11 ms·

Goodbye iPod, and Thanks for All the Tunes

robert_foss 9y ago
Isn't it a bit late for this eulogy?
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Yes, article is from July when Apple discontinued the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle. Wired (I think) sometimes pulls out old stories and puts them on their homepage along with the news, poster might not realized. Side note, I still have one of those iPod Shuffles around somewhere. Great little device to clip on your running shorts, but it had the weirdest cable. They mapped 4 USB pins onto a TRRS connector and synced it through the headphone jack.
  - tomelders 9y ago
    I still think the original iPod shuffle that doubled as a USB key was the most useful piece of tech I've ever owned for under £500.
    - bsharitt 9y ago
      A case where the knock offs were sometimes better than the original in my opinion. Where the iPod you still had to use iTunes to get music on to the device, but could otherwise use it as a USB drive(can't remember if you had to specifically allocate space for that or if all free space was available), but on the cheap Chinese knockoffs, you just had the file system on the USB stick where you could dump files and a mp3 files alike and it would shuffle what ever mp3 files it found on there. The iTunes reliance was annoying in general, but it seemed even more out of placed with the "USB stick" shuffle.
      - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
        You were able to install Rockbox (an aftermarket ROM for Apple, Sansa, and a few other mp3 players). Was quite good, had better codec support (played OGG files!) and you could write apps [1] for it. [1]. Don't know if you could call them apps, as they needed to be rebuilt with the OS (don't remember if they were pluggable modules or you literally had to rebuild the OS if you wanted to write an App, but it came out of the box with a few apps and games, and you could write your own in C. Their API was weaker than Android's, but to me more enjoyable.)
      - FabHK 9y ago
        > The iTunes reliance was annoying in general Many people think that way, but I really much prefer to organise my music in iTunes than in the file system. (Even with iTunes, you can always go down to the file system if you want to, but try making a smart playlist in the file system alone...) (Granted though that iTunes has become way too crowded with functionality now.)
        khedoros1 9y ago
        > Many people think that way, but I really much prefer to organise my music in iTunes than in the file system. iTunes + filesystem aren't the only two options. At the time, I usually had my library set up in Winamp and XMMS, and iTunes was annoyingly opinionated about what the structure of the library should be. I would've liked the option to use something besides iTunes.
    - wlesieutre 9y ago
      And it was the size of a stick of gum! *Do not eat iPod Shuffle
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    > Wired (I think) sometimes pulls out old stories and puts them on their homepage Ugh CNN does this too (along with changing the "updated time" and healines) to look like they have more content than they actually do. No doubt it's smart but really annoying when you realize you've clicked an article thats really old.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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- jccalhoun 9y ago
  yes. Needs a (2017) tage
jmduke 9y ago
For all its flaws, I can't remember a more intimate relationship I had with a technology product than the one I had with my first iPod.
- GeekyBear 9y ago
  The Tivo was as big a user friendly change in how you consumed media.
stinkytaco 9y ago
The iPod is the closest thing to an electronic device I wouldn't change that I've ever owned [1]. It wasn't perfect, but it almost was for me. I bought an extra iPod classic and shuffle when they were discontinued. [1]: I'll qualify that I mean something with a screen and a user interface, because I once had a toaster oven that was pretty great
ajaimk 9y ago
The Apple Watch is the new iPod Nano (with additional functionality)
- rahoulb 9y ago
  I love my Apple Watch but I don't get the same sense of wonder and amazement that I did from my 3rd generation iPod (wedding present). And neither does anyone that I show it to (people were blown away when I scrolled through the songs I had on that iPod).
- mstade 9y ago
  With a very important caveat: it takes FOREVER to sync not-very-many songs with the watch. This isn't a problem if you're bringing your phone as well, but if you're going for run and don't want to or can't bring your phone, you either have to plan ahead or stick with the same ol' songs every single time you're out and about. To be fair, I tend to stick with the same songs anyway, it makes it easy for me to always know how I'm doing with regards to my run, without having to look at the watch or wait for a mile / km update to come along, since I know when in the playlist I should be when reaching certain parts of my track. (Provided I run the same track, that is, but usually I do.)
  - twoodfin 9y ago
    Streaming on the LTE Series 3 solves this problem. Haven’t checked but assume it works with iTunes Match for whatever obscurities you have.
