With the surge in mp3 players on the market and the forecast for a dismal holiday shopping season, it should come as no surprise that analysts are declaring the imminent end to Apple's iPod.

But why the near-end for such a ubiquitous gadget? With a 72% market share (vs. the Zune's 2%), what could possible shake the foundation of Apple's bread and butter toy? The idea that, according the Portfolio.com, that people will want to cart around their music with them at all times instead of having random access to catalogs of tunes in the 'cloud' will seem utterly ridiculous.

What is the 'cloud'? Well, in the basic sense, it's the internet. The idea of keeping things on the 'cloud' means that information won't be kept locally on a device. So, no more downloading hours and hours of albums or book recordings (guilty) onto your gadgets -- new services are popping up that allow users access to whole libraries of albums, artists and titles for monthly fees.

It's all part of the gradual evolution between devices and user demand.