Marcus: The writer of that blog post is convinced they will, anyway. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it. The mobile phone industry doesn't need Apple, and Apple surely wouldn't be dumb enough to enter a mature, highly innovative, cut-throat sector that has no room for farting about doing cute little scroll wheels on phones. Mobile phones are nothing like the emergent MP3 player market a few years ago. Then again, Apple will need a new trick once more mobile phone manufacturers start incorporating mini-HDs into their phones and the iPod is killed dead within the next few years. (I own an iPod, and it's cool, but let's be honest - iPod or phone with iPod capabilities? That's no choice at all).

justin: Sorry - but the cute little scroll wheel features on a new phone - that 70's looking one that looks like a sofa. I think there is plenty of room left for innovation in the phone market - many are the times I rue some poorly designed feature of any phone I encounter.

Dave: "iPod or phone with iPod capabilities? That's no choice at all." You've got to be having a laugh! What about phone with iPod battery life? No thanks. I know you love your Treo, but I'm happy with a phone that is just a phone.

Marcus: My guess is that Apple wouldn't take the plunge into such a cut-throat, steadily consolidating industry. I think Apple will probably do what it has already started to do with the announcement that they'll be putting iTunes on Motorola phones - supply the software apps but not the hardware. Only time will tell.

Marcus: Dave, I assure you the iPod will go the way of the dinosaur - you might like a phone just to be a phone, but in five years time you simply won't be able to buy something that just plays MP3s. Convergence, baby. Phones and iPods go together like egg and chips. Battery life will be much higher than an iPod too - you can't extrapolate current battery life into future devices. For instance, I bought a Motorola Flare phone in 1996 that lasted for seven hours on a charge, or one hour talk time.

justin: There is a middle road - and that is having phones with enough space to hold one or two albums, maybe up to 512meg - I think these will more prevalent that having to go whole-hog with a 10gig mini-hd. Don't forget there are many more of these types of players around that iPods. Also, as for battery life - most people recharge their phone at the end of the night. that will be the model for battery life, although, I do accept we will all be f*cked come Glastonury time (which I am not going to because it's far too much hassle).

Marcus: I agree that at first you'll be seeing 256mb/512mb flash variants. However it's only a matter of time and economics before mini HD prices and decent battery life come together and mean that not having a phone with a built in HD will be like it currently is now to own a phone that doesn't have a colour screen, isn't polyphonic, doesn't run Java and doesn't have Bluetooth. Just as at some point soon you won't have any choice but to have a phone that has these things, so will mini HDs become part of the generic spec for mobile phones, or smart phones, or zaargflurbles, or whatever we'll be calling phones in ten years' time.

justin: Cool - but by the same rationale as "we could be using Zaarflurbles", we could also not specifically be using MINI HD's because they are a big power drain or because streaming is a much more practical option. In many ways our technological bottlenecks aren't necessarily simply innovative ones, but old fashioned practicalities like temperature, power drain, weight etc. I will say that mp3s on phones is the future, and the more crap we can shove into a device of roughly the same size, the better.

justin: Anyway - what we need are devices that can draw their electricity from the body - solving the battery problem and the weight problem in one go.

Dave: I really don't think mini HDDs in phones is the future. In fact I think it's a step back. You don't need it! They are too sensitive and put too high a demand on a battery. If I had a phone with a mini HDD in it, it wouldn't last a week. My phone takes a battering, it gets dropped, bashed and generally spends too much time in my pocket. I think the future is bigger and better Flash memory.

justin: I want the last word by saying that I am very happy with my phone because it is small, does loads of cool stuff and makes me look cool, as opposed to Marcus' phone which not only makes him look geeky - but actually turns him into a geek. Dave: stop dropping your phone it's an expensive telecommunications device not a rattle.

Marcus: Okay, so maybe some kind of Compact Flash high-capacity flash memory system - say, the 4-5gb that the low-end mini-HD players have as capacity right now. Also, Justin - the thought of having my energy drained by some overcharging misbehaving device is sort of fun but probably wouldn't be nice in practice. Last word!

Dave: Word.

Marcus: Bah.

Dave: Word.

Marcus: Last word! (Mwahaha - now this post has dropped off the edge of the front page, surely the last word is mine).

justin: Last word.

Marcus: I can't believe that, nearly two years since this was posted, Justin posts in that he has the last word.