Death of the iPod (Everyone's buying vinyl)

[mjzee]

And the world is slowly moving away from hard drives and toward solid state.

[Scott Dolan]

Agreed.

The answer doesn't even make sense. They can get anyone to manufacture parts for it? Um...yeah.

Why not just be honest and say sales were way down, and they chose to refocus on better selling items?

A firm like that CAN get anyone to make bits, but maybe can't get anyone to make bits at a price that's consonant with the price they sell the ipods at. And the equation would likely be worse if sales were declining.

MG

Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. I just wasn't understanding why he was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by giving an answer, that even under the lightest scrutiny, didn't make sense.

[Dave Garrett]

And the world is slowly moving away from hard drives and toward solid state.

Indeed, the "parts" in question were the 1.8 inch hard drives supplied by Toshiba, which were discontinued some time ago.

http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/28/cook-ipod-classic-no-parts/

[Noj]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

[Eric]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

Hell yeah

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

How do you get all the lineup &c onto an ipod? I'd like that on mine.

MG

[kh1958]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

Same here; someone needs to come up with the terabyte portable music player.

[Scott Dolan]

Hate to say, but I think the iPod is going bye bye soon.And I mean all of them.

[RayB]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

Oh yes please.

[Noj]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

How do you get all the lineup &c onto an ipod? I'd like that on mine.

MG

MG, it was an improvement I thought of spontaneously, since the iPod touch would have a larger screen and more room for information. That info could just display during the song, in a hierarchy of sorts. There would be room for it to stream along below the square cover art. Hell, I'd even like for all of the cover art to show, perhaps animated with gatefolds opening, etc. I can dream, can't I?

You can manually enter all that information by selecting a track and hitting File/Get Info, but it doesn't actively display while the song plays or anything.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Noj

[Eric]

I had an iPod shortly after they came out, up until I got an iPhone. I prefer one device to two, so while the phone did not have the same capacity, there were not too many compromises. Today, with a 128GB iPhone, plus great screen resolution on the artwork, it is hard to imagine why I would need a classic. Now if you can give me 2TB flash storage, lossless playback and the high resolution screen, I might be interested.

[Scott Dolan]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

[Eric]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

You can have an ALAC file as the source, but they are converted to lossy when you sync (you can chose from several bitrates (128, 192 or 256).

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I prefer to be my own entity, independent of radio, streaming services, clouds, etc. and for that reason I LOVE my 160gb iPod classics. I'm bitter they discontinued them. I want a terabyte iPod touch. Immediately. One device, my whole collection, displaying beautiful cover art and preferably streaming the artist lineup, recording date, and liner notes if there's time.

How do you get all the lineup &c onto an ipod? I'd like that on mine.

MG

MG, it was an improvement I thought of spontaneously, since the iPod touch would have a larger screen and more room for information. That info could just display during the song, in a hierarchy of sorts. There would be room for it to stream along below the square cover art. Hell, I'd even like for all of the cover art to show, perhaps animated with gatefolds opening, etc. I can dream, can't I?

You can manually enter all that information by selecting a track and hitting File/Get Info, but it doesn't actively display while the song plays or anything.

Oh. I haven't got one of those - I've got the 160GB version that's just been discontinued.

Oh well...

MG

[Shawn]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

You can have an ALAC file as the source, but they are converted to lossy when you sync (you can chose from several bitrates (128, 192 or 256).

If you WANT them down-converted they will be converted, it's a selectable setting. iPods are 100% compatible with lossless ALAC files.

[Eric]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

You can have an ALAC file as the source, but they are converted to lossy when you sync (you can chose from several bitrates (128, 192 or 256).

If you WANT them down-converted they will be converted, it's a selectable setting. iPods are 100% compatible with lossless ALAC files.

Really? I had no idea. I will have to figure this out ...

[Eric]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

You can have an ALAC file as the source, but they are converted to lossy when you sync (you can chose from several bitrates (128, 192 or 256).

If you WANT them down-converted they will be converted, it's a selectable setting. iPods are 100% compatible with lossless ALAC files.

Really? I had no idea. I will have to figure this out ...

OK, is it as simple as unchecking the "Convert higher bit songs to ..." box when you are copying an ALAC file?

[Shawn]

Don't all iDevices support ALAC?

You can have an ALAC file as the source, but they are converted to lossy when you sync (you can chose from several bitrates (128, 192 or 256).

If you WANT them down-converted they will be converted, it's a selectable setting. iPods are 100% compatible with lossless ALAC files.

Really? I had no idea. I will have to figure this out ...

OK, is it as simple as unchecking the "Convert higher bit songs to ..." box when you are copying an ALAC file?

Yes.

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, Shawn beat me to it. I guess iTunes now,checks that box by default, but it didn't used to.

Either way, I always convert mine down to 256 AAC since I can hear absolutely no difference between it and ALAC. Especially on a relatively lower end CODEC/DAC, like those that come built into iDevices.

[Eric]

Yeah, Shawn beat me to it. I guess iTunes now,checks that box by default, but it didn't used to.

Either way, I always convert mine down to 256 AAC since I can hear absolutely no difference between it and ALAC. Especially on a relatively lower end CODEC/DAC, like those that come built into iDevices.

Yep, that is what I have been doing to save space, just did not realize there was an option

[Scott Dolan]

Yeah, I was at work when I posted that yesterday, so I couldn't double check on my iMac. But, I was pretty sure that no Apple product would refuse to support its' proprietary CODEC.

Do you personally see a reason to use ALAC over AAC, though? I know I don't. I can't even hear a difference on my main system, which has a far superior DAC and detailed sound than my iDevices.

I've always encouraged folks to give them an honest comparison. As I've stated in the past, I was actively wanting to hear a difference. Just wasn't happening. Modern day lossy CODECs are just vastly superior to what came before them.

[mjzee]

Apple made billions giving people what they want, but the tech giant might want to rethink its decision to kill off the iPod Classic music player, now that it has become one of the hottest Christmas presents of the year.

People are clamoring for used models on eBay, and according to the UK newspaper The Guardian. The 16-gigabyte digital music player, which a decade ago helped Apple revolutionize the music industry, can hold up to 40,000 songs, more than double the amount of any iPods currently being manufactured.

More than 3,000 have been sold on eBay since the Classic was retired in October, fetching prices as high as $400 in a boomlet foretold by Stuff magazine editor Will Dunn more than a year ago.

More here: http://www.foxnews.com/science/2014/12/10/apple-discontinued-ipod-classic-fetching-mega-bucks-as-hot-christmas-gift/

[Scott Dolan]

Saw several eBay regular sellers earlier today say those aren't sold prices, just prices being asked for. And that if you look at sold products you'll see them still going for as little as $90.

[Brad]

Looks like new ones are still in the high 300s to 400.

Hopefully prices will settle down next year.

[John L]

Hopefully, some company will take note of this and fill the void that Apple left in the market.