    - mstade 9y ago
      Unfortunately, LTE for Series 3 isn't available everywhere and specifically it's not available in my country. From what I hear, it probably won't happen anytime soon either, if ever. :o(
  - WWLink 9y ago
    Having a series 0 apple watch myself, part of the reason I stopped using it was how big a pain in the butt it is when you need to do anything with it. X_X Especially if you do a major enough update on your phone that the watch needs to be re-paired.
niftich 9y ago
A lucky set of circumstances led to the iPod dominating the digital audio player market: bold marketing, a smaller HDD form factor, high-speed FireWire connection, and a great integration story on Macs. The Windows world at the time was a big mess of nonstandard cabling, messy drivers, sketchy quasi-shareware applications vying for presence on your desktop, while the Apple world was plug-and-play over a high-speed bus that came standard, and the music management experience was top-notch. And while there was some good hardware coming out of Korea to give the iPod a run for its money, the integrated Apple experience was without match. For Windows, Apple bundled MusicMatch Jukebox at first, but then made iTunes available on Windows, which became their foothold that would later set up the iPhone for success. By the time Microsoft caught up with WinXP and Windows Media Player, Apple had already stolen the higher end of the market, leaving WMP largely in the domain of cheap flash-based USB sticks that could only fit a subset of your songs. Then everyone pivoted to a DRM-laden storefront, making switching costs high. A later effort to refocus their first-party efforts with Zune resulted in an incompatible DRM ecosystem, and fizzled on the market. The iPod, in many ways, foreshadowed the Apple tactic that would become famous from the later iPhone: take the state-of-the-art in a particular market, pare it down a bit, endow it with tasteful industrial design, make sure it has a strong, ideally "frustration-free" integrated environment to take part in, give it an upmarket but justifiable price, and market the heck out of it with aspirational brand advertising.
- Eridrus 9y ago
  I feel like this is a rewriting of history. I knew literally a single person with a mac when the iPod came out, and they were not the first person I knew with an iPod. My recollection of the time was that most MP3 players were based on Flash storage rather than HDDs, so I could get about 10 songs onto mine. Macs didn't really take off as a thing until long after iPods had been mainstream for a while, so I don't think the integration was actually very important compared to the fact that there was a well known HDD-based MP3 player.
  - koyote 9y ago
    There were certainly HDD-Mp3 players around before the iPod (I used to own a Creative Nomad Jukebox and then the excellent Archos Jukebox which even allowed you to flash open source firmware on it). I think the first Windows compatible iPod was the game changer. It had a large HDD but was much lighter and smaller than similar HDD-mp3 players at the time (such as the ones above).
darreld 9y ago
I bought my first (of many) iPods immediately after it was announced. Watched the keynote and got it. I can't remember any other device getting more use in my life for several years. I still have the original 5GB iPod.
Overtonwindow 9y ago
I think this is kind of unfortunate. I wish I could still get my hands on a huge iPod that just does music. Maybe anachronistic but for the car and other activities, I would have loved to have the massive iPods.
- panglott 9y ago
  They're still available on the secondary market, and I still use mine almost every day.
- astura 9y ago
  You can second hand, try eBay or Amazon. There's also the non Apple branded ones.
- criddell 9y ago
  In the car I just stream Pandora or use Google Music. Being able to control it by voice is pretty important for me.
- sizzzzlerz 9y ago
  My classic ipod is 10+ years old, contains my entire music library (> 15000 songs/recordings) and continues to work on a daily basis. The battery seems to be operating fine and I've never encountered any disk errors. There is less than 10G available on the disk but I'm not acquiring content any more so that's acceptable. It's an example of a product that just worked. Maybe the UI could be a little tempermental at times but, ultimately, it did what it needed to do and what I asked of it. It will continue to accompany me until it goes cold and dead.
- thirdsun 9y ago
  Does it have to be an iPod? Since back then countless digital, mobile audio players came to market - from expensive audiophile choices to affordable, yet worthwhile options. Sony and Fiio make decent, affordable audio players to name two examples.
wwweston 9y ago
Here's a question: will the iPod have a retro comeback moment, as electro-mechanical media like vinyl records and even cassettes have had? Or maybe once you cross into the digital divide, does the experience and associated nostalgia perhaps not work the same way?
