iPod Classic discontinued

heavymental

Have you heard all the fuss about the iPod Classic being discontinued? Don't think they have a plan to replace it so people have been snapping up second hand ones for silly money.

I'm a bit worried as mine is a few years old, has the very occasional glitch but is a great bit of kit. Excellent design, sturdy and does exactly what you'd want it to... store all the music you own on one well designed device that has no other function. Perfect piece of kit.

I'm hoping mine doesn't die. Is there a good alternative out there that suits the above criteria?

katiebob

I need the answer to this too...

My iPod Video is about 7 years old and still going strong but ive only got about 3gb left. In sept I went to get the classic but it had been disontinued the week before :-( Was gutted.

Am hoping mine will last until a sensible replacement comes out - I dont want a touch its just like an iphone. :-(

heavymental

Yes there's lots of suggestions out there to getting a phone with a big memory card but that's not the point.

pblakeney

Sell it.
The bubble will burst and you will be left with a worthless mp3 player that will fail at any moment.

heavymental

You're missing the point! Or was that a joke? I want to keep it because I use it every day and it's a great piece of kit. I don't think it's going to fail at any moment... but recognise that it will eventually.

pblakeney

Heavymental wrote:

You're missing the point! Or was that a joke? I want to keep it because I use it every day and it's a great piece of kit. I don't think it's going to fail at any moment... but recognise that it will eventually.

Not a joke.
The current prices are a joke though.
Does it do anything that my phone doesn't?
Obsolete, and Apple know it.

Monkeypump

I have an old classic (still working fine, touch wood) and an old iPhone 4, both only used for music (phone is iPhone 5). I tend to use the old iPhone for music much more around the house (usually on a Zeppelin), as it gives me the option of internet radio too.

type:epyt

A 64gb Touch is £249 so not much more expensive than my first 20gb iPod I paid £220 for. One advantage of a Touch (or old iPhone) is that it can be used to stream via wifi from your computer to elsewhere in the house.

The only time this is going to be an issue is when your last 30pin device breaks and that means you are both a music hub and music player down. I have a Bose and Zeppelin Mini and as it stands the 'adaptor' isn't a workable option due to fragility or lack of cable length.

Luckily still got a 120gb classic, 2 16gb Nano's and 16gb & 32gb spare 4S's lying around. I 'should' be covered for another few years. My only concern is that iTunes stops supporting the older devices (although keeping an old laptop with an older version isn't that much hassle).

RDW

I have a 160GB Classic (the first version, before they slimmed it down a bit). Plenty of capacity and still the best interface for an mp3 player that has yet been devised, so I can understand the demand. Never really saw the point of the Touch - only Apple could get away with selling a smartphone without a phone! When the Classic was discontinued I had a look at the alternatives for the future, and ended up buying a Sansa Clip Zip to play around with. With Rockbox installed, it can read a 128GB microSDXC, which is plenty for me at the moment. Although the fiddly interface is nowhere near as good as the iPod's, the screen is tiny (I pretty much need reading glasses to operate it), and the build quality is only a little better than you might expect for the price, I find I'm now using the Sansa a lot more than the Classic - the sound quality is very good, the size and weight make it very handy to carry around, and the FM radio is useful. I guess I'll look out for an SD socket on my next phone, but for now the Sansa is my main source of portable music.

southdownswolf

I've never been a fan of Apple products in general, however, the Ipod Classic and the 1st,2nd,4th and 5th gen Nano's are fantastic devices. Shame they have stopped producing the Classic, but I guess the market has dropped to a level that it is not economic to produce anymore.
I can't think of any direct replacements to the Classic, but you could have a look at the Sony Walkman range and also Cowon produce a few good MP3 players. Sony produce some fantastic sounding players, but might not be what you are looking for. They are either Nano equivalents or much more expensive than the Ipod Classic. http://www.sony.co.uk/electronics/walkm ... /t/walkman

heavymental

PBlakeney wrote:

Heavymental wrote:

You're missing the point! Or was that a joke? I want to keep it because I use it every day and it's a great piece of kit. I don't think it's going to fail at any moment... but recognise that it will eventually.

Not a joke.
The current prices are a joke though.
Does it do anything that my phone doesn't?
Obsolete, and Apple know it.

