Apple to Discontinue iPod Classic and iPod Shuffle?

[iSee]

I don't know if I believe this.

True, the classic is a niche product at this point.
But it doesn't quite feel like it's time to kill it.

They should wait until they can sell a 160GB+ touch (or nano) for <= $299.

The day is coming soon, but I'm guessing one more year.

 

[Brandon0448]

I really hope this isn't true because I was hoping to buy a refreshed model of the classic when it came out. I just recently lost my 120 gb classic that I keep in my car and use for my deck. I had it completely full of music.

 

[Sequin]

I don't want to have to buy a Zune...

 

[iSee]

My current ipod is starting to get old now. Guess I better think about picking up a new classic before they're gone.

Don't do anything hasty -- rumors are rumors, especially when it comes to canceling products.

But... wait... if Classics are canceled, they'll still be available on the refurb/closeout stores for a while... at a discount.

 

[charlituna]

Do you honestly see someone who's primary interest is the Classic switching to a iPad or iPod touch in their current designs? I sure don't.

You also don't see the point of the comment. For every person they screams they must have a Classic, there are like a couple of hundred that will get an iPhone or iPod touch, if not ten tomes that so why would Apple waste time, money and labor supporting those few sales, when all that can go to the big selling models

Final Cut was on a completely different scale, Final Cut is a program designed towards developers

Try more like editors, studio level ones even. And while the previous versions were for 'the big boys' this one was made to be simple enough that Joe could use it for his youtube stuff

I'm sure refunds, extremely poor reviews, and massive amounts of complaints did this. Not a small minority of complaints.

We have no numbers to back up how massive the numbers of complaints has been or really how many refunds there were. But it sure was enough to get them to start pressing the old version and shipping it back to the stores

 

[Maschil]

I really hope this isn't true because I was hoping to buy a refreshed model of the classic when it came out. I just recently lost my 120 gb classic that I keep in my car and use for my deck. I had it completely full of music.

I'm with you... i would like at least 1 more refresh before they discontinue it, i don't like it when apple does that but they want to maximize their profit which is ok....

 

[Apple...]

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Press in dire situations.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Could they merge the Classic & Touch in a 5th gen?

Problem with a >64GB Touch "as is" is price. A 128GB or larger Flash Touch is perceived to have a price jacked up too high. And even 128GB is still smaller (capacity) than several year's old Classics.

What if the 5th gen jettisoned the Flash and built in the Classic's hard drive? That would get us the big storage so coveted in the Classic with the rest of the "Touch" features so desired... AT a comparable price to current Touch prices.

We have recently seen rumors of a bigger iPod Touch. A bigger Touch would have the room for a hard drive. It would have the room for the bigger battery to cover the added power demands of the hard drive. Etc. Would the market be happy with a bigger screen iPod Touch 256GB (built like this) at around iPod Touch pricing now?

I'm in the camp of still clinging to a 5th generation Classic for the big media storage. I like being able to immediately get to whatever media I want whenever and wherever I am when I want it (without paying a toll to AT&T or Verizon so that I can access it on a hard drive in the sky). Free wifi is not as everywhere (besides, every time I log into free wifi, I am very aware that it's not free bandwidth but bandwidth being paid for by someone else; at any time that someone else could decide to stop paying for it and it would become a subscription-based or pay-as-you-go hotspot (pay attention when you are logging into "free wifi"- even McDonalds "free wifi" is just one of a couple of options that should the "free" offer end, it immediately becomes a paid option at those same locations)). Like "unlimited plans" when 3G iDevices first roll out on new U.S. carriers, such great value bandwidth offers can end without notice. What is free today could be switched to paid tomorrow.

All that said, a merged iPod might be interesting: all the niceties of iPod Touch with the much bigger storage of the Classic... at or around the current pricing of the Touch. The Classic crowd waiting for a bigger (storage) Touch might finally see what many of them want. The existing Touch crowd might see a massive increase as storage as a meaty enough reason to want to upgrade again. Apple loves to sell lots of hardware.

 

[nylonsteel]

re original article

keep the shuffle

the ipod shuffle is the best music player for the gym

arm band + bose ear buds + shuffle + Joe Satriani tunes

"Flying in a Blue Dream..." Live - Time Machine - 1993

 

[pchipchip]

I can see them getting rid of the iPod shuffle because now the nano is pretty small and there is pretty much no use for the shuffle, but the classic is different because it can hold a lot more music than the nano.

 

[darkplanets]

Another person eschewing random content for the sake of notoriety and temporary value.

It's not over until it's over, especially with a company as random as Apple.

 

[starvingartist8]

Oletros.. what did you do..

 

[blackhand1001]

T
But, Apple is about money, and while iPods do make a ton of money in our eyes, the percentages are not enough for Apple shareholders.

Problem is the classic has probably the highest margins of all the ipod types other than maybe the new nano. Its just a basic cpu and a old fashioned hdd which is much cheaper than flash based memory. They charge so much cause consumers only see numbers like amount of storage not knowing that they are paying for a cheap hdd instead of flash memory. They need to bump the storage on it up and reduce the price, then it will sell again. Zune, creatives, and sandisk all have better products in this line at the moment.

 

[captain kaos]

Not sure how the FLAC lovers will take to this news as there isn't anything else to hold their big itunes libraries!

 

[Popeye206]

I don't want to have to buy a Zune...

LOL! You took the words right out of my mouth!

 

[complexcommunic]

I love my ipod classic it's been so good for so many years. But this move was a long time coming... oh well.

 

[Sol]

Given its massive storage advantage over the other iPods, the Classic should become the high-end, no compromise audiophile-grade iPod for people who want to store uncompressed and Apple Lossless libraries in it.

 

[devilbond]

Discontinuing the iPod Classic will discontinue one of the best features the iPod ever had: Album Shuffle.

I still can't understand why that feature was dropped from every other device.

 

[komodrone]

why sooner? axe = discounts.

 

[mattwolfmatt]

Nothing is better than the Shuffle when it comes to workout music. I've tried them all - touch screens are worthless when you're sweaty and you don't want to look at the device.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I think Apple might offer a 128 GB iPod touch if they can get decent pricing on flash memory. After all, 256 kbps variable bit rate (VBR) AAC encoding is more than good enough for headphone and car stereo use, and at this level of compression you can put quite a lot of music on a 128 GB device.

 

[AppleHater]

This implies that they have a solution to cover >64gb storage demand. Even 64gb touch, you barely have 40gb left for music which is not enough for many of us.

 

[feflower]

keep the shuffle please. It is simple and elegant. At that price point it makes a nice gift for your under $100 acquaintances.

 

[iEvolution]

why sooner? axe = discounts.

Not with Apple products, they generally go up, ESPECIALLY when the device offers something the current devices can't offer, in this case it would be capacity.

People will sell them in the $350 range after a few months of it being dropped and there are no more available from apple or stores.

Hell the iPod Shuffle 3rd generation is going for $90-$100 for the 4GB model and its considered the worst of the iPod line.

 

[mrsir2009]

Dunno about the shuffle, but the classic is horribly outdated...