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Here's a question: will the iPod have a retro comeback moment, as electro-mechanical media like vinyl records and even cassettes have had? The iPod is a brand and not a product category. The analog, would be standalone digital portable media players having a retro-comeback, not then iPod itself having one. > Or maybe once you cross into the digital divide, does the experience and associated nostalgia perhaps not work the same way? Quite possible; is there any aspect of the experience with iPods or other standalone players that is lost using multifunction digital media devices like smartphones?
  - eesmith 9y ago
    Battery life. That is, many hours of play time, and very little battery consumption when not playing. Great for multiple days of camping with no power. Very light-weight and small. People going for a run would strap it to an arm or other convenient location.
  - scott_s 9y ago
    iPods, however, were much more prevalent than other digital, portable media players. iPod Classic likely will have a comeback, as people are talking about it right now. There's was a lot of chatter when the movie Baby Driver was released, as the main character uses one, and the director talked a lot about his. Google "ipod classic nostalgia" or "ipod baby driver" to see a lot of articles.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    > Quite possible; is there any aspect of the experience with iPods or other standalone players that is lost using multifunction digital media devices like smartphones? Battery life. Having a device with a known, dedicated use (as a psychological difference, rather than a strictly practical one). Handling the most common operations by touch, rather than actually pulling it out to use a clumsy touchscreen.
kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
I have always been jealous of how Apple always managed to brand its product in a way that made them common names for their product category. When iPods were around everyone referred to any MP3 player as an iPod and most people still say iPad to refer to tablets.
dreamcompiler 9y ago
I still use my click wheel ipod. The UI makes finding my songs much quicker than on my phone, and it can create on-the-go playlists just by holding down the button, which Apple still hasn't figured out how to do on their phones. And finally it has a high quality DAC so music sounds better than from my phone.
- mattdotc 9y ago
  I've been thinking about replacing the hard drive and battery in mine for the past few years. The wheel-based iPods really did have the best UI for music in any device I've ever owned. If you're familiar with it, you can navigate with extraordinary ease.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    Years ago, I replaced the 20GB drive in mine with a 30GB drive, because I was having issues. It was pretty easy with my 4th-gen iPod. Turns out that the issues were actually in the USB interface, not the drive itself. So I struggled to get the drive re-filled, and haven't changed the data on it in...probably 7 or 8 years.
- z0d 9y ago
  Yes ! the clickwheel is too good, it has no competition in the UX dept be it with the Apple OS or the Custom aftermarket Firmware. Still rocking a 5.5G iPod 30GB, Recently modded it with a 200GB MicroSD and it runs on the Rockbox which is Open Source and doesn't have any limit on the songs or storage that my other iPod Classc 6G 80GB has, thanks to Apple for that limit on the 6G iPod Classics, Rockbox can break that limit, But yeah you always need to boot to OF (Official Firmware) to copy tracks onto the iPod else there will be song skipping etc, Perhaps due to the third party HW chipset in between which is the SD Adapter (this is for every iPod 5G-7G with aftermarket modded HW) And also yeah the 5.5G iPod (I think there are older iPods with this chip plus the iPhone 2G also had this/the same company's chip and 1st gen iPod Touch as well iirc) DAC chip is from Wolfson Audio which used to be great before the CL (Cirrus Logic) engulfed them & this makes it great fun to listen over my CL chip 6G, forget the phones, Apart from the Wolfson powered Voodoo modded Android phones nothing comes close to that level of detail, fun. To people who want to mod them head over to the iFlash and get a hold of it, you'll be shocked to see how robust these things are. Plus there can be lot of inter mods that can be done like you can fit a 5.xG chipset into a 6-7G shell and vice versa - the frame can be interchanged+faceplate also goes in hand with the respective frame or need to shave a few bits off the metal frame, along with the backplate, headphone jack/hold switch flex cable plus massive battery upgrade(s) also exists - 2000mAh and up, these all are interchangeable. The Clickwheels, LCD panel aren't)
_ph_ 9y ago
I think there would be still quite a market for an up-to date incarnation of the iPod. Roughly in the size of the last iPod nano. There are times and activities where you can or don't want to use your iPhone and traditionally use an iPod. Especially if it came with a bit more storage and of course good Apple Music integration (e.g. be able to automatically sync your playlists to your iPod). The Apple Watch might one day take that role, but for now it doesn't offer enough storage and its interaction is a bit more difficult due to the small size.
