Can an uber-phone replace the iPod?

It's been debated in technology and business circles for years: Will consumers settle on a single device as a combination phone, camera and music player? And more important to the companies involved, which industry will come out on top?

Nokia--big surprise--predicts that the phone makers will be the big winners, and it pointed to a study that it commissioned as proof. The report claimed that 44 percent of those surveyed said they use their mobile phones as their "primary" cameras and that 67 percent expected phones to replace their music players, eventually.

Regardless of the source's credibility, many bloggers have used the numbers as fodder for discussion about phone-camera-MP3 convergence. Coolest-Gadgets.com pointed out one of the more amusing--if not depressing--findings: 20 percent of respondents believed that losing their phone would be worse than losing a wallet or a wedding ring.

Blog community response:

"I believe that Nokia's survey is onto something true about the very near deflation of the iPod hype (even if it's a quite convenient conclusion for Nokia), as I'm normally quite mainstream in such matters. Just another reason for Apple to INTRODUCE THAT FRIGGING PHONE!"
--BigMother.dk

"If mobile phone makers can add all the tools in to 1 device then I am all for this. On my phone I can watch TV, listen to MP3s, send and receive emails, browse the internet at high speed."
--Gadget Venue dot com

"It may well be that there's some good, accurate, meaningful stuff in the survey. But unfortunately, by including what appear to be spurious or ambiguous results, it throws the credibility of the whole thing into question."
--Dean Bubley's Disruptive Wireless