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Apple waves goodbye to the iPod Classic

by Mark Tyson on 10 September 2014, 10:30

Tags: iPod Touch, iPod shuffle

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After the grand reveal of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch at Apple's much hyped press conference yesterday, the company has silently removed the original iPod Classic from its iPod product page lineup. Now we are left with just the iPod touch, iPod nano and iPod shuffle to appeal to the shrinking dedicated MP3 player market.

The Click-Wheel controlled music player debuted in 2007 and evolved with some slimming down, click wheel tweaks and aesthetic changes implemented from around 2009. It has been a stolid member of Apple's music player product lineup while other products gradually moved to touchscreen interfaces and iOS. Apple continued to sell it in silver and black, its larger chassis meant that the company was able to push the device as its most voluminous music player, with 160GB of internal storage on a spinning hard drive. The most capacious iPod model now available comes with just 64GB of storage for your music and videos.

Over the years, the iPod Classic has generated a good amount of income for Apple. In 2009, at the peak of the MP3 player's popularity, 54.83 million iPod units shipped with the Classic accounting for a large chunk of that number, reports CNet. It introduced many consumers to the company's hardware and software products and the iTunes store. However Apple's iPhone (and rival smartphone) releases quickly cannibalised the casual MP3 playing market, thus iPod sales declined sharply.

Did you own an old Apple iPod Classic? Please share your thoughts upon the demise of the Classic range.

U2 album free on iTunes

After performing at the iPhone launch event yesterday, rock band U2 announced that they are giving away their new album for free. Over half a billion iTunes customers will get the album free, it's said to be the largest album release in history.

Songs Of Innocence will be freely downloadable by iTunes customers in 119 countries before going on general release on 13 October.



HEXUS Forums :: 12 Comments

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Good step in the right direction.We certainly hope that in the near future they will add a >115db snr and at least 100db chanell separation dac +flac support.
I think it's an awful decision. I can't cram all my music onto the 160Gb Classic I've already got and I'm hopeless and choosing what to not put on there. I'd really like a larger capacity device than I've already got.
Did you own an old Apple iPod Classic? Please share your thoughts upon the demise of the Classic range.
I don't have a Classic - mainly because I bought a 5th Gen iPod “Video” and couldn't see a big deal in the move to the Classic, other than the jump from 80GB to 160GB storage.

Actually recently bought a “broken” iPod Video from eBay and used the iFlash upgrade to mod it from 30GB HDD (stock) to 128GB SD Flash. Unfortunately, the motherboard-mounted microswitch for pause/play turned out to be shot, but a Fiio E1 headphone amplifier turned out to be the solution - and a lot cheaper than a new motherboard. Only downside being that the hold-pause-to-turn-off gesture doesn't work.

If this announcement means a flood of cheap 160GB Classics then I might be tempted to have a go at a flash mod on one of those, if there's a suitable one on eBay. Other than that I think this is bad move - after all as burble points out there's folks out there who want to bring a large library with them. I was kind of hoping for a new Classic perhaps fitted with a large capacity SSD.
After performing at the iPhone launch event yesterday, rock band U2 announced that they are giving away their new album for free. Over half a billion iTunes customers will get the album free, it's said to be the largest album release in history.
Not unexpected, U2 have had previous tie-ups with Apple - remember the iPod Video “U2 Edition”. Pretty sure I won't be rushing out to download the new album since I'm not a fan.
xslavic
Good step in the right direction.We certainly hope that in the near future they will add a >115db snr and at least 100db chanell separation dac +flac support.
Not a chance - you're talking about audiophile type setup and Apple's not interested in that. And I don't see how killing the “proper” iPod is a “step in the right direction”. If you're interested in good fidelity then - based on the comments on various sites - they should have killed the Touch with it's “sounds best with Beats” reproduction. And yes, I was being ironic with the Beats comment. :(
burble
I think it's an awful decision. I can't cram all my music onto the 160Gb Classic I've already got and I'm hopeless and choosing what to not put on there. I'd really like a larger capacity device than I've already got.
Then basically you've got to look somewhere else. That said, Tarkan's supposedly working on a mod that'll let you have a 1TB iPod. Failing mods, there's stuff like the Fiio X5 that can support 256GB now (no internal storage - it uses uSDXC cards). And a quick look around shows that there's other “audiophile” players that might fit the bill - although some of these are at prices that would make a stock-trading banker wince.
burble
I think it's an awful decision. I can't cram all my music onto the 160Gb Classic I've already got and I'm hopeless and choosing what to not put on there. I'd really like a larger capacity device than I've already got.

It's pricey, but the Fiio X5 has no onboard storage, just 2 MicroSD slots, each capable of 128GB. When larger SD cards become available, a firmware update will let it accept them.
Thanks for the tips guys, I'll do some reading.