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iPod iPod Classic 2010--Where's it Headed?
- Thread starter puma1552
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the classic is stuck between being obsolete and the point where flash storage hasn't quite caught up with its capacity needs yet.
i had an old 4th gen ipod at 80gigs and i couldn't fit anything on there. i 'upgraded' to a nano to keep only my top rated songs on. i don't want another ipod with a hard drive in it. they're too prone to failure. i also don't want my phone to be my primary listening device. not that it could come close to holding everything either.
i doubt we'll see any major changes in the ipods this year. they're sales are declining gradually in any event.
i had an old 4th gen ipod at 80gigs and i couldn't fit anything on there. i 'upgraded' to a nano to keep only my top rated songs on. i don't want another ipod with a hard drive in it. they're too prone to failure. i also don't want my phone to be my primary listening device. not that it could come close to holding everything either.
i doubt we'll see any major changes in the ipods this year. they're sales are declining gradually in any event.
I know in theory that HDD's are more delicate, but I still haven't had a HDD break on me. I'm still using a 4gb Microdrive that came with my SLR camera in 2006 and my 2007 5.5G iPod is still as good as it always was.
I've never dropped an iPod though. I'd imagine that's a fairly quick way to break the drive.
Whatever they do has no impact on me, as I see no point in buying a new iPod when I have one the works perfectly. I hope they just leave it alone hardware-wise and just tweak the software a bit, so if I need a new one it will work fine
its not only dropping. its the hot/cold/humidity fluctuations here that will wear them down faster too. i've had a couple of iPod drives go on me though the years and quite a few regular desktop drives too. it happens. moving parts are moving parts and are more prone to failure.
I still have the first ipod video, recently ive been getting black pixel burn outs on the screen but i still love the thing. Im thinking of upgrading to a classic when (hopefully) the new one comes out in September. But i would like to see a few things, a refreshed outer casing design. Screen size is fine the current size its at, it could be a little bigger but i don't want scrollwhell size to change. A bump to 160GB or even 240GB would make my day.
Also im thinkin apple is gonna start integrating wifi chips into the ipod nano and ipod classics in september, so they can get as many users as possible to use there new cloud service they should be announcing soon.
Also im thinkin apple is gonna start integrating wifi chips into the ipod nano and ipod classics in september, so they can get as many users as possible to use there new cloud service they should be announcing soon.
I'd hope its like the B&N Nook reader, it'll download books off 3G networks for free. But I'm completely with you, I wouldn't pay for it either. Perhaps with the low volume of data transferring and if there is improved infrastructure it's viable. Maybe not in a year but I think it's the future and maybe it's more of a Nano feature; having some flash drive space and the capability for wireless.
I sort of thought like if you buy a song in iTunes or import somewhere that you own the rights to listen to the song by any means. Cloud iTunes releases the right to play the song over the internet either off it's server or from your home computer network. We can listen to 30 second previews on iPhone's, stream from Pandora, use the Remote app to control iTunes, I believe the technology is there and maybe isn't that practical, I don't think streaming your own music to yourself is that far off.
Are there a ton of kinks and flaws in my dream? Absolutely
I'm really hoping for a flash drive, though realistically does anyone see this happening? I'm not so sure, particularly if they want to keep current prices...
I was holding onto my 5.5gen iPod with an iron fist like many on this thread, until Apple added the option to send downconverted 128 bit rate files to the device. Previously, the 240GB hard drive in my modded iPod was the only way to carry my entire lossless library with me (saving the hassle of manually maintaining extra copies of all my music).
While I like the idea of having the lossless version with me, I also want to lug around fewer pieces of hardware, so I used this new functionality in iTunes to put my library on my existing iPod touch, and will do so soon when I get the iPhone 4, further consolidating hardware.
This simple feature added to iTunes removed me from the ultra-capacity iPod market, and I imagine had a similar affect on others.
