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iPod Classic Supplies Tightening Ahead of Possible Update or Discontinuation

The iPod Classic sells really really poorly. Not so badly that Apple would need to discontinue it, but badly enough that no one looking at their financials would notice if they did discontinue it.

It's a niche item. The only reason anyone would really need that much capacity is because they simply must have their entire music collection with them at all times, so they can listen to any song they own (or ripped) at random. For anyone else, all you need to do is set up a smart playlist in iTunes, and let it refresh the music on your iPod with not-recently-played tracks every time you recharge it.
 
Savage said:
I really hope they don't discontinue the iPod classic. The point of an iPod, at least I thought, is to listen to music. And in my opinion, the best way to do this is with an iPhone/iPod classic combo or only one of the two. What they should get rid of, I always thought, is the stupid iPod touch. It'd make their lineup look a lot neater, too.
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The iPod Touch outsells the iPod Classic by a huge margin. I don't think it's the Touch that's stupid.
 
JAQ said:
It's a niche item. The only reason anyone would really need that much capacity is because they simply must have their entire music collection with them at all times, so they can listen to any song they own (or ripped) at random. For anyone else, all you need to do is set up a smart playlist in iTunes, and let it refresh the music on your iPod with not-recently-played tracks every time you recharge it.
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What's wrong with a niche item? Does everything we own have to do a millions things kinda good?

But hey- I'm the kind of guy who buys a camera to use as a camera. Is that niche? I buy a book to read a book. Etc.

And- you are polarizing music listeners. Either you "simply Must have all your music" or you just use smart playlists.

I have a classic that doesn't begin to hold all of my music. I also use smart playlist constantly. I just can't use something that is 16gigs. or pay 400 for 64gigs.
 
I'll echo the sentiments of many on here who believe the iPod Classic is a superior device for music playback. For my needs, its interface is simply better than the iPod.app found on iOS devices.

For example, say I want to play a Jazz album, but I'm not sure which one just yet. With my iPod 5G, I select the 'Jazz' and am presented with a list of all the artists. If I click an artist, I can then select a specific album, then song, or select all the albums. This takes maybe[/] 15 seconds if I'm indecisive. With iOS however, selecting the Jazz genre immediately puts me into a complete list of over 2000 Jazz songs listed alphabetically. This is useless to me, and as such will never use my iPad or iPhone for storage and music playback. I spent way too much time organizing my music to have to deal with that nonsense.

This is before even mentioning that my library has almost 800 albums, with all but a very select few in ALAC. Over 200GB of music and counting, which is why I bought a 240GB HDD from Rapid Repair last year to put in my 80GB iPod 5G.
 
JAQ said:
The iPod Classic sells really really poorly. Not so badly that Apple would need to discontinue it, but badly enough that no one looking at their financials would notice if they did discontinue it.

It's a niche item. The only reason anyone would really need that much capacity is because they simply must have their entire music collection with them at all times, so they can listen to any song they own (or ripped) at random. For anyone else, all you need to do is set up a smart playlist in iTunes, and let it refresh the music on your iPod with not-recently-played tracks every time you recharge it.
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Actually, capacity is not the only reason I still use my iPod Classic daily even though I love my iPhone 4. I wrote an earlier post in this thread with more detail, but it comes down to basically there are ways I can use the Classic for video that are impossible on iOS multi-touch devices -- the Classic can be locked from unintentional UI interaction while video is still displaying, whereas iOS devices cannot.
 
Unless they can expand the iPhone and iPod touch memory to a huge capacity, it seems like they would need to keep the classic. Anyone with a huge music collection needs something with some significant capacity like the classic to cart their music around. If music goes to the cloud however, it seems like their may not be a reason for it anymore.
 
FYI, Apple store is back to 24 hour shipping and the only one back ordered at best buy is the silver model.

