When Bill Gates predicted the ‘demise’ of Apple’s most-popular gadget

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates predicted the decline of the iPod long before it happened. Nearly two decades ago, when the iPod was revolutionizing music consumption and Apple was dominating the MP3 player market, Gates made a bold prediction about its future. In a 2005 interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, he stated that the iPod’s dominance would eventually fade as smartphones emerged, offering much more than just music playback. At the time, this prediction seemed unlikely, as the iPhone wouldn’t debut until 2007, and smartphones were still primarily used by business professionals.