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Is the iPod Classic Done? 10 Years of iPod
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Especially when iPods first hit the scene, price was a big issue for a lot of customers. Apple products have always been on the pricey side. So perhaps the popularity of the larger capacity iPods was impacted by the pricing structure, which impacted Apple's perception of the demand.
It's getting kindof absurd seeing that hard drives keep getting bigger and cheaper. Would an iPod Touch really be that much thicker if it had 128 GB? And just how thick would (dare I say it) a 500 GB iPod Touch be? For the way I would use the device, I wouldn't mind a little extra thickness and weight.
I suppose Apple needs to keep some features in their back pocket for future releases. What if the day comes they create the perfect iPod? What then? ; )
It's getting kindof absurd seeing that hard drives keep getting bigger and cheaper. Would an iPod Touch really be that much thicker if it had 128 GB? And just how thick would (dare I say it) a 500 GB iPod Touch be? For the way I would use the device, I wouldn't mind a little extra thickness and weight.
I suppose Apple needs to keep some features in their back pocket for future releases. What if the day comes they create the perfect iPod? What then? ; )
I see them thinking that the iPod line should definitely move to a 100% touch-screen interface. However, like many people have already said, sometimes you just want a music player. I love having my entire music collection in my bag at any time with the Classic. They should keep it until they can truly beef up the capacity for the the Touch.
Depends on usage patterns.
I've had two HDD iPods - a 5th gen and a 6th gen - crap out on me within months. This wasn't unexpected since I was using them for long trips on motorcycles and Land Cruisers on crapped out African roads.
I used the original iPhone sans case for the most part for well over two years in fairly harsh environments. A lot of dents and scratches. Broke the glass last year when it fell off of a table onto a concrete floor.
The glass just has to be protected from mishaps and this is fairly easy to do. OTOH, depending on your usage patterns, there's nothing that you can do to prevent your HDD from failing.
Well, yours is a point I've been thinking about for the past few weeks. Since I use my iPhone for a lot more than just music, only about a quarter to a third of the capacity is available for music. A HDD based iPod is convenient for a lot of reasons so when they announce that the game's over, I'll buy a last gen classic and do a HDD swap. In the fatboy 6th gen Classic, you can horn in a 320 GB.
some people just want an ipod for listening to music.
not every apple user in the world needs all that iOS stuff.
i'm really hoping for an ultimate classic model, but i'm being a bit hopeless.
meantime I just bought a used 4g ipod classic 20gb for 30 (40$), it's wonderful
The only usable iPod is the iPod Touch. The ClickWheel "interface" of the classic is a royal pain in the back when you have to navigate through thousands of titles. And even the interface of the iPod Touch could be much better if they dropped all those useless animations and transition effects that only achieve one thing: They slow me down. And that is especially dangerous when using the bloody thing while driving a car.
Very often, I envy the people who have a USB port in their car radio; they just plug in a USB stick without all those unnecessary fancy things and they are not locked into the "iTunes experience" or any other DRM prison.
64 GB is six times the size of my current mp3 library. But I only keep the stuff that I actually like to hear. I'm no longer collecting full albums just because I can. It doesn't make sense to keep unnecessary things around just because you have the storage capacity for it. It's a waste.
"The things you own end up owning you."
-- Tyler Durden in Fight Club
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If you use a classic for a long time, you get very used to the click wheel and find navigation easy.
My soon to be sister-in-law has had a classic since the third generation (currently uses a 5th gen and an iPhone). She has got so used to the click wheel, she can move around her library (which maxes out her 80 Gig drive) in seconds. It's amazing to watch!
I guess it is like some people do not like touchscreen phones and would prefer to have a fiddly little keyboard to type messages than a virtual keyboard.
My guess is that the classic will remain, but may get a touch interface, maybe even a virtual click wheel using a little bit of vibration to give some feedback.
There is a chance that the next iPod Touch will have a 128 Gig option, but it will be at a high price. I always think there is a need for a cost effective hard drive based iPod. Even looking at the Keynote where the iPod was announced, SJ compared the price per song and at the time, dividing the purchase price of devices by the number of tracks they held (a bit meaningless, but does prove a point), Flash was at $10 / track and Hard Drive was at $0.30 per track.