- vinceguidry 9y ago
  Sure, there's plenty of markets that Apple exits that they could still make money on. But Apple has always been a company about focus. They just can't keep all those designers and engineers focused on a dying market segment. Better to refocus them on something new.
- scarface74 9y ago
  If you have a cellular equipped Apple Watch that you just want to use for music and a subscription to Apple Music, is storage a big deal? On the other hand, my next phone will probably be the next generation 4 inch iPhone SE with the most storage I can get when Apple introduces it. I'm really starting to like the idea of a small phone + an iPad over a slightly larger phone that really doesn't enhance usability for me.
  - girvo 9y ago
    My iPhone SE is literally the best phone I’ve ever owned. Perfect size, used sparingly, and often as a tether for my iPad instead when I want to do any type of content management or creation. And it fits in my pocket properly!
Pigo 9y ago
Then I successfully went the entire lifespan of the iPod without ever owning one. There was a time I would have been proud of that, now I don't care enough to engage in Kool-Aid references.
asumaran 9y ago
heh, Coincidentally I just get my iPod Classic 20GB out of the drawer. I'm going to use it instead of my iPhone to listen some music when I commute.
yunong 9y ago
I'm hugely disappointed that they discontinued the shuffle. It's the best music player for workouts period. No fussing with the bluetooth pairing, just plug in headphones, clip and go. I personally use mine for swimming. You can buy waterproofed shuffles such as this one: http://a.co/f64p74y http://a.co/f64p74y and they work extremely well for swimming. In fact when the shuffle was discontinued I immediately bought another one as backup to my trusty waterproof shuffle that I've used for 3 years.
- scarface74 9y ago
  It's a much more expensive solution, but as far as the "best" solution, I'll take a cellular equipped Apple Watch + AirPods and a subscription to Apple Music for most workouts. For swimming, I guess you could use something like this. https://www.wareable.com/headphones/best-headphones-for-swimming https://www.wareable.com/headphones/best-headphones-for-swim...
- mlevental 9y ago
  don't regular headphones not work well in the water? I thought you absolutely needed bone conduction headphones for swimming with music to be a pleasant experience
  - yunong 9y ago
    I've used "waterproof" in-ear headphones for years and they work great. They're not cheap but they do work well. http://a.co/dItFKD3 http://a.co/dItFKD3
starsinspace 9y ago
The greatest innovation of the iPod was the bold move to make the earbuds white. This made the music player - usually tucked away in the pocket - a visible symbol of status and coolness. Together with a brilliant marketing campaign which made it into a must-have fashion item, and special content contracts, it made the iPod a huge success. Technical aspects really aren't what made the iPod successful. Sure, the clickwheel was a really great idea, and it was an overall well-polished product. But other players were good too. Without the marketing, and without the breakthrough pricing of music on the iTunes Music Store (complete with iPod-ecosystem lockin via DRM), it would have gone nowhere. In some ways the iPhone is a similar story IMO, but I guess that's even more controversial...
- FabHK 9y ago
  And a target for thieves...
wilsonfiifi 9y ago
I understand the deprecation of the iPod classic [0] but i don't for the life of me know why Apple still hasen't increased the iPod touch storage space to 256gb. [0] https://www.geek.com/apple/ipod-classic-discontinued-because-apple-couldnt-source-parts-anymore-1607952/
adam 9y ago
Another perspective: I gave my 5 year old an old iPod Nano + some over-ear headphones, and she uses them to listen to music and kid podcasts. I much prefer this over an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad. We're just not ready for her to have that kind of screen time.
girvo 9y ago
I miss my iPod Mini. I had it running RockBox (a uclinux distribution aimed at MP3 players), and replaced the 1.8” HDD with a compact flash card (32GB, I think?). Got a decade of use out of it. I kind of want to go see if it’s in my cupboard still.
qubex 9y ago
I bought a black iPod Shuffle from a physical Apple Store the day they announced its discontinuation. It’s still in its box. I don’t know what it is about the demented functionality of the thing, but they’re adorable, dependable, and tough as rocks. I’ve got probably half a dozen iPods of various kinds in working condition strewn around the place, even though I don’t use them regularly (including an iPod Video with an aftermarket SSD and fresh battery, a first generation iPod Touch from 2007, an elongated iPod Shuffle with a mirror finish, and a few incarnations of iPod Nano). I’ve got a friend that has a strip of different coloured iPod Shuffles assembled on a nylon strap (in chromatic order, no less) all linked simultaneously to a audio jack muxer, so she can select an iPod shuffle based on her mood. There’s a lot of nostalgia involved in these things. They’re not bad devices. They could have gone on selling them for almost forever.