It doesn't do anything except play music which is the reason I like it. A design classic I'd say. If you prefer to have a gadget that does everything then that's fine but I like having something specific to the job.

ugo.santalucia

Mmmh, where did I put that iPod nano... ??? Looks like there's a buck to be made there

pblakeney

Heavymental wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

Heavymental wrote:

You're missing the point! Or was that a joke? I want to keep it because I use it every day and it's a great piece of kit. I don't think it's going to fail at any moment... but recognise that it will eventually.

Not a joke.
The current prices are a joke though.
Does it do anything that my phone doesn't?
Obsolete, and Apple know it.

It doesn't do anything except play music which is the reason I like it. A design classic I'd say. If you prefer to have a gadget that does everything then that's fine but I like having something specific to the job.

I prefer to carry as few gadgets as possible and I am carrying a phone anyway.
Each to their own.

heavymental

Fair enuff.

type:epyt

Apple are just trying to take us a step further away from the customer actually having something that doesn't require them to keep on supporting their business. If you own a classic and have iTunes on a computer you can live your life happily without ever connecting to the internet or Apple again. Yes, something might go wrong but then records, tapes and even cd's have a shelf life.

Apple expect us to buy digital music even though we own the cd's (it might even still be technically illegal to rip cd's to mp3 for own use ... the law is either about to, or has changed, I can't remember). But now Apple have worked out that people can still take ownership by just not connecting to the net again so they want us all to use the cloud and only internet connectable devices are good for that. Remember iTunes Match? Apple wanting control of your music so you have to pay for a device to get it back. Their streaming service will be interesting when it arrives, in 256kbps no doubt.

heavymental

type:epyt wrote:

Apple are just trying to take us a step further away from the customer actually having something that doesn't require them to keep on supporting their business. If you own a classic and have iTunes on a computer you can live your life happily without ever connecting to the internet or Apple again. Yes, something might go wrong but then records, tapes and even cd's have a shelf life.

Apple expect us to buy digital music even though we own the cd's (it might even still be technically illegal to rip cd's to mp3 for own use ... the law is either about to, or has changed, I can't remember). But now Apple have worked out that people can still take ownership by just not connecting to the net again so they want us all to use the cloud and only internet connectable devices are good for that. Remember iTunes Match? Apple wanting control of your music so you have to pay for a device to get it back. Their streaming service will be interesting when it arrives, in 256kbps no doubt.

Hmm. Food for thought. This is my objection to a lot of stuff out there; I don't want to always be connected to the internet. It over complicates things. An ipod means you occasionally hook it up to your laptop to put stuff on it but by just ripping cd's you don't have to ever go online unless you want to update Genius or download something. As you say, clearly Apple have figured that out and realised they don't make any money by selling you a Classic. It might be 10 years until the thing dies and you have to buy another product. I'm surprised they made it at all given that obvious flaw.

Typical of the wider issues of a consumerist society. Keep the money flowing.

awavey

PBlakeney wrote:

I prefer to carry as few gadgets as possible and I am carrying a phone anyway.
Each to their own.

well my phone barely lasts a day without recharging it as it is, if I started to listen to music on it too, it would completely stuff it and be unusable for anything after less than an hour.

my ipod classic on the whole,though its beginning to show signs of wear, can cope with storing 80G of music (none of Apples phones have that amount of storage available) and playing music constantly for 3hrs a day which would be an average round trip train commute or long distance car journey and lasts nearly a week

the lets sign everyone up to streaming services is predicated on having access to the internet all the time, surprisingly enough outside of most of the big cities that doesnt happen so often reliably, actually its not that reliable in big cities either,

so no the whole phone as a music player thing doesnt work for me, the ipod classic worked for me as a portable music player, and if Apple released a brand new one tomorrow, Id buy it, so dont believe there isnt a market or declining demand for one.

eventually Im guessing Ill end up having to follow some of the online videos to replace the hard disk/battery to keep it working, but it seems a badly thought out decision by Apple on this one

katiebob

awavey wrote:

so no the whole phone as a music player thing doesnt work for me, the ipod classic worked for me as a portable music player, and if Apple released a brand new one tomorrow, Id buy it, so dont believe there isnt a market or declining demand for one.

eventually Im guessing Ill end up having to follow some of the online videos to replace the hard disk/battery to keep it working, but it seems a badly thought out decision by Apple on this one

This. Id' snap one up if they relaunched them - what gets me is they all disappeared over night. there must be some avaiable so why not keep them until they all sell.

