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Apple's iPod Classic Refuses To Die

Nerval's Lobster writes A funny thing happened to the iPod Classic on its way to the dustbin of history: people seemed unwilling to actually give it up. Apple quietly removed the iPod Classic from its online storefront in early September, on the same day CEO Tim Cook revealed the latest iPhones and the upcoming Apple Watch. At 12 years old, the device was ancient by technology-industry standards, but its design was iconic, and a subset of diehard music fans seemed to appreciate its considerable storage capacity. At least some of those diehard fans are now paying four times the iPod Classic's original selling price for units still in the box. The blog 9to5Mac mentions Amazon selling some last-generation iPod Classics for $500 and above. Clearly, some people haven't gotten the memo that touch-screens and streaming music were supposed to be the way of the future.

5 of 269 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong conclusion by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What will end up happening is that those $500 iPod Classics will stay in their boxes and be sold for $3k a few years down the road. Same kind of thing happened with old NES/Gameboy Games, etc. If they wanted a music player without a touch-screen, well, there are hundreds of those not made by Apple. The people that want these are hoarders and price manipulators.

    --
    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    1. Re:Wrong conclusion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >

      The proper term is "investor".

      Wrong, the proper term is "speculator". An investor expects the investment to make a return for them through a growth in value. For example, they buy walmart stock because they feel that the company will continue to do business and thus give good returns through buy-backs, dividends, etc while balancing it against inflation, returns available from reliable investments (AKA US Gov Bonds), etc

      A speculator buys something because he believes that it will go up in price without growth, that there is something wrong with the current pricing of the investment, or that an event will trigger a temporary price increase or decrease.

      BTW, A good investor enters his investment for the reasons a good speculator goes in; the market price is clearly to low for the value of the company. But instead of selling it when the price returns to normal, he instead waits for the dividends. He also buys companies that he knows are not likely to have serious trouble. That is Warner Buffet buy the best companies when the price is undervalued and hold them.

  2. nah it's a dead cat bounce by Spy+Handler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    nostalgia only goes so far; you can't make a mass market product on nostalgia alone. They sell what, 50 million iphones every 3 months? A few thousand nostalgia seekers wouldn't even be pocket change inside the pants of a rounding error.

    Plus the people seeking the mini hard drive storage capacity will be mollified in a couple years when iphone flash memory capacity reaches 256 - 500 GB.

  3. My iPod Classic has 160GB of capacity... by osu-neko · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...and that was great when I got it, but it's gotten a bit on the small side actually. Apple wants me to upgrade, they need to produce a bigger unit. Current store only has them up to 64MB. I'm certainly not going to downgrade just to get a newer unit.

    --
    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  4. physical buttons are better by steak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    with physical buttons, you dont have to look at it to know where your inputer is on the device.