Isn't it a bit late for this eulogy?

wlesieutre 9y ago
Yes, article is from July when Apple discontinued the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle. Wired (I think) sometimes pulls out old stories and puts them on their homepage along with the news, poster might not realized. Side note, I still have one of those iPod Shuffles around somewhere. Great little device to clip on your running shorts, but it had the weirdest cable. They mapped 4 USB pins onto a TRRS connector and synced it through the headphone jack.
- tomelders 9y ago
  I still think the original iPod shuffle that doubled as a USB key was the most useful piece of tech I've ever owned for under £500.
  - bsharitt 9y ago
    A case where the knock offs were sometimes better than the original in my opinion. Where the iPod you still had to use iTunes to get music on to the device, but could otherwise use it as a USB drive(can't remember if you had to specifically allocate space for that or if all free space was available), but on the cheap Chinese knockoffs, you just had the file system on the USB stick where you could dump files and a mp3 files alike and it would shuffle what ever mp3 files it found on there. The iTunes reliance was annoying in general, but it seemed even more out of placed with the "USB stick" shuffle.
    - greenhouse_gas 9y ago
      You were able to install Rockbox (an aftermarket ROM for Apple, Sansa, and a few other mp3 players). Was quite good, had better codec support (played OGG files!) and you could write apps [1] for it. [1]. Don't know if you could call them apps, as they needed to be rebuilt with the OS (don't remember if they were pluggable modules or you literally had to rebuild the OS if you wanted to write an App, but it came out of the box with a few apps and games, and you could write your own in C. Their API was weaker than Android's, but to me more enjoyable.)
    - FabHK 9y ago
      > The iTunes reliance was annoying in general Many people think that way, but I really much prefer to organise my music in iTunes than in the file system. (Even with iTunes, you can always go down to the file system if you want to, but try making a smart playlist in the file system alone...) (Granted though that iTunes has become way too crowded with functionality now.)
      - khedoros1 9y ago
        > Many people think that way, but I really much prefer to organise my music in iTunes than in the file system. iTunes + filesystem aren't the only two options. At the time, I usually had my library set up in Winamp and XMMS, and iTunes was annoyingly opinionated about what the structure of the library should be. I would've liked the option to use something besides iTunes.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    And it was the size of a stick of gum! *Do not eat iPod Shuffle
- dawnerd 9y ago
  > Wired (I think) sometimes pulls out old stories and puts them on their homepage Ugh CNN does this too (along with changing the "updated time" and healines) to look like they have more content than they actually do. No doubt it's smart but really annoying when you realize you've clicked an article thats really old.
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jccalhoun 9y ago
yes. Needs a (2017) tage

For all its flaws, I can't remember a more intimate relationship I had with a technology product than the one I had with my first iPod.

GeekyBear 9y ago
The Tivo was as big a user friendly change in how you consumed media.

stinkytaco 9y ago

The iPod is the closest thing to an electronic device I wouldn't change that I've ever owned [1]. It wasn't perfect, but it almost was for me. I bought an extra iPod classic and shuffle when they were discontinued. [1]: I'll qualify that I mean something with a screen and a user interface, because I once had a toaster oven that was pretty great

ajaimk 9y ago

The Apple Watch is the new iPod Nano (with additional functionality)

rahoulb 9y ago
I love my Apple Watch but I don't get the same sense of wonder and amazement that I did from my 3rd generation iPod (wedding present). And neither does anyone that I show it to (people were blown away when I scrolled through the songs I had on that iPod).
mstade 9y ago
With a very important caveat: it takes FOREVER to sync not-very-many songs with the watch. This isn't a problem if you're bringing your phone as well, but if you're going for run and don't want to or can't bring your phone, you either have to plan ahead or stick with the same ol' songs every single time you're out and about. To be fair, I tend to stick with the same songs anyway, it makes it easy for me to always know how I'm doing with regards to my run, without having to look at the watch or wait for a mile / km update to come along, since I know when in the playlist I should be when reaching certain parts of my track. (Provided I run the same track, that is, but usually I do.)
- twoodfin 9y ago
  Streaming on the LTE Series 3 solves this problem. Haven’t checked but assume it works with iTunes Match for whatever obscurities you have.
  - mstade 9y ago
    Unfortunately, LTE for Series 3 isn't available everywhere and specifically it's not available in my country. From what I hear, it probably won't happen anytime soon either, if ever. :o(
- WWLink 9y ago
  Having a series 0 apple watch myself, part of the reason I stopped using it was how big a pain in the butt it is when you need to do anything with it. X_X Especially if you do a major enough update on your phone that the watch needs to be re-paired.