Youtube videos are good for ipod fixes - I changed the jack on mine with minimal effort.

pblakeney

awavey wrote:

...well my phone barely lasts a day without recharging it as it is, if I started to listen to music on it too, it would completely stuff it and be unusable for anything after less than an hour...
....but it seems a badly thought out decision by Apple on this one

Something not right there.
My phone is 3 years old. I have just spent 1 1/2 hours on the turbo listening at full blast and I am at 90% battery.
Okay, I do charge the phone overnight, every night, but that is hardly a hardship.

My guess is most people are using phones, iPod sales are diminishing, and a business decision was based on that to discontinue the iPod. I dare say that there are still people using cassette Walkmans. Should those be resurrected too?

bompington

The funniest thing is that people are expecting Apple, of all companies, to do what their customers are asking, rather than the customers knowing what's good for them and doing whatever Apple say.

southdownswolf

bompington wrote:

The funniest thing is that people are expecting Apple, of all companies, to do what their customers are asking, rather than the customers knowing what's good for them and doing whatever Apple say.

Baaaaaa

schlepcycling

Surely Apple are trying to get people to pay for cloud storage. The problem (for Apple) with selling a device with 160GB of storage is that most people will be able to get every song they will ever own on it so where's the 'add on' sales for Apple. By selling devices with a max of 64GB of storage which is shared between the operating system,apps,photos,videos and music the user is likely to need extra storage and this is where Apple (and others) are selling their cloud storage. Good business for Apple....a step backwards for consumers.

pblakeney

I have 253Gb of music, I never use the Cloud, and my house computer etc equipment is all Apple products.
It is working fine for me without an iPod.

Omar Little

Bizarre to think of it now but when i got my first ipod people would see me using it then come over and ask me about ask if it really did hold thousands of songs!

My 3rd generation one still works although its always in a dock i dont use the battery now, that was IMO the best design, so simple and uncluttered.

peat

Ive got the Classic 160GB. Probably the best purchase I have ever made. I use it day in day out, my entire music library at my fingertips wherever i am.

I recognise that it will die, but I want a dedicated music player, with a battery that lasts days, not hours. Is there such a thing around?

Primus84

awavey wrote:

PBlakeney wrote:

I prefer to carry as few gadgets as possible and I am carrying a phone anyway.
Each to their own.

well my phone barely lasts a day without recharging it as it is, if I started to listen to music on it too, it would completely stuff it and be unusable for anything after less than an hour.

my ipod classic on the whole,though its beginning to show signs of wear, can cope with storing 80G of music (none of Apples phones have that amount of storage available) and playing music constantly for 3hrs a day which would be an average round trip train commute or long distance car journey and lasts nearly a week

the lets sign everyone up to streaming services is predicated on having access to the internet all the time, surprisingly enough outside of most of the big cities that doesnt happen so often reliably, actually its not that reliable in big cities either,

so no the whole phone as a music player thing doesnt work for me, the ipod classic worked for me as a portable music player, and if Apple released a brand new one tomorrow, Id buy it, so dont believe there isnt a market or declining demand for one.

eventually Im guessing Ill end up having to follow some of the online videos to replace the hard disk/battery to keep it working, but it seems a badly thought out decision by Apple on this one

None of Apple's phone have 80Gb available for music? What about the 128Gb iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus?!

RDW

None of Apple's phone have 80Gb available for music? What about the 128Gb iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus?!

Bargains at £700-£790!

A shame they don't just stick micro SD sockets in the cheaper phones - a 128Gb card is under £70 at the moment. Google is trying to discourage micro SD sockets in Android,too, and doesn't include them in its own phones. It is, of course, a complete coincidence that it also has a cloud music service to push...

Primus84

Ah so now the argument is price? Before it was something different!

RDW

Primus84 wrote:

Ah so now the argument is price? Before it was something different!

Price is a consideration, as is the still higher capacity of the 160GB classic (we'd probably already have at least 320GB Classics if Apple had continued to develop the line). But the main thing I'll miss is the iPod interface, so much better than my Sansa, and preferable to a full touch screen for portable music - with a Classic you can stop, start, change tracks and adjust the volume all without taking it out of your pocket.

Primus84

And you can do that with an iPhone/iPod Touch using an inline remote found on many sets of headphones these days.

RDW

Don't get me started on earphones - my favourites have also been discontinued!