Hopefully the ol' classic sticks around for at least another year thou. Would suck for folks to be forced to choose what music to sync when technology exists which could allow them to sync it all.
Like others, I'm not sold on the cloud-based music storage concept. Being dependent on Internet access would be too limiting, and the new AT&T 3G data traffic restrictions make it even less practical.
While I like the idea of having the lossless version with me, I also want to lug around fewer pieces of hardware, so I used this new functionality in iTunes to put my library on my existing iPod touch, and will do so soon when I get the iPhone 4, further consolidating hardware.
This simple feature added to iTunes removed me from the ultra-capacity iPod market, and I imagine had a similar affect on others.
Hopefully the ol' classic sticks around for at least another year thou. Would suck for folks to be forced to choose what music to sync when technology exists which could allow them to sync it all.
Like others, I'm not sold on the cloud-based music storage concept. Being dependent on Internet access would be too limiting, and the new AT&T 3G data traffic restrictions make it even less practical.
That's just an iPod touch though? I doubt Apple will go back to the clickwheel for their high-end stuff. Given that flash is still a while away from hitting the 128 GB sweet spot at a reasonable price, the hard drive iPod is here to stay for a little bit more.
I really like the thoughts about adding HD video to the Classic and maybe wifi capabilities to upload them (bluetooth to mbp?) I think they'll keep it at least another year because of it is so identifiable with Apple, but it is somewhat outdated.
Also interesting how the comments about the feel of the iPhone 4 are a lot like the iPod Classic: a solid hunk of technology. That's what people love about the classic and it is good to see Apple is going back to that ideology after the curved plastic back of the 3GS.
I think they will discontinue it simply because there are so many other things Apple wants to sell you (read APPS) that the Classic doesn't have.
Will be a sad day though...
Also interesting how the comments about the feel of the iPhone 4 are a lot like the iPod Classic: a solid hunk of technology. That's what people love about the classic and it is good to see Apple is going back to that ideology after the curved plastic back of the 3GS.
I think they will discontinue it simply because there are so many other things Apple wants to sell you (read APPS) that the Classic doesn't have.
Will be a sad day though...
I personally would be totally gutted if they killed off the Classic!! Aside from being a staple "classic" (literally) icon of design; I want my iPod to do one very simple thing: store and play my music collection.
I currently have an iPhone and an 80GB iPod classic. I can't bear using my iPhone for listening to music because a) I have it set up with a Passcode for security reasons that I need to 'bypass' every time I want to change album/artist which is really annoying, and b) my iPhone is only 16GB and I like to carry around as much music as I can. Nothing more annoying than suddenly thinking "oh I really want to listen to such-a-such" and not having it on your mp3 player!
I am really tempted to upgrade to the 160GB Classic - partly so I could fit on more music (I own around 220GB music so even 160GB is too small) and partly because I would find the headphone remote really useful - but I am worried that they could cancel the Classic or perhaps upgrade it and I could miss out either way.
Anyway. I am a die-hard Classic fan and would be very disappointed if they discontinued it! I am sure that users with huge music collections are in a minority but surely it's still enough of a niche market for Apple to nurture and provide for. Serious music collectors would look elsewhere if they discontinued it.
I currently have an iPhone and an 80GB iPod classic. I can't bear using my iPhone for listening to music because a) I have it set up with a Passcode for security reasons that I need to 'bypass' every time I want to change album/artist which is really annoying, and b) my iPhone is only 16GB and I like to carry around as much music as I can. Nothing more annoying than suddenly thinking "oh I really want to listen to such-a-such" and not having it on your mp3 player!
I am really tempted to upgrade to the 160GB Classic - partly so I could fit on more music (I own around 220GB music so even 160GB is too small) and partly because I would find the headphone remote really useful - but I am worried that they could cancel the Classic or perhaps upgrade it and I could miss out either way.