niftich 9y ago

A lucky set of circumstances led to the iPod dominating the digital audio player market: bold marketing, a smaller HDD form factor, high-speed FireWire connection, and a great integration story on Macs. The Windows world at the time was a big mess of nonstandard cabling, messy drivers, sketchy quasi-shareware applications vying for presence on your desktop, while the Apple world was plug-and-play over a high-speed bus that came standard, and the music management experience was top-notch. And while there was some good hardware coming out of Korea to give the iPod a run for its money, the integrated Apple experience was without match. For Windows, Apple bundled MusicMatch Jukebox at first, but then made iTunes available on Windows, which became their foothold that would later set up the iPhone for success. By the time Microsoft caught up with WinXP and Windows Media Player, Apple had already stolen the higher end of the market, leaving WMP largely in the domain of cheap flash-based USB sticks that could only fit a subset of your songs. Then everyone pivoted to a DRM-laden storefront, making switching costs high. A later effort to refocus their first-party efforts with Zune resulted in an incompatible DRM ecosystem, and fizzled on the market. The iPod, in many ways, foreshadowed the Apple tactic that would become famous from the later iPhone: take the state-of-the-art in a particular market, pare it down a bit, endow it with tasteful industrial design, make sure it has a strong, ideally "frustration-free" integrated environment to take part in, give it an upmarket but justifiable price, and market the heck out of it with aspirational brand advertising.

Eridrus 9y ago
I feel like this is a rewriting of history. I knew literally a single person with a mac when the iPod came out, and they were not the first person I knew with an iPod. My recollection of the time was that most MP3 players were based on Flash storage rather than HDDs, so I could get about 10 songs onto mine. Macs didn't really take off as a thing until long after iPods had been mainstream for a while, so I don't think the integration was actually very important compared to the fact that there was a well known HDD-based MP3 player.
- koyote 9y ago
  There were certainly HDD-Mp3 players around before the iPod (I used to own a Creative Nomad Jukebox and then the excellent Archos Jukebox which even allowed you to flash open source firmware on it). I think the first Windows compatible iPod was the game changer. It had a large HDD but was much lighter and smaller than similar HDD-mp3 players at the time (such as the ones above).

darreld 9y ago

I bought my first (of many) iPods immediately after it was announced. Watched the keynote and got it. I can't remember any other device getting more use in my life for several years. I still have the original 5GB iPod.

Overtonwindow 9y ago

I think this is kind of unfortunate. I wish I could still get my hands on a huge iPod that just does music. Maybe anachronistic but for the car and other activities, I would have loved to have the massive iPods.

panglott 9y ago
They're still available on the secondary market, and I still use mine almost every day.
astura 9y ago
You can second hand, try eBay or Amazon. There's also the non Apple branded ones.
criddell 9y ago
In the car I just stream Pandora or use Google Music. Being able to control it by voice is pretty important for me.
sizzzzlerz 9y ago
My classic ipod is 10+ years old, contains my entire music library (> 15000 songs/recordings) and continues to work on a daily basis. The battery seems to be operating fine and I've never encountered any disk errors. There is less than 10G available on the disk but I'm not acquiring content any more so that's acceptable. It's an example of a product that just worked. Maybe the UI could be a little tempermental at times but, ultimately, it did what it needed to do and what I asked of it. It will continue to accompany me until it goes cold and dead.
thirdsun 9y ago
Does it have to be an iPod? Since back then countless digital, mobile audio players came to market - from expensive audiophile choices to affordable, yet worthwhile options. Sony and Fiio make decent, affordable audio players to name two examples.

wwweston 9y ago

Here's a question: will the iPod have a retro comeback moment, as electro-mechanical media like vinyl records and even cassettes have had? Or maybe once you cross into the digital divide, does the experience and associated nostalgia perhaps not work the same way?

