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.

Comments

Wrong conclusion

[O('_')O_Bush]

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.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

>

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.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[jedidiah]

No. The proper term is speculator.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[fafaforza]

I've had a few non-Apple mp3 players, and they pretty much fell apart, things stopped working, etc. I've had my 80GB Classic since 2007, and aside from replacing the headphone jack a few times, no issues. I don't want to bother with a non-Apple device really, and I'm no fanboy. If anything I have 5 ThinkPads of various vintages and no Apple laptops. These people might be investors , but not so sure about hoarders.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[slazzy]

Yeah I think if someone would make a android mp3 player with a 2TB 2.5" laptop drive, and the same battery saving caching technology that the original iPod had that might be a killer device for DJs and a few other types of people.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[matbury]

Yes, when I look for an MP3 player, I want storage... lots of it, as well as software and a CPU that can manage that many files effectively and efficiently. I'm using a (Nokia) phone with a 64GB microSD and if I fill it up, the GUI gets sluggish and error prone. With the files I can put on it without it becoming awkward and difficult to use, e.g. wating for it to unfreeze, I have to regularly remove and replace albums and collections to keep my selection varied enough to keep it interesting. I'm not surprised that people who've found a player with lots of storage that works OK want to stick with it.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

not to those in the financial services sector.

Investors and speculators are not normally considered the same thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculation#Speculation_and_investment

The view of what distinguishes investment from speculation and speculation from excessive speculation varies widely among pundits, legislators and academics. Some sources note that speculation is simply a higher risk form of investment. Others define speculation more narrowly as positions not characterized as hedging.[2] The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission defines a speculator as "a trader who does not hedge, but who trades with the objective of achieving profits through the successful anticipation of price movements."[3] The agency emphasizes that speculators serve important market functions, but defines excessive speculation as harmful to the proper functioning of futures markets.[4]

Re:Wrong conclusion

[AK Marc]

So someone who buys an iPod expecting it to appreciate is a speculator, but somone who buys it because they think it's undervalued is an investor. They both hope to buy low and sell high, but their motives define them.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[JBMcB]

My Archos 43 died enthusiastically. First the headphone jack blew out for no apparent reason, then the touchscreen stopped working. Never dropped or mishandled - usually hung out in my shirt pocket or on the passenger seat of my car. Support was garbage, too - there were a half dozen known issues with video playback that were fixed in base Android system updates that Archos never bothered to release. Before I could root it and do Cyanogen it died on me. Oh well.

My Nexus 7 is faring much better, but it's not really a "portable" sized mp3 player.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[Goetterdaemmerung]

> Not so sure. Try to find another mp3 player with massive storage, an excellent user interface, and good to excellent build quality.

Any Android device.

My 500G Archos still refuses to die. It fits a particular niche that Apple will refuse to address and Android hasn't quite caught up yet with (but will eventually).

No, just no. Android OS has very little overlap to a dedicated music player that requires a few physical buttons to play, pause and skip along with basic displays. The markets are only related because modern phones can also store and play music. That doesn't mean a smart phone is best at playing music.

Re:Wrong conclusion

[Blaskowicz]

That is interesting, I seen an open source music player, lightweight-ish that "does it all" (library, file and directories access) written in python that would erratically crash when loading a few thousand tracks ; whereas a Windows 98 PC with winamp could eat a huge playlist and function the same as on a playlist a thousandth the size (ditto linux with audacious, xmms etc.)
It may have improved after leaving the 0.x versioning but that piece of software didn't feel robust.

That may be an issue with modern software, "dynamic" and frameworky but if you push it it may crumble down, or not. Who knows.

Re: Wrong conclusion

[AK Marc]

So, there's no such thing as a property investor? Property is all scarcity. Property goes up in value always (over a long enough measure). Because land is fixed, and people are increasing.

Ignored Niches

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason is simple. It's an ignored niche.

I have 1tb of music. I want to most of this on one mp3 player. Yet nearly every mp3 maker has moved to flash memory or sd cards. To slim down my music collection to 8gb is absurd. So people like me have to stick to their old spinny disc mp3 players. 80gb is better than 8...

Majority of people stream their music these days. But there are still a few of us audiophiles that rather listen to higher quality junk directly from their file trees.
Call me old fashion, but get off my lawn... and make a 500gb mp3 player pleeeeeease.