Anyway. I am a die-hard Classic fan and would be very disappointed if they discontinued it! I am sure that users with huge music collections are in a minority but surely it's still enough of a niche market for Apple to nurture and provide for. Serious music collectors would look elsewhere if they discontinued it.
Obviously want it thinner, which means flash based. Another thing is is the feel of the click wheel different from the iPod video 5g? Bc I'm not liking the feel of the iPod Classic click wheel. Could they change it to the feel of the trackpad on the new macbook pros?
Did you see the picture on the WWDC keynote with the iPhone internals? That 32GB chip was pretty small, take out the harddrive from a classic and you could probably fit a whole bunch of those in there and a 256 GB model would not be that unlikely
Yeah, I think if anything gets a camera it'll be the touch/iPhone. Apart from anything else it's odd to put a camera in a classic when it's not got the screen size.
Tbh, I can't really see Apple going big down the camera route.
I never use the iPod in my iPhone. The headphone jack gave in in my iPod 5G and I used the iPhone while I waited for the replacement part. Bad times.
The Classic seems pretty expensive these days as well. They're something like £190 here which really surprised me when I thought about buying one, if they dropped that to £160/50 they'd sell a tonne more. It's not like they've spent any money on redesigning them in the past few years.
Computers record videos straight from a webcam wether it's a good one or a cheap one just fine with standard HD's, I'm pretty sure the iPod would do the same pretty reasonably...It can't be THAT slow.
Yeah, but why? I've got a camera that records video, i've got a phone that records video, I'm on the verge of buying an actual video camera thats whole purpose is to record video.
Why stick it in an iPod? The quality'll be worse than it is in a phone and it'll just cost money. I'd rather they just used that space for extra battery/memory so that my music player can play music for longer.
I think its done this year sadly. It is the iPod I use the most out of my collection and it'll be sad to see it go but with virtually no updates in the last 3 years outside of capacity [which really isn't a upgrade when you consider 160gb model was available in 2007] I don't think they are going to do anything with it this year.
The iPod Classic now only fits the niche of the market where the "geeks" want as much capacity as possible. The iPod Touch is catching up and Steve knows where the most sales are as far as capacity goes.
The iPod Classic now only fits the niche of the market where the "geeks" want as much capacity as possible. The iPod Touch is catching up and Steve knows where the most sales are as far as capacity goes.
yeah u can have an array of those chips on there, but the thing is.. they are expensive.
with the iphone 4 only getting 32GB tops, it looks like the touch will stay at 64GB and the classic may get a "repreive" for one more year. I doubt we'll see the classic past Sep 2011.
I still have the classic, it never really gets used but it's nice to have to store all my music on it.
I still have the classic, it never really gets used but it's nice to have to store all my music on it.
Personaly I'd like it if they stuck the 320gig 1.8" drive from tosh in it and the front off an iPod touch on it, perhaps with a mode that mimics the click wheel for all you Ludites. It's going to be a while before solid state overtakes platters in the GB per £ or $ stakes.
You'll find you can shake a classic quite a lot because it loads up several minutes of music into it's ram and spins down the hdd. It only spins it up periodically to fill up the buffer. Still if it's vibrated for a long time it might get upset.
Incidentally a lot of suspected 4G iPod hdd failures are actually down to the ribbon that connects the drive to the logic board.
I've got a 160 gig classic that shamefully spends most of it's life in the glovebox of my car connected to the stereo. Occasionally it gets sat in a Klipsch dock when I'm lounging about.
You'll find you can shake a classic quite a lot because it loads up several minutes of music into it's ram and spins down the hdd. It only spins it up periodically to fill up the buffer. Still if it's vibrated for a long time it might get upset.
Incidentally a lot of suspected 4G iPod hdd failures are actually down to the ribbon that connects the drive to the logic board.
I've got a 160 gig classic that shamefully spends most of it's life in the glovebox of my car connected to the stereo. Occasionally it gets sat in a Klipsch dock when I'm lounging about.