dragonwriter 9y ago
> Here's a question: will the iPod have a retro comeback moment, as electro-mechanical media like vinyl records and even cassettes have had? The iPod is a brand and not a product category. The analog, would be standalone digital portable media players having a retro-comeback, not then iPod itself having one. > Or maybe once you cross into the digital divide, does the experience and associated nostalgia perhaps not work the same way? Quite possible; is there any aspect of the experience with iPods or other standalone players that is lost using multifunction digital media devices like smartphones?
- eesmith 9y ago
  Battery life. That is, many hours of play time, and very little battery consumption when not playing. Great for multiple days of camping with no power. Very light-weight and small. People going for a run would strap it to an arm or other convenient location.
- scott_s 9y ago
  iPods, however, were much more prevalent than other digital, portable media players. iPod Classic likely will have a comeback, as people are talking about it right now. There's was a lot of chatter when the movie Baby Driver was released, as the main character uses one, and the director talked a lot about his. Google "ipod classic nostalgia" or "ipod baby driver" to see a lot of articles.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  > Quite possible; is there any aspect of the experience with iPods or other standalone players that is lost using multifunction digital media devices like smartphones? Battery life. Having a device with a known, dedicated use (as a psychological difference, rather than a strictly practical one). Handling the most common operations by touch, rather than actually pulling it out to use a clumsy touchscreen.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago

I have always been jealous of how Apple always managed to brand its product in a way that made them common names for their product category. When iPods were around everyone referred to any MP3 player as an iPod and most people still say iPad to refer to tablets.

dreamcompiler 9y ago

I still use my click wheel ipod. The UI makes finding my songs much quicker than on my phone, and it can create on-the-go playlists just by holding down the button, which Apple still hasn't figured out how to do on their phones. And finally it has a high quality DAC so music sounds better than from my phone.

mattdotc 9y ago
I've been thinking about replacing the hard drive and battery in mine for the past few years. The wheel-based iPods really did have the best UI for music in any device I've ever owned. If you're familiar with it, you can navigate with extraordinary ease.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  Years ago, I replaced the 20GB drive in mine with a 30GB drive, because I was having issues. It was pretty easy with my 4th-gen iPod. Turns out that the issues were actually in the USB interface, not the drive itself. So I struggled to get the drive re-filled, and haven't changed the data on it in...probably 7 or 8 years.
z0d 9y ago
Yes ! the clickwheel is too good, it has no competition in the UX dept be it with the Apple OS or the Custom aftermarket Firmware. Still rocking a 5.5G iPod 30GB, Recently modded it with a 200GB MicroSD and it runs on the Rockbox which is Open Source and doesn't have any limit on the songs or storage that my other iPod Classc 6G 80GB has, thanks to Apple for that limit on the 6G iPod Classics, Rockbox can break that limit, But yeah you always need to boot to OF (Official Firmware) to copy tracks onto the iPod else there will be song skipping etc, Perhaps due to the third party HW chipset in between which is the SD Adapter (this is for every iPod 5G-7G with aftermarket modded HW) And also yeah the 5.5G iPod (I think there are older iPods with this chip plus the iPhone 2G also had this/the same company's chip and 1st gen iPod Touch as well iirc) DAC chip is from Wolfson Audio which used to be great before the CL (Cirrus Logic) engulfed them & this makes it great fun to listen over my CL chip 6G, forget the phones, Apart from the Wolfson powered Voodoo modded Android phones nothing comes close to that level of detail, fun. To people who want to mod them head over to the iFlash and get a hold of it, you'll be shocked to see how robust these things are. Plus there can be lot of inter mods that can be done like you can fit a 5.xG chipset into a 6-7G shell and vice versa - the frame can be interchanged+faceplate also goes in hand with the respective frame or need to shave a few bits off the metal frame, along with the backplate, headphone jack/hold switch flex cable plus massive battery upgrade(s) also exists - 2000mAh and up, these all are interchangeable. The Clickwheels, LCD panel aren't)

_ph_ 9y ago

I think there would be still quite a market for an up-to date incarnation of the iPod. Roughly in the size of the last iPod nano. There are times and activities where you can or don't want to use your iPhone and traditionally use an iPod. Especially if it came with a bit more storage and of course good Apple Music integration (e.g. be able to automatically sync your playlists to your iPod). The Apple Watch might one day take that role, but for now it doesn't offer enough storage and its interaction is a bit more difficult due to the small size.

vinceguidry 9y ago
Sure, there's plenty of markets that Apple exits that they could still make money on. But Apple has always been a company about focus. They just can't keep all those designers and engineers focused on a dying market segment. Better to refocus them on something new.
scarface74 9y ago
If you have a cellular equipped Apple Watch that you just want to use for music and a subscription to Apple Music, is storage a big deal? On the other hand, my next phone will probably be the next generation 4 inch iPhone SE with the most storage I can get when Apple introduces it. I'm really starting to like the idea of a small phone + an iPad over a slightly larger phone that really doesn't enhance usability for me.
- girvo 9y ago
  My iPhone SE is literally the best phone I’ve ever owned. Perfect size, used sparingly, and often as a tether for my iPad instead when I want to do any type of content management or creation. And it fits in my pocket properly!

