well in my case, I like to feel like I have nothing on when working out and a 5.5 Gen iPod would be like having a brick attached to my arm/hip - hence the shuffle.
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iPod Classic's Future in Doubt Due to Shrinking Market for 1.8" Hard Drives?
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well in my case, I like to feel like I have nothing on when working out and a 5.5 Gen iPod would be like having a brick attached to my arm/hip - hence the shuffle.
Without a doubt the Classic's time is near to the end. It is sad because Apple is now selling al their itunes music at double the size it used to be. I for one have loads and loads of music. 169GB worth. When they went backwards to 120 and I had run out of drive space I was really disappointed. I spoke to an employee at one of the Apple retail stores and he said there was not a lot of demand for the 160GB. I had to look outside the system. I went to Rapid Repair and got a 240GB drive for a 5.5G ipod. I loved the software on my classic but the upgrade HD only works in the 5.5G iPod. Also, The sound quality is far superior with the 5.5. Check out ALO Audio and Red Wine Audio as well as Rapid Repair as they are offering solutions to audio quality and the storage of the "classic" style iPod. I would love to see Apple up the drive size and keep the classic but for some reason they are going with compactness over the storage size. I know I am not alone but I do not think there is enough people to raise concern to increase HD space maybe in the future when flash memory catches up? That is my hope.
After a week with my "new" 240GB Gen 5.5 iPod, I have to say, it's the ultimate iPod. For those of us with large lossless music collections and a desire for the highest-fidelity in a portable audio experience, a monster 5.5G is the answer. What a shame you can't get it from Apple.
I'm totally with you on this. My music (lossy) library is over 200 GB's, full albums only. I can't stand having just a couple of songs around to listen to, I need to be able to carry my entire library (or as much of it as possible) with me at all times. Not being able to listen to something when I'm away from home can drive me crazy. Hard to explain, really, it's like a cringe...
2 months after the 160GB was axed, I dropped mine and its hdd broke. Luckily there was still one left in my town or I'd have been really pissed off. Now I'm seriously considering getting the 240GB Toshiba drive...
I would not feel happy going for long runs and hikes (where I climb and jump down places a lot) with a HDD in my pocket. The weight would be too much as well and swing around in loose pockets.
But my Shuffle? I think I have heavier clips on my bag.
And to the poster above I only have about 35gb worth of music, but that's already pushing everything except the overpriced 32gb Touch out of the question (and even then I couldn't fit on just my music, which is all compressed BTW).
Infact as far as bang for buck goes a 120gb iPod Classic costs just £10 more than a paltry 8gb Touch, and £108 less than a 32gb Touch.
I don't know all the particulars about SSD vs. Flash. I understand what you are saying about packing in more cheaper flash chips in the Classic to replace the HD. But at some point the difference between a Nano and a flash-based Classic disappear. The only thing really left for the Classic is the bigger screen (yet smaller than a Touch.) Also- I'm just guessing, but I think a 128GB flash-based Classic would be cost-prohibitive for this year.
I think it's more likely they just add a higher-capacity iPod Nano model to make up for dropping the Classic (whenever that happens.) Let's say this year they go to 16 and 32GB, next year they could go 16/32/64GB for the Nano when the Classic is dropped. Something along those lines...
I've been trying to make it work with Simplify Media to my iPhone, streaming all my music over the interwebs. However, there is of course lag, preload delay, slowness updating the library info, network quality issues, etc. I still have a 160GB classic but I've stopped updating it. But Simplify isn't getting the job done perfectly. I would go for a 240gb classic. My main collection is over 300GB and it was a pain maintaining a shadow copy of it in lower quality for the iPod classic.
Yeah and when the first iPod came out people asked who seriously needs 5GB on them at all times. A CD is fine for most people.
Who needs to carry that much capacity? ME. I want all my music with me at all times. And I want high quality (lossless preferably).
Just because YOU don't see the need doesn't mean there isn't one.
Right now my answer is streaming using SimplifyMedia to the iPhone, but I'd rather have it all on local storage to be honest.
yeah i feel ya. i just got my mom an iPod classic last night. man. they are expensive, and man - they are big!
Then you don't know me.
Not only have I filled it up, I have to delete old stuff to put anything new on it.
And I had to downsample all my music to 160kbps to fit it. My collection is mostly lossless with a little high bitrate MP3.
And I don't even have any video or photos on it.
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I lol'ed at that!
Although I don't own a Classic, nor need one I think it should stick around. I know there are people who have massive music libraries and need to carry all their music around.
In general terms:
- Think of SSD as being a regular HD, but with no moving parts.
- Think of Flash memory as something similar to the RAM memory that you add to your computer.
The Nano comes in 8 and 16GB models and is much smaller than the Classic.
I haven't ripped apart the current classic. However, I would bet that there is enough room in the current classic model to put in 8 x 16GB Flash memory chips which would provide a 128GB model.
Using 4 x 32GB Flash memory chips would be cost prohibitive today.
While I don't have the specifics on the chips that Apple is using, I would venture to say that the 2 x 16GB is about 30-40% cheaper than 1 x 32GB.
If the price is right, I could see Apple using 8 x 16GB or 16 x 8GB Flash memory chips to create a Flash based Classic iPod.
