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Apple Trying to get rid of Classic?

M

michael31986

macrumors 601
Original poster
Jul 11, 2008
4,590
704
i mean come on now. they could have made a 200gb model that was same size as the 160, but they decided to get 120gb and make it as thin as the 80gb.

also the 160gb still has better battery life than the 120gb no?

and i dont mind if mine is a little thicker cause i have more room that no one with a new ipod can get.

is this the first time apple decreases harddrive space?
 
I can almost bet that come next September (and the next round of iPod updates) there'll be no classic.
 
I am pretty certain they are moving away from it. I thought they would lose the smaller model and increase storage but that didn't happen. They did however cull the herd.
 
I love the idea that Apple isn't making these decisions based on sales, but rather they're doing it to mess with your head.

It couldn't possibly be that the 160 GB model was selling poorly, now could it?
 
Maybe it is selling poorly because it is becoming dated technology and as such Apple wants to move away from it?
 
They can't ditch the classic, but I dont think it's because of the clickwheel: I think it's because of the hard drive space.

If they slapped a hard drive in an ipod touch, the classic might as well be dead.
 
I see your point I guess but I do think they are trying to ditch mechanical drives. If they do that's sort of the end of the classic and if the replacement has a clickwheel once it changes it's storage over it is no longer really the classic.

Just to add an observation when Steve was working the nano click wheel it really seemed clumsy. I think i heard him even say "come on" under hsi breath. I am not going to go back to look to verify that but it did seem a bit clumsy.
 
Well their touchscreen technology is the future and so is mobile computing. Hard-Disks are simply not fast enough nor efficient enough for running such a fluid UI and rich+snappy media experience on what little cache these devices have. Unfortunately, flash is a fraction of the storage density.

In my opinion, Apple should develop a compromise which is similar to the design of our desktops and notebooks: Cache+flash memory(would act as RAM)+hard disk. Such a device would have the storage capacity between the touch and the classic because it needs to make sure that it doesn't eat too much battery power.

The only downside, that I can think of at the moment, to such a system is that a hard drive is a moving component which has a higher risk of failure due movement/knocking/vibrations etc...
 
I have an iPhone and a Classic. The iPhone is a decent iPod, but the touchscreen is really not all that and in a lot of ways it's a pain in the rear.
The Classic is a much better iPod, there is no question
(and yet there is a LOT of room for improvement there)
 
Seems with Apple it is all or nothing. I just cant see a hybrid. What is this doing in the iPhone forum anyway? Not that I care but some people were irate today about the iPhone getting like a ten second mention today when it is an iPod. I didn't recall the classic having a phone on it.
 
Steve said that most people like the thinner model. Also, most people do not have an iTunes music collection bigger than 120GB.
 
yep, apple will soon eliminate all the HD based iPods. probably within a year. The market just isn't there to support a completely seperate technology anymore, for just 40 GB.

Then in the coming years they'll ditch physical storage on your portable player completely and it will all come over the cloud.
 
Small White Car said:
I love the idea that Apple isn't making these decisions based on sales, but rather they're doing it to mess with your head.

It couldn't possibly be that the 160 GB model was selling poorly, now could it?
Click to expand...
It could be that it wasn't selling well enough to justify the extra cost of manufacturing and stocking the second classic model. It's much more efficient for apple to manufacture 200 of one model, than to manufacture 150 of one and 50 of another.

I doubt that Apple will drop the classic anytime in the next few years. There's a demand for high-capacity ipods, and flash will remain too expensive to have 80+ gb flash drives.
 
i was really looking forward to a good classic update today so i could replace my 5th gen 60gb ipod which is full.
i totally agree that the iphone is a fine ipod, but for operating in the car or other 'not looking' places, having physical controls is much more convenient. and i prefer my entire library on something in case i get the urge for a particular song.
is the old 160gb versions battery better than the new 120gb? if so i may just buy a referb'd one.
 
I guess our 160s may be going up in value.

I'm sure at some point they will release a 240GB model.
Hopefully after a rewrite of the Classic OS.
 
It depends if they bring the improvements to the nano to the classic. You'd think the two would be announced simultaneously, but maybe it's like MB/MB Pro updates. If not it'll be left behind and eventually dropped.
 
FJR said:
yep, apple will soon eliminate all the HD based iPods. probably within a year. The market just isn't there to support a completely seperate technology anymore, for just 40 GB.

Then in the coming years they'll ditch physical storage on your portable player completely and it will all come over the cloud.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The cloud will eventually supersede all storage technology. Things will come with, probably, a few GB for just in case sorts of things, but people will have something like a Time Capsule with however many TBs for storage, or more likely, server-side storage. If they did it right you could go anywhere in the world, log in, and have YOUR computer.

Of course, you'd now have to pay a monthly bill for using the computer but hey, we already pay for internet.
 
Nothing with the touchscreen...but with SSD and NAND flash becoming larger in memory and smaller in size and cheaper in price...it's just better to use that than hard drives...that is why Cover Flow looks horrid on the iPod Classic, taking too much time to load up artwork (course to most people Cover Flow is a gimmick...but yeah).
 
the classic as we know it isn't going anywhere anytime soon. in fact, once prices come down, i bet it'll maintain the same form factor but make the switch to solid state (and become even thinner, of course).

i think it's funny when people say "touch screen is better and will eventually replace the click wheel". the touch screen is better for interneting, but it's a pain to use when you're not looking, etc.

my guess is once prices settle a little, the touch's top capacity will be a notch below the classics.
 
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