I guess my point is that there is more going on in the VC space then you'll read about on HN.
What I do know, per your point, investment in and around hardware startups is not publicized. I wonder how some of the networking hardware startups that started the carriers of those I know (and benefited me) would be taken now.
Cisco / Nokia / etc. hardware acquisitions apparently aren't HN sexy.
GoPro has a similar problem. Outside of special circumstances most smartphone cameras are now good enough for most consumer needs and will only get better. I think they could survive if they target the extreme sports type niche but otherwise I don't see them achieving escape velocity.
Both could be good acquisition targets a la Withings and Nokia. But the number of possible buyers is limited. Microsoft is possibly the only one that comes to mind that doesn't have anything in either space although given the failure of Windows Phone I'm not sure they have the desire to try something similar in a different market.
By 2006 Apple had 72-74% of the MP3 player market, with SanDisk, Creative, Zune, Sony, Samsung, and other accounting for the remainder. I seem to recall most of the damage was done by the iPod Mini.
No problems with Shenzhen companies running Kickstarters, after all they can probably have much better relationships with the factories than Westerners are likely to.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ufactory/uarm-put-a-min...
as soon as the iPod came out way back in the day, the criticism was that it would soon be copied. No one ever did, and I worked in the music business at the time and was familiar with everything on the market. nothing ever came close, apple made a ton of money.
it's a common thing to say that it's not defensible/can be copied, but I don't see that happening always.
Memory is hazy, but I seem to recall that without the iTunes store/application you had to either mess around ripping CDs, or use illegal downloads.
The one hardware innovation the iPod had was to use the teeny hard drives just coming on to the market at the time, when everyone else was using flash. Flash was the right solution ultimately, but for a while the HD worked around the problem that Flash was too small for a decent set of songs. Reputedly Jobs decided to take most of the volume supply of the small drives initially, preventing copycats from executing.
If you take a look at the context of their question, they are asking why no one has killed the iPod by copying it.
I suppose the answer is probably as said by rokhayakebe elsewhere in this thread, "Copying the hardware is easy. Copying the ecosystem is a different challenge."
and, of course, as another reply says the software has always been a big part of the iPod.
But now, the economy of Shenzhen has matured to the point where squeezing every ounce of production is no longer sustainable, and thus is forced to innovate. Perhaps that explains the number of hardware startups there: it's an advantage to be closely located to the manufacturer of your parts. That was also once true for Silicon Valley.
Maybe the failure of many hardware startups now can be attributed to manufacturing jobs being outsourced.
I think the patent durations of hardware should be shorter, just like many here think that they should be shorter (if existant at all) for software.
Part of the issue with durations in hardware is development time. It would be nice if the duration could take into account the date of first sale rather than just the inception of the idea.
Apple had complete control of the small form factor harddrives. Noone else could get their hands on them. There were other MP3 players before iPod, but they were either too big, or couldn't hold enough music.
By the time flash storage caught up, it was more about fashion.
Not sure why you got down voted, but here's an up vote.
Also, one of the iPod's major interface innovations was the click wheel - IIRC they've patented the hell out of that, so no one was about to launch a competitor.
Apple, however, hasn't rested on their laurels. They have kept innovating. If they had slowed down at all, the others would have eaten their lunch.
The ipod was really a story about iTunes, I think, rather than the hardware.
So I haven't worked at a hardware start-up but it seemed pretty difficult even before these companies to raise funding versus a pure software play. I'm not necessarily convinced this makes it easier or harder. Is there a specific reason you think it will be harder now?
Also, for what it's worth, Fitbit and GoPro are still going. I'm convinced Fitbit can get back on the growth curve as long as they can get a new product out the door that consumers want. Tall order for sure but I don't count them as a failure yet.
GoPro want to move to doing software more so than hardware. Considering their software has always considered to be lackluster to borderline terrible I'm less convinced they will turn it around but also not yet willing to say they're a failure.