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[no time for video, so if these are answered let me know...] Two things I never got about the iPod: Why not add a second headphone jack so two people could li

[no time for video, so if these are answered let me know...] Two things I never got about the iPod: Why not add a second headphone jack so two people could listen and share the experience? Why didn't Apple preload some music (maybe classical stuff in the public domain, performed by affordable Eastern European orchestras) for a better out of the box experience? Think about kids getting an iPod at Christmas; until it was sync'd to a computer, there wasn't much to do with it.

champagneben 7y ago
That's what the kids want: classical stuff in the public domain.
jaywalk 7y ago
A headphone jack splitter only costs a few dollars.
- emsy 7y ago
  And lowers the volume significantly. Especially on high impedance headphones.
  - _hardwaregeek 7y ago
    Isn't that just an inherent issue with resistance? I'm not super familiar with headphone internals so maybe I'm missing something.
SocialHugger 7y ago
iPods don't have multiple headphone Jacks because the headphone cables aren't long enough for Social Distancing! DUH!
yardie 7y ago
The iPod wasn't that type of device. It was an addition to iTunes. It did have a folder structure but the music files were 4 letter codes. As soon as iTunes associated a new iPod it wiped the hard drive and loaded it's own configurations and files. iTunes on the otherhand, early on, did come with a small music selection. This would be OS9 era bands and musicians who were just famous enough to be featured but not famous enough to cost a fortune in licensing music. Also you could sign up for a monthly newsletter where Apple sent you a code to download featured artists. Also, after years of service I cracked open my 2nd gen iPod. It was dense, there was not a spot available to add another headphone jack. Every cubic mm was occupied with battery, HD, control board, and display.
- bluedino 7y ago
  And when Apple started automatically adding U2 to everyone's library, it wasn't wanted.
  - yardie 7y ago
    Yeah, I think Steve was a little bit too enthusiastic about U2. He liked it, he figured everyone else would like it too.
    - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
      I clicked on whatever affordance I had to click that allowed that album to be installed, and I enjoyed the music. I felt like a weirdo for not being annoyed and wondered what I had randomly configured that made the album's presence optional for me. It seems like everyone else's experience was that the album took up precious space and was not removable.
kirykl 7y ago
>Why not add a second headphone jack so two people could listen and share the experience? Probably because of the Steve/Ive design philosophy. Also interestingly iOS does supports audio sharing with Airpods.
_hardwaregeek 7y ago
Two headphone jacks is precisely the sort of feature that a developer would find handy but might not make sense from a product view. For one, people will immediately wonder, which jack should I use? Are they different in some way? Or worse, if you put the jacks side by side, they might wonder if you need a specific jack style, like airplanes. It's also less pretty. More jacks is more ports is less sleek. I know, dumb, but the whole point of the iPod was that it was a beautiful, intuitive MP3 player. Preloaded music is also less sleek, less luxury. While Apple did eventually start providing preloaded music, it was kinda controversial, and at least for me, ended up just sitting on my iPhone taking up space. I also suspect the lack of music might have been a forcing function to onboard you to iTunes as soon as possible.
- outside1234 7y ago
  Two jacks also would have made it bigger. If anything, it would have made more sense to have a branch jack in the iPod headphones.
tpmx 7y ago
The first Walkman had two headphone jacks: http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l2_eng_v3.htm http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l... And this feature: > the TPS-L2 had a "hotline" button which activated a small built-in microphone, partially overriding the sound from the cassette, and allowing one user to talk to the other over the music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman_effect > Sony Chairman Akio Morita added these features to the design for fear the technology would be isolating. Though he "thought it would be considered rude for one person to be listening to his music in isolation"), people bought their own units rather than share and these features were removed for later models.

champagneben 7y ago

That's what the kids want: classical stuff in the public domain.

jaywalk 7y ago

A headphone jack splitter only costs a few dollars.

emsy 7y ago
And lowers the volume significantly. Especially on high impedance headphones.
- _hardwaregeek 7y ago
  Isn't that just an inherent issue with resistance? I'm not super familiar with headphone internals so maybe I'm missing something.

SocialHugger 7y ago

iPods don't have multiple headphone Jacks because the headphone cables aren't long enough for Social Distancing! DUH!

yardie 7y ago

The iPod wasn't that type of device. It was an addition to iTunes. It did have a folder structure but the music files were 4 letter codes. As soon as iTunes associated a new iPod it wiped the hard drive and loaded it's own configurations and files. iTunes on the otherhand, early on, did come with a small music selection. This would be OS9 era bands and musicians who were just famous enough to be featured but not famous enough to cost a fortune in licensing music. Also you could sign up for a monthly newsletter where Apple sent you a code to download featured artists. Also, after years of service I cracked open my 2nd gen iPod. It was dense, there was not a spot available to add another headphone jack. Every cubic mm was occupied with battery, HD, control board, and display.

bluedino 7y ago
And when Apple started automatically adding U2 to everyone's library, it wasn't wanted.
- yardie 7y ago
  Yeah, I think Steve was a little bit too enthusiastic about U2. He liked it, he figured everyone else would like it too.
  - cardiffspaceman 7y ago
    I clicked on whatever affordance I had to click that allowed that album to be installed, and I enjoyed the music. I felt like a weirdo for not being annoyed and wondered what I had randomly configured that made the album's presence optional for me. It seems like everyone else's experience was that the album took up precious space and was not removable.

kirykl 7y ago

>Why not add a second headphone jack so two people could listen and share the experience? Probably because of the Steve/Ive design philosophy. Also interestingly iOS does supports audio sharing with Airpods.

_hardwaregeek 7y ago

Two headphone jacks is precisely the sort of feature that a developer would find handy but might not make sense from a product view. For one, people will immediately wonder, which jack should I use? Are they different in some way? Or worse, if you put the jacks side by side, they might wonder if you need a specific jack style, like airplanes. It's also less pretty. More jacks is more ports is less sleek. I know, dumb, but the whole point of the iPod was that it was a beautiful, intuitive MP3 player. Preloaded music is also less sleek, less luxury. While Apple did eventually start providing preloaded music, it was kinda controversial, and at least for me, ended up just sitting on my iPhone taking up space. I also suspect the lack of music might have been a forcing function to onboard you to iTunes as soon as possible.

outside1234 7y ago
Two jacks also would have made it bigger. If anything, it would have made more sense to have a branch jack in the iPod headphones.

tpmx 7y ago

The first Walkman had two headphone jacks: http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l2_eng_v3.htm http://www.walkman-archive.com/gadgets/walkman_sony_01_tps-l... And this feature: > the TPS-L2 had a "hotline" button which activated a small built-in microphone, partially overriding the sound from the cassette, and allowing one user to talk to the other over the music https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walkman_effect > Sony Chairman Akio Morita added these features to the design for fear the technology would be isolating. Though he "thought it would be considered rude for one person to be listening to his music in isolation"), people bought their own units rather than share and these features were removed for later models.