Re:Ignored Niches

[ScooterComputer]

I agree. Many of the people I know who have hacked their classic iPods put in substantially larger HDs (or even SSDs), because they were available in sizes greater than Apple bothered to ship.

My vision is an "iPod" that would effectively house wireless, some kind of storage, whether SSD (perhaps for longer battery life and ruggedness) or HD (size), and a battery. Then the software would seamlessly integrate with Apple's OSes and the various media libraries. Effectively a portable "Home Sharing" library, a "local iCloud clone". Better yet, it would sync to iCloud and fill itself when availed an internet connection. iOS 8 brought several new APIs to facilitate just such a thing. Then we could merely stick the thing in gloveboxes or center consoles, and, using the iPhones/iPads we have, play our 500GB music/movie/podcast libraries anywhere without consuming costly cellular data or even NEEDING a cell/wifi connection. Why Apple hasn't seen the analog to old-school multi-CD changes and the entertainment systems in minivans, I'll never know. In the age of 16GB iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touchesit just makes sense.

Re:Ignored Niches

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

What are the chances something like you said has not already been discussed in the Infinite Loop? Apple does not want you to own and store your own music/media. It wants you to rent and stream all your media. It wants a cut from streaming service providers, and content providers.

Re:Ignored Niches

[Bogtha]

Apple does not want you to own and store your own music/media.

Take off your Apple blinders and think about this rationally. What you are saying doesn't resemble reality in the slightest. Apple have been the world's largest music retailer for years. They have been selling DRM-free music for years. They make billions of dollars a year doing this. They are clearly very, very happy to sell you music and they make a hell of a lot of money doing what you claim they don't want to do.

nah it's a dead cat bounce

[Spy Handler]

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.

Re:nah it's a dead cat bounce

[gstoddart]

It has nothing at all to do with nostalgia. Not even a little. It has to do with a simple, clean device with a lot of storage, that just works.

I updated the OS on my iPod touch .. and three apps broke.

My iPod Classic? It doesn't run iOS, doesn't have apps to break, has huge battery life. Which means until it physically dies, it's going to keep doing the exact same thing.

I wish I'd realized they were getting rid of them , because I'd have bought another one.

For a simple travel player which lets me bring tons of stuff and all that ... I really would rather have that than my Touch. Because I could bring a crap ton of music and movies, and play them through the TV with a simple cable.

My iPod touch has made a lot of business trips in hotels a lot more pleasant.

The old fashioned iPod classic with a spinning HD might be relatively low-tech these days. But it did what it did really damned well.

you can have my classic when you pry it from etc..

[roc97007]

I have a Gen 3 (firewire, not usb) that I've repaired twice (replaced battery and headphone jack) and I'm about to repair for a third time (another battery and a hard drive). It does what I need, holds a massive amount of music, and I find the interface quicker and more intuitive than my daughter's Touch.

Could it be that Apple is having its "Windows XP" moment? That the Classic design was good enough that people just didn't see the reason to upgrade? (And doesn't this run counter to the Apple culture of "abandon your gadget when the next incremental improvement comes out"?)

My iPod Classic has 160GB of capacity...

[osu-neko]

...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.

Re:My iPod Classic has 160GB of capacity...

[xaotikdesigns]

WHAT? That's less than one album. What kind of crap is apple selling?

Re:My iPod Classic has 160GB of capacity...

[ILongForDarkness]

Each to their own I guess but I have a 16GB nano and don't really see the need for more. I get about 2 days straight of battery life and about the same amount of music on the device. I'm never very far from a computer so swapping out the songs isn't a big deal. I'd trade battery life and size or the small amount of convenience of having most/all my music on the device all the time. I suspect that is what is doing in the classic: If people are going to go for a bigger heavy device they'll just use their smartphone. If they want a built for purpose thing they'll probably want it as small as possible. I use it because I don't care too much if I lose it versus my phone and it is small for the gym so I don't need any of those dorky looking arm straps for a cellphone.

Re:you can have my classic when you pry it from et

[PopeRatzo]

and I find the interface quicker and more intuitive than my daughter's Touch.

They Touch (or iPhone) are awful as portable music players. There are a lot of people who still want a dedicated little device that will hold a ton of music and fit in their pocket.

There are lots of old technologies like this. Hell, I still have a little portable AM/FM radio for when I walk the dog and want to listen to the Blackhawks or Bulls game. Like I'll be doing in just a few minutes when the 3rd quarter starts.