Pigo 9y ago

Then I successfully went the entire lifespan of the iPod without ever owning one. There was a time I would have been proud of that, now I don't care enough to engage in Kool-Aid references.

asumaran 9y ago

heh, Coincidentally I just get my iPod Classic 20GB out of the drawer. I'm going to use it instead of my iPhone to listen some music when I commute.

yunong 9y ago

I'm hugely disappointed that they discontinued the shuffle. It's the best music player for workouts period. No fussing with the bluetooth pairing, just plug in headphones, clip and go. I personally use mine for swimming. You can buy waterproofed shuffles such as this one: http://a.co/f64p74y http://a.co/f64p74y and they work extremely well for swimming. In fact when the shuffle was discontinued I immediately bought another one as backup to my trusty waterproof shuffle that I've used for 3 years.

scarface74 9y ago
It's a much more expensive solution, but as far as the "best" solution, I'll take a cellular equipped Apple Watch + AirPods and a subscription to Apple Music for most workouts. For swimming, I guess you could use something like this. https://www.wareable.com/headphones/best-headphones-for-swimming https://www.wareable.com/headphones/best-headphones-for-swim...
mlevental 9y ago
don't regular headphones not work well in the water? I thought you absolutely needed bone conduction headphones for swimming with music to be a pleasant experience
- yunong 9y ago
  I've used "waterproof" in-ear headphones for years and they work great. They're not cheap but they do work well. http://a.co/dItFKD3 http://a.co/dItFKD3

starsinspace 9y ago

The greatest innovation of the iPod was the bold move to make the earbuds white. This made the music player - usually tucked away in the pocket - a visible symbol of status and coolness. Together with a brilliant marketing campaign which made it into a must-have fashion item, and special content contracts, it made the iPod a huge success. Technical aspects really aren't what made the iPod successful. Sure, the clickwheel was a really great idea, and it was an overall well-polished product. But other players were good too. Without the marketing, and without the breakthrough pricing of music on the iTunes Music Store (complete with iPod-ecosystem lockin via DRM), it would have gone nowhere. In some ways the iPhone is a similar story IMO, but I guess that's even more controversial...

FabHK 9y ago
And a target for thieves...

wilsonfiifi 9y ago

I understand the deprecation of the iPod classic [0] but i don't for the life of me know why Apple still hasen't increased the iPod touch storage space to 256gb. [0] https://www.geek.com/apple/ipod-classic-discontinued-because-apple-couldnt-source-parts-anymore-1607952/

adam 9y ago

Another perspective: I gave my 5 year old an old iPod Nano + some over-ear headphones, and she uses them to listen to music and kid podcasts. I much prefer this over an iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad. We're just not ready for her to have that kind of screen time.

girvo 9y ago

I miss my iPod Mini. I had it running RockBox (a uclinux distribution aimed at MP3 players), and replaced the 1.8” HDD with a compact flash card (32GB, I think?). Got a decade of use out of it. I kind of want to go see if it’s in my cupboard still.

qubex 9y ago

I bought a black iPod Shuffle from a physical Apple Store the day they announced its discontinuation. It’s still in its box. I don’t know what it is about the demented functionality of the thing, but they’re adorable, dependable, and tough as rocks. I’ve got probably half a dozen iPods of various kinds in working condition strewn around the place, even though I don’t use them regularly (including an iPod Video with an aftermarket SSD and fresh battery, a first generation iPod Touch from 2007, an elongated iPod Shuffle with a mirror finish, and a few incarnations of iPod Nano). I’ve got a friend that has a strip of different coloured iPod Shuffles assembled on a nylon strap (in chromatic order, no less) all linked simultaneously to a audio jack muxer, so she can select an iPod shuffle based on her mood. There’s a lot of nostalgia involved in these things. They’re not bad devices. They could have gone on selling them for almost forever.