Doing those calculations of the various models of Touch and the Classic you get;
(Based on 256 Kbps AAC)
8GB Touch = $0.31 per track
32 GB Touch = $0.08 per track
64 GB Touch = $0.05 per track
Classic = $0.01 per track
So the classic is currently the king of affordable personal music storage, however flash memory prices have fallen faster than super compact hard drive prices so should Apple double the capacity and keep the same price points on the next refresh, you could see Touches at around $0.02 to $0.03, so not much in it!
My last point is that no matter how much storage a device has, there will always be people who will want more. I know people who have music libraries that fill a 2 TB external drive! They have however encoded their old CD's at 512 Kbps, so can use the option to re-encode to 128 Kbps when they Sync. The solution here could be cloud based storage, but you would need a constant connection to the internet which would firstly require every device has more than just WiFi. Probably need the Kindle 3G type of solution. Secondly, it is not always possible to be connected (i.e. on flights, underground metro systems, etc) and thirdly, you'd be draining your battery!
Phil
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The old posts are hilarious & full of negative comments about how the iPod will flop. The advice for Apple to get out of the "gadget" business are very funny.
The old posts are hilarious & full of negative comments about how the iPod will flop. The advice for Apple to get out of the "gadget" business are very funny.
Apple's non Mac consumer electronics are not boutique/luxury goods and haven't been for a long time. They're cheaper than competitor hardware with similar specs. Even Samsung CE, a member of Samsung Group which makes the most expensive components that go into Apple's consumer electronics, can't compete with Apple on price due to Apple's volume and pre-emptive supply chain lockup.
iPod Classics = HDD based storage. iPod Touches = solid state based storage.
You might not mind the extra thickness and weight of HDD based Touch but you'd definitely mind the slower speed. Flash based 500GB? You would definitely mind the price.
Well it's gotten so bad that the ipods now need an ipod app button! what happened!? i don't even like ios to begin with. and who are you to laugh at this? I'm not going back to threads from 4 years ago to satisfy your laughter thank you. leave the damn apps for the phones or the ipads. I can say im laughing at all the people talking about how "horrible" the click wheel is to use but i don't, i could laugh at all the ppl with the out with the old and in with the new personality but i don't. Capacity is priority and i LOVE the click wheel alright? sorry for quoting you directly but it was me who said that they should leave the gadget business but you seem to have forgotten i meant this for the iPod lineup. i mean look at what the nano has become. a little square. i hate it. it looks like it could be an iWatch.
Interesting how things change, the forum following the iPhone launch couldn't have been any more different;
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/267804/
Amazing how things change over time, from Apple should do gadgets and just focus on computers, to this in less than six years!
It's easy to navigate with the click wheel if your songs are properly tagged. I'd rather use it than the iOS iPod app.
Who cares old man, i'm not looking for threads from 6 years ago. this is the evolution of tech. you dont need to keep specifying that things have been talked about in the past. start a recollections thread or something. you;re the what? fifth whos said that? It's annoying. The past is history.
Just had to check it: iPod was released Oct 23rd 2001 for $399. Assuming 8.25% sales tax that would be $431.92. That bought 23.8 AAPL shares at the closing prices of $18.14. There was a split, so you would have 47.6 shares worth $330.67 at close on March 18th, for a total of $15,740.
I conclude that all those people buying iPods had not the slightest clue how the Apple share price would develop
The Classic is in the "Maturity" stage of it's life cycle.
Late 2009 is a year and a half ago, it is not that serious for something that quite frankly doesn't need to be updated.
Many people like having a large music collection with them. It is not necessarily that they "need" all those songs with them, it's just easier than having to pick and choose which ones they think they might want to listen to.
Once you get going (i.e. are playing music) the Classic is a much safer music accessory while driving than an iPod Touch. I like the way the iPhone/iPod Touch organize the music better however.
I agree with others that I don't think they should discontinue the classic until the iPod touch catches up capacity wise.
Late 2009 is a year and a half ago, it is not that serious for something that quite frankly doesn't need to be updated.
Many people like having a large music collection with them. It is not necessarily that they "need" all those songs with them, it's just easier than having to pick and choose which ones they think they might want to listen to.