Cool.
Electric motors are older and predate the dominance of the gasoline powered engine. Electric cars flourished in Europe in the late 1800s. But gasoline was a cheap, abundant, and efficient source of energy and gas powered engines dominated from 1920 on.
Here's Edison with an electric car circa 1913.
Are electric motors still hip now?
And oh, by the way, one can argue solid state memory is older technology than magnetic storage on a hard disk. Ferrite-core memory is the most direct ancestor of today's solid-state storage and was around since the 1940s. IBM didn't invent the hard disk until 1956.
I am not sure about the marketing thing. But:
-My iphone 16 gb has about 12 Gb of music.
-My Ipod classic 160 Gb is full.
-My total music collection is about 450 Gb.
I have my iphone always with my, not my ipod. I really miss it on those days ;-) I want to browse all my m,usic and to be able to choose. The Iphone collection feels even more crippled then my ipod collection (compared to my itunes).
If there would be an ipod touch/iphone with, say, 500 Gb of space or more, I would buy it immediatly, even at 1000 dollar price tag. ;D
1. Replace the HHD with an SSD
2. Make it iPod Touch thin and water resistant
3. Keep the screen and click wheel
2. Make it iPod Touch thin and water resistant
3. Keep the screen and click wheel
So you'd prefer to pay $1000 for an SSD iPod Classic instead?
I still have my original 10 GB Firewire iPod and it's going strong. It's been dropped, kicked, beaten to hell and still works great.Porsche did an electric car in the 1890's. It's certainly nothing new. These days diesel is the winner. Diesel cars account for more than 60% of new car sales in europe. Any why shouldn't they? They're more durable, longer lasting, get much better MPG's, and the newest ones are cleaner than gasoline cars! The Top 10 Green cars list in the UK has diesels in 8 of the 10 positions.
Plus the inventor, Mr. Rudolph Diesel ran his demonstration motors (circa 1900) off of peanut oil instead of diesel fuel. The original "alternative energy" pioneer!
But back to the original question, spinning hard drives are not "old technology" any more than the gasoline engine in the 2010 Ferrari F450. It's an old "concept". But so what. It's evolved faster and further than anyone could have imagined, and makes for a damn good product today.
This is certainly a plausible scenario. I guess my feeling is just that the 2 products would start to overlap, to the point where Apple might just drop the Classic rather than have 2 different sized flash-players with screens.
That is, unless there was a substantial cost savings in the Classic model such that they could provide substantially more storage space at only a moderate price premium over the Nano.
OTOH, I could sorta see the line- Nano 16GB and 32GB, then Classic 64GB and 128GB. To enable the higher capacity models without overpricing them might require the different configuration of flash chips. I don't know enough about flash memory pricing to guess where Apple could do price points for these different models.
That is, unless there was a substantial cost savings in the Classic model such that they could provide substantially more storage space at only a moderate price premium over the Nano.
OTOH, I could sorta see the line- Nano 16GB and 32GB, then Classic 64GB and 128GB. To enable the higher capacity models without overpricing them might require the different configuration of flash chips. I don't know enough about flash memory pricing to guess where Apple could do price points for these different models.
while I would hate to see the classic phased out just because I got my start with a couple click-wheel iPods (my first was a green 2G mini, second was a 5G video), I've already gotten used to the iPod touch and unibody MacBook Pros being the face of Apple's product line, and at this point it wouldn't bother me to see them revert to an all flash/all multi-touch iPod line... granted I might have to wait awhile before Apple release a flash-based player with enough capacity for my music/video library, but I don't think waiting another year will kill me.
on a side note:
by now you've probably imported all your music, but in case you haven't (or for future reference), you may want to consider creating a lossless archive of your music and encoding it to a lower-bitrate lossy format for your portable library- then when an iPod with high enough capacity for your VBR (I'm assuming you mean V2 LAME mp3) files is released, you'd simply have to run a batch encode from your lossless archive, and you'd be set.
for the moment, I'm sticking to -q 120 QuickTime AAC until a 64/128GB iPod touch is released, at which point I'll probably make the jump to -q 127 (or whatever is the highest-quality QuickTime AAC setting by then)... just a thought.
on a side note:
by now you've probably imported all your music, but in case you haven't (or for future reference), you may want to consider creating a lossless archive of your music and encoding it to a lower-bitrate lossy format for your portable library- then when an iPod with high enough capacity for your VBR (I'm assuming you mean V2 LAME mp3) files is released, you'd simply have to run a batch encode from your lossless archive, and you'd be set.
for the moment, I'm sticking to -q 120 QuickTime AAC until a 64/128GB iPod touch is released, at which point I'll probably make the jump to -q 127 (or whatever is the highest-quality QuickTime AAC setting by then)... just a thought.
Not everyone one has hundred's of gigs of music, and if Apple sees a reason to drop the classic, they will.
Judging from your sig you probably aren't the average consumer. See above.
Judging from your sig you probably aren't the average consumer. See above.
Umm... 120GB of music? I think they should introduce a 1TB iPod. I have something in the region of 800Gb of music!!
A battery that could handle a week playback could be handy too!