Re:Vinyl refuses to die too

[xaotikdesigns]

There is a select group of people that do indeed want to pick up some buggy whips. You just have to visit the right night clubs.

physical buttons are better

[steak]

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

Got the memo?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can build one right now, but it won't be cheap:

- Any android phone with microSD and removable back that has a "thick" back plate available for extended batteries.
- A 512GB SD card.
- A microSD-to-SD cable

In the near future Sandisk will probably be able to cram a hole TB in an SD card and Android phones with 128GB/256GB internal storage are coming.

Re:The real issue is...

[roc97007]

> Apple has in fact turned into the exact kind of company they used to claim they railed against. The cookie cutter mass produced, locked down, conformity based ideal that the old '1984' ad was railing against. Their job culture was most likely always like that, but especially with all the new 'segregated temp employee' churn machines it has only gotten worse.

Exactly. That's it in a nutshell. We have met the enemy and he is us.

To carry this further, you can imagine Apple devices eventually be offered in those impossible-to-open hard molded plastic shells hanging up near the checkout counter. If the device is MEANT to be a throw-away, doesn't that just SCREAM "commodity"? Can Apple have it both ways? Boutique business model with disposable products? I'm thinking, not for long.

I hate electronics consumer culture

[dskoll]

Yes, it's very trendy to get a new phone every year. And yes, it's fun to laugh at those neanderthals and troglodytes who have *gasp* last generation's iPod.

Now trace all those discarded electronics to their end-of-life graves and see how we're poisoning the environment with arsenic, plastics, cadmium and other toxic chemicals, all just to satisfy our craving for shiny things.

I would be proud to own a 12-year-old piece of electronic gear that still functions and does what I need. I have a five-year-old phone (Nokia N900) and bought my daughter's iPod third-hand for $30; it plays my music just fine. No plans to replace the phone or the iPod any time soon.

Re:I hate electronics consumer culture

[Dutch Gun]

I wouldn't worry too much about the "throwaway" culture and the desire to get a new phone every year. The real reason this has been happening is because the technology is advancing so bloody fast. Phones will eventually reach a quality level and degree of market saturation so that it's no longer necessary or even desirable to upgrade so rapidly.

Look at what's happened with PCs. I feel people misunderstood the "decline" of the PC market significantly, declaring the era of PCs over, PCs are dead, blah, blah. Nonsense. What happened was a convergence of several factors: PC speed, power, and storage reached such a level that it was no longer necessary to upgrade every few years, since PCs even six or seven years old are perfectly capable of running most business software. CPUs became so small and powerful that a lot of previous tasks only performed by PCs could now be performed by phones or tablets. Nowadays, there's no reason to expect that a decent mid-grade PC will last you less than five years at a minimum, and maybe even a decade or more if you want to stretch it's life out.

I think a similar "market peak" will eventually occur with phones in the near future - maybe within the next five years or so. I think we're already starting to see it with tablets. At some point, people will stop caring about faster processors, more memory / storage. We've already reached the saturation point with graphics resolution, of course. More importantly, the novelty will wear off, and people will tire of spending hundreds of dollars each year for a new gizmo that does pretty much what last year's gizmo does, only a tiny big better.

Re:I hate electronics consumer culture

[Fishchip]

But the sound particles degrade over time!

Re:I hate electronics consumer culture

[Dutch Gun]

As an old(er) fart, I would respectfully disagree. Shitty firmware and an abandoned or poorly supported product is a perfectly good reason to throw something out and get new hardware. If you're dissatisfied enough with your phone to complain about it to other people, don't then turn around and grumble that people are telling you to get a better one. What else are they supposed to suggest? Just don't make the same mistake and buy a product that doesn't work well out of the box, or buy from the same company, thus rewarding their poor after-sales service.

The way I figure it, my time and satisfaction level are both valuable to me, and I'm willing to pay for a product that performs to my satisfaction. Of course, once I find a device that's working well for me, I'll hold onto it for a long time - typically long into obsolescence. I'm not into the "replace my gadget every year or two" race, but I don't see the point in putting up with unnecessary annoyances when better alternatives exist for a very modest price.

sansa story

[Ragica]

Despite having had a phone and tablet, I still use my sandisk sansa e200-series mp3 player daily. I've owned the newer sansa clip, fuse and fuse+, but I just keep going back to an e-series... the perfect device for me, with rockbox installed. It's small, and tactile, and has fantastic battery life, and microSD slot. The design is a sort of clunkier miniature iPod classic. I can operate it completely (rockbox has voice menus) in my pocket without looking, or from a lanyard hanging around my neck. I also use the sleep timer, and variable speed play back (for audio books) a lot.