I'd take this article with a grain of salt. If it really were to be refreshed I would think the BLACK one would get constrained first simply because it is the higher selling model of the two colors. [at least according to regular looks on amazon]

Its interesting to see people say that the Classic isn't selling well because at amazon the classic is almost always ahead of the nano and shuffle.
 
OmegaRed1723 said:
For example, say I want to play a Jazz album, but I'm not sure which one just yet. With my iPod 5G, I select the 'Jazz' and am presented with a list of all the artists. If I click an artist, I can then select a specific album, then song, or select all the albums. This takes maybe[/] 15 seconds if I'm indecisive. With iOS however, selecting the Jazz genre immediately puts me into a complete list of over 2000 Jazz songs listed alphabetically. This is useless to me, and as such will never use my iPad or iPhone for storage and music playback. I spent way too much time organizing my music to have to deal with that nonsense.
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I'm not sure about earlier versions of iOS, but with 4.2.1 selecting genre will give a list of artists, and not a list of individual tracks.
 
A solution for those of us with iTunes collections too large even for the 220gb HDD's

Apple can come out with a way to link multiple iPods together, probably through the doc connector, with one of the iPods being the master. Example: iPod touch is the master, with 2 iPod classics as slaves... Sound comes from iPod touch, and control/display all work
 
My dream iPod, and one I could actually imagine happening, is one that would look identical to the current classic, but where the small screen is also a touch screen that could run iOS apps, or at least Nano-like interface on top of the click wheel. It's highly unlikely because apple tends to go for one interface device over two. But I will still re-itterate that for navigating a large library, the click wheel is far more tactile than the touch screen. It's like trying to replace the scroll-wheel on a mouse, with a touch trackpad. It's been done, and people hate it. Apple did it best with the bi-directional mighty mouse ball. And they did it best with the scroll wheel on iPods.

I dunno, I could probably get used to using a touch system though. As long as I have enough storage to load my entire music library, "sync it and forget it", I'll be happy.
 
I can't believe all the people with "Who in their right minds would want an ipod classic?" posts.

Are you serious? I was an Apple virgin till about two weeks ago when I couldn't wait anymore and bit the bullet and bought a Classic. I was waiting for Apple to announce a bigger ipod (or anyone else for that matter).

The truth? No one has a player that is so compact, with so much storage and such reliability.

If you love music, and listen to a lot of it, this is a no brainer. I was hoping for something like 320GB iPod or something, because frankly 160GB is too little for my purpose. My requirements:

- Having all my music in the palm of my hands. Why can't I do with 64GB like the rest of the world? Because I listen to bands ranging from Fleetwood Mac to Anal C unt. And if I don't have them somewhere accessible (as opposed to having them archived on some hard drive somewhere), I have to pass on listening to them or rely on finding them on youtube/grooveshark.

- The simple joy of maintaining a collection of all your music in a repository which you can just plug into any audio jack anywhere you go. So it doesn't matter if you're at a metal party or a get together with your parents, you always have your collection around.

- Having all your music in the car.

- Really great battery life compared to most personal media players.

I will be really disappointed if Apple decides to discontinue this. OTOH if they announce a bigger one, I'm getting that.

The classic is for music lovers.:apple:
 
Same here

TigerWoodsIV said:
Whatever they're doing, they better have an iPod with a huge capacity. I don't feel like spending 400 on an iPod touch 128 GB if that happens by the time I need another iPod. Apple has to keep something that can support people who love music enough to have over 100GB.
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Yah, I have the 6th generation iPod classic, silver, 120GB. I will definitely want ONLY an iPod that has at least the same capacity. I do not want an iPod touch. I don't want the next one to be touch screen either.

The Classic iPod is definitely for people who COLLECT music. I like that I can have allllll my music in the palm of my hand. I would NEVER want to limit my capacity and that is why I would NEVER want an iPod touch.
 
azcoyote said:
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...media_player_in_2010_unlikely_to_go_away.html

Apparently there are many music lovers like myself who prefer higher storage capacity and click-wheel. The iPod Classic was the 5th best selling music player last year. As long as it continues to sell, Apple would be crazy to discontinue it.
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Considering its going on 4 years since the Classic actually had a real update outside of capacity, its pretty amazing to see it sell as well as it has.
 
