPod brand and expanding its functionality to include Web browsing, Internet videos and now email and interactive maps, Apple has turned another market on its head.

To be sure, the Internet tablet market has existed for a few years. Even Apple's decade-old Newton had some network functionality. Microsoft and its hardware partners have had the PocketPC, UMPC and Tablet PCs for almost as many years. Nokia has come out with its 700 and 800 series tablets which are solid performers. Archos has also made portable media devices for the last few years that have many of the functions that the Apple devices have. Even Sony's PSP and Nintendo's portable gaming devices carry some of the functionality of a Wifi mobile platform.

These are great devices - especially the Nokia 810 tablet. However, they just aren't as polished in the many ways iPod Touch is. In fact, if you look at the video for the iPod introduction above, the Nokia 810 has a lot in common with the the other hard drive based MP3 players of the day. While it has the same or better specs in some areas as iPod, it is a bit clunkier and the experience is far less polished. It's easy for gadget guys like me to navigate and operate these Linux or Windows based devices, but Jane and John Q. Public don't relish the thought of learning how to do all of this stuff. They just want to do things simply, out of the box in a well-designed, clean package.

Also, iPod still fits in your (shirt?) pocket, so it goes with you everywhere. It has never grown beyond the deck of cards footprint that the original iPods occupied (man doesn't the original iPod look thick?!). These other devices require some loose-fitting cargo pants at best, yet the iPod's screen is as big and bright as most people need in a handheld.

Most importantly, it has enough compelling features to help out around the home or office – and from keep from being bored during downtimes. Yet everything it does, it does well. The most important feature in a Wifi mobile device is the broswer, and Mobile Safari is the best out there. It also doesn't hurt that the Apple iPod brand is behind the Touch and it still does MP3's as well as any iPod ever has.

Will we look back at the announcement of the iPod touch as a watershed moment in electronics history, like we did the original iPod? Probably not. However, the device is taking the Wifi mobile platform to the mainstream in the very same way that the iPod turned the DAP from a techie hobby to the must-have device on everyone's Christmas list.

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