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.

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.

physical buttons are better

[steak]

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

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: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.

Rotating hard disk memory...

[dbc]

... just has a warmer sound.