For all the people stating that they don't understand why someone would need an iPod classic to store ALLLL of their music on, here is why I like the iPod classic: Having all of my music on one device (13,000+ songs) means that no matter where I go or who I am with, I will always have any type of music for any mood that I am in or any location. If I'm with a group of friends, I can turn on some hip hop, if I'm with my parents, I can turn on some 80's or alternative. If I'm hanging out with my punk friends, I can turn on the metal genre, if I'm studying, I can turn on some classical, if I'm setting up a candle lit dinner at my place, I can turn on some smooth jazz or lounge music, and so forth... So even if 100GB of music is too much to listen to all at once, I have a huge selection to choose from depending on my mood and who I'm with. Only a small portion of my music was purchased from iTunes, the rest are from cd's that I've imported, music friend's have given me, some from amazon mp3, some from russian mp3, etc.

I don't have time to make stupid playlists. Playlists are for people who don't know how to DJ.

Anyway, they need to update the classic iPod to something over 200GB. 320GB would be ideal though. I would upgrade it then. I have the 120gb iPod classic, 6th gen, in silver, and it is almost to capacity. I definitely need more storage.

Also, I have organized my music collection to the very T. I have more than 13,000 songs. 40GB alone is just classical. But I have made sub genres for each period of classical so I can more easily choose which type of classical to listen to. The sub categories are 'classical-baroque' 'classical-classical period' 'classical-contemporary' 'classical-romantic period'. On an iPod classic, I can choose which genre to look through, and then I can see each album for each artists, and the amount of albums.

I also have created genres outside of what most people would consider. For example, I have a lot of meditative music, so I have created a "meditative" genre, and also a genre for "brainwave" music.

I like the SUPER anal organization that the iPod classic offers. I'm quite anal on how my music is organized.
 
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If the classic goes away, I will be very, very sad.

I for one like keeping a large subset of my music library on my ipod (5th gen video). It goes to work with me and plays most of the day, and it accompanies me on road trips. The large storage capacity is critical.

How timely is this: Just yesterday, I dropped my big, clunky 5th gen ipod on the floor, and the top popped off!! :eek: I figured that was the end, for sure. But, I popped it right back on, and it's as good as new.

To the person who said you don't work out with yours b/c of the HD: Until I broke down and got an updated nano this past fall, I used my 5th gen to workout to for years and never had a problem. It's durable! (and going on 5 years...)

And...

The click wheel can't go!!!!!
 
The Classic is so dam sexy too.
My music collection in the palm of my hand. It's amazing.

I would not change anything about the form factor or design. Just bigger HDD and a bit more snappy. Maybe some more user menu customization and I do like some aspects of the ipod app. I like going from "now playing" then to flip to song list, and I would like full album art while playing.
 
I agree with all of the statements about having all of your music with you.

Also, both classics are shipping within 24 hours now on Apple's website.
 
iEvolution said:
Considering its going on 4 years since the Classic actually had a real update outside of capacity, its pretty amazing to see it sell as well as it has.
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Why change what works? The basic design of the iPod classic is the same as it has been since the 4th gen iPod, which I believe was released in 2004. The MacBook Pro had the same basic design as the PowerBook, a design I believe lasted 8 years.

Apple knows how to design, and when they get something that works well they stick with it until they can truly top it.
 
kuebby said:
Why change what works? The basic design of the iPod classic is the same as it has been since the 4th gen iPod, which I believe was released in 2004. The MacBook Pro had the same basic design as the PowerBook, a design I believe lasted 8 years.

Apple knows how to design, and when they get something that works well they stick with it until they can truly top it.
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It was a observation not an attack. Its my favorite iPod and it still has the best interface for music IMHO.
 
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