And there were years when you could get these things pretty cheap on ebay, because in the ipod/ipod touch frenzy, only an enlightened few seemed to want these things. Well, the enlightened few (mostly rockbox users) still cling to this device, but they are getting harder to find... and in recent years the price is going up. Though they are still usually well under $100; sometimes even under $50. I have a couple of them hoarded for myself. I fear the day when they break down (i've gone through a few of them) and I can find no more sources.

Though, also I earnestly have hoped through the years that something better could come along. I hoped my android devices, with suitable software, would take over... but they have not managed it. The ability to operate the thing blind, it's size and battery life, (and the handy lanyard attachment spot!) just keep it in use...

Rockbox also runs on ipod classic, and I've considered many times getting an iPod classic to run rockbox... it seems like they'd work similarly to my sansas, but they (like most apple products) are just too damned expensive. Also bigger and heavier.

Re:you can have my classic when you pry it from et

[ZipK]

Hell, I still have a little portable AM/FM radio for when I walk the dog and want to listen to the Blackhawks or Bulls game.

The Sangean DT-200X is a sweet pocket radio. 19 presets, physical buttons that can be operated without lookig, and it can pull broadcasts out of the ether with no net.

Re:you can have my classic when you pry it from et

[PopeRatzo]

I use the DT-400W. Have owned Sangean for years. It's got a little speaker for when I'm shaving and it's tough as nails. I've dropped it countless times, it lasts forever on a pair of AA batteries and pulls in the stations like a boss.

For some reason, mobile phone apps like iHeartRadio or TuneInRadio don't carry the local sports teams' games, but my radio gets them no problem. Sometimes, I even prefer listening to games on the radio to TV, when the announcers are really good like the team that does the Blackhawks. Or I have the game on TV with the sound turned down and the radio on with earbuds.

Rotating hard disk memory...

[dbc]

... just has a warmer sound.

Re:Transend MP870

[evanh]

I've happily used 32GB already. It's odd how press releases always limit themselves to what was tested with no indication that bigger sizes may also work.

Re:The real issue is...

[DigiShaman]

To carry this further, you can imagine Apple devices eventually be offered in those impossible-to-open hard molded plastic shells hanging up near the checkout counter. If the device is MEANT to be a throw-away, doesn't that just SCREAM "commodity"? Can Apple have it both ways? Boutique business model with disposable products? I'm thinking, not for long.

Apple is selling you a platform; and ideology. The hardware is merely a vessel to carry and express it. The fact the hardware is throw-away is inconsequential to the aforementioned core philosophy that Apple espouses to the market. For example, the "cloud" represents the method now.

Re:Tactile controls

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just the Classic that's missed. I like the size and convenience of the Nano, but despise the newest generations with their touchscreen interfaces. I use my Nano 5g walking and driving. I like that I can easily hit play/pause or skip without having to take my attention away from what's in front of me.

That's precisely what's keeping my iPod classic in use years later. With the clickwheel thing, I can keep the ipod in my pocket and still pause/unpause or change tracks without having to reach into the pocket, just by putting a bit of pressure on the area where I know the wheel is. Volume changes need hand in pocket, but none of these basic interactions require removing it from my pocket and looking at the device, so it's less distracting.

You can't get that with a touchscreen player. The closest I've seen is sometimes players can use hardware buttons, and there are headphones that have controls built in, but I've tried both methods before and they just aren't as convenient as the ipod classic's wheel.

The massive storage and long battery life are also useful. Even years later (6 or more?) my ipod classic gets better battery life than any phone I've used, if both are playing music non-stop. Plus I can have my entire collection at decent quality instead of a fraction of my collection at inferior quality.

I'm not even an Apple fan, and I don't generally like their products, but the pre-touchscreen ipod is a fine piece of hardware that deserved its popularity. Its biggest failing was Apple deciding to shackle it to iTunes, but once I activated the device I didn't care because Linux had good enough support for adding playlists and music.