Once you get going (i.e. are playing music) the Classic is a much safer music accessory while driving than an iPod Touch. I like the way the iPhone/iPod Touch organize the music better however.
I agree with others that I don't think they should discontinue the classic until the iPod touch catches up capacity wise.
Ive never heard of a HDD failure on a classic, yet I have seen lots (i mean like upwards of 20) friends who have cracked the screens on their iDevices.
When solid-state drives come way, way down in price, and can be manufactured in a scaled-down dimension, you might very well see a 128 gig iPod Classic. But as long as the Classic uses a regular hard drive, I don't see any effort on Apple's part to revamp it or issue a larger capacity.
Why? it's an ipod first of all, and 128 is a step back from 160. who cares SSD or not? its an ipod not a computer.
The thing has no need to be updated so why bother? what can they possibly improve in it besides a crappy speaker that i'll hate anyway? and notice i say improve meaning NO TOUCH OPTIONS!
That would be a great idea to have one final classic model before the EOL and with a much larger HDD.
no, no. i can see how having an music player that doubles as a portable alarm clock and something to play tetris on in the doctor's office would be terrible. also, if tapping an orange square is really too much for you, there's always the option of leaving the ipod app open all the time.
at the risk of sparking another tirade, you kind of sound just as short-sighted as you were a decade ago. i mean, you can't really make an imperial argument that apple's shift to touch-screen ipods was a bad idea, because they sell like guinness on st. patrick's day. i truly am sorry that the "evolution of tech" has left you behind though, that must be terrible for you.
Old timer here, I still have a first gen iPod. The kind with a mechanical jog wheel...
What you're all forgetting is that, before the iPod, MP3 players were either the size of a Diskman (remember those), or only held 16 songs. The iPod was entering a market that didn't exist, and it was also the first iProduct Apple Computer Inc released. Nobody expected it, nobody cared about it.
You still see the same attitude on these boards, when someone says "I don't care about the iPad 2, I just want my Core i7 MBP!" There's no difference, except now we've seen that iProducts do sell, and don't laugh them off so easily...
You can't tell me you wouldn't laugh and make the same sort of comments if Apple released a clothing line.
if the clothesline held 5000 pieces of clothes, put them up for me, dried them quickly, and then folded them in baskets? I wouldn't laugh.
Your point about hindsight is well taken but some of us didn't pay attention to the nay sayers then, and still don't. I bought gen 1 iPod as well, and loved it. And the point those old comments make clear, as more than one person pointed out, people will always naysay the new... and still do today. Except today they go to extremes to find flaws as well and insist 'fail'
Bah
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Are you high?
Its Apple's best selling iPod and you suggest it gets discontinued......You must be a retard.
I think the Classic will be discountinued. Apple is moving the music and video experience to the cloud to allow your collection to be shared between iTV, iPad, and iPhone devices. The acquisition of the music upload service lula has to be nearing some level of integration with iTunes and Mobile Me.
I bet the only thing keeping this strategy from being fully executed are legal agreements between the content providers and Apple. Something tells me this could be a long fight as it seems that content providers are making inroads in iTune competitors like eMusic. Prices are increasing at eMusic and becoming more 'fixed' across record labels with a larger share of the value-add shifting back to the labels. It's almost as if they've finally found a business model that brings them back to the hay-days of the vinyl record era.
For me to be a consumer in this space I would need an ability to upload my current collection to the cloud. Most of what I buy isn't available on iTunes and a large percentage is either out of print or has not been made available digitally.
I'm afraid I'll always have a 4 iPod Classic strategy to hold my collection. That will be my strategy until the batteries no longer hold a charge.
I bet the only thing keeping this strategy from being fully executed are legal agreements between the content providers and Apple. Something tells me this could be a long fight as it seems that content providers are making inroads in iTune competitors like eMusic. Prices are increasing at eMusic and becoming more 'fixed' across record labels with a larger share of the value-add shifting back to the labels. It's almost as if they've finally found a business model that brings them back to the hay-days of the vinyl record era.
For me to be a consumer in this space I would need an ability to upload my current collection to the cloud. Most of what I buy isn't available on iTunes and a large percentage is either out of print or has not been made available digitally.
I'm afraid I'll always have a 4 iPod Classic strategy to hold my collection. That will be my strategy until the batteries no longer hold a charge.