It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Interesting point, and it's close to the reason I love the click-wheel. I don't use shuffle much. I listen to tracks sequentially (audiobooks mainly), and the click-wheel is ideal for adjusting your position forward & backward with precision, skipping tracks, adjusting volume, all without looking at the device. The touch interfaces are very nice, but they require you to look at them. And sometimes that's just not the best use of my eyes (consider, for instance, when I'm driving or on my bicycle).
(touch devices let you adjust the volume without looking, but it's in steps, and it's not nearly as finely adjustable as the click wheel)
Give it another year or two, it will be gone. Flash is coming down, it's only a matter of another year or so before we see 128GB in an iPod Touch. The Classic is still great I think for someone that wants to carry an entire library with them. It will be phased out as soon as 128GB is available in an iDevice. Great updates overall today, very impressed. Still trying to grab an iTunes 10 download, but it's not up yet.
Even when a 128GB iPod Touch comes along it will still 32GB less than the Classic and be considerably costlier.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe hs
It won't survive another year. 10 years Of the classic iPod formfactor. end it on a high note.
Quote:
Originally Posted by johnnyb0731
just because the thing is still advertised and is being sold doesn't mean it survived another year. It could be just as likely that apple is trying to sell their remaining stock
Quote:
Originally Posted by danieljt
I agree with JohnnyB0731.
Notice that Steve Jobs said that they're revamped and redesigned their entire line of iPods (paraphrasing). That means that the Classic, which did not get updated in the slightest, is not included in the lineup because it wasn't updated, much less redesigned.
I surmise they're just allowing people to buy the last of their stock before they take it off of the store website.
Daniel
I disagree with the above 3 posts.
This is the first evidence we’ve seen of the Classic, itself, being obsolesced, but I think it could survive another year. Remember, this is the 1st time they didn’t increase the HDD capacity which likely means Toshiba is no longer investing in denser platters for 1.8” HDDs.
Additionally, since the price wasn’t reduced to the psychologically attractive $199 on this device that is getting no new features and is using the same YoY components I have to think the Classic sales are doing well enough on their own to not warrant a price drop. Now that we have a stopping of the HDD platter density, the next step should be a drop in price when Apple feels that a price drop will boost sales enough to increase profit and prolong its life until it’s just becomes too costly to maintain this well worn tech that long ago paid for the R&D in unit sales. That could be awhile.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkhm
Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
This is a very good observation. Now that you bring this up, I have a feeling that Apple is going to hear about this one, and may have to rethink.
Don’t forget the iPod Shuffle, which has physical controls and voice feedback. And also don’t forge the Accesiblity features Apple built into iOS.
I was hoping they would bump it to 250gb when Steve said all iPods were being updated. How hard would that have been? After that POS nano was introduced and then the touch that can't take decent photos it was starting to become a potential highlight of the event for me.
Only way to bump it that much, even if Toshiba was making denser 1.8” platters would be to add a second platter, so you’d get at least 320GB with the current density HDD. Apple dropped the double-platter Classic a couple years ago and upped the single-platter from 80GB to 120GB, then to 160GB last year. I think it’s safe to say the thinner, single-platter, half-capacity Classic was the least popular or they would have continued it and not the single-platter Classic.
Ah, the visually impaired surely do not deserve to hear or carry around more than a couple of hundred songs, right?
Irrelevant to the discussion. The claim was made that there is no iPod that can be used by the visually impaired and I proved that claimed demonstrably false.
But, if you want to go down that route, please tell me how a blind person navigates a 10000 song collection without being able to see a screen and does not have access to "VoiceOver"? It's like complaining that they took the Braille off of the drive-thru ATM.
Edit: Just to be clear, when I say "see the screen", I am talking about the iPod Classic.
I think the classic will stay on as long as the touch memory maxes out below 100GB. After that I think it will be killed. It is that last device to use iPod OS and it's obvious that Apple is moving all of the mobile devices to iOS now.
Flash storage will probably catch up by next year. And the visually impaired can use VoiceOver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nkhm
It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Flash storage will probably catch up by next year. And the visually impaired can use VoiceOver.
Capacity is only way in which it can catch up. There is capacity for a given volume and cost for that same given volume. Capacity-wise, i believe NAND surpassed the 1.8? HDD capacity well over years ago, it?s cost that is still an issue.
I absolutely LOVE the iPod Classic. I can load it up with everything I have and plug it into my car's media interface and use the car's controls almost exactly like an iPod. A Touch isn't the kind of iPod you hide and a nano is still too small.
Though my Classic will last for many many years to come I hope it is not discontinued.
I completely agree with you. I keep my whole library and plug it into my car's audio interface. I have over 100g's, so putting the music on my puny 15g car hard drive is NOT an option. I hope like hell they don't get rid of the classic! I plan on buying a second family car and I want to put a classic in that one, so we can have all our music in the other car. DON'T KILL THE CLASSIC!
I absolutely LOVE the iPod Classic. I can load it up with everything I have and plug it into my car's media interface and use the car's controls almost exactly like an iPod. A Touch isn't the kind of iPod you hide and a nano is still too small.
Though my Classic will last for many many years to come I hope it is not discontinued.
I agree - I was hoping for a 240GB upgrade. I have a Classic loaded up with Lossless music attached to my car's system. I put it on album shuffle, and off I go on a car trip with endless (almost) entertainment, with only music I truly like, and great uncompressed sound. It makes those 5 hour drives a lot better (it holds about 620 albums, which is good, but I'd like even more).
If I'm travelling and want music at night, I use a fat-boy nano, which is a great design for me, but I wish it held more than 8GB.
Irrelevant to the discussion. The claim was made that there is no iPod that can be used by the visually impaired and I proved that claimed demonstrably false.
But, if you want to go down that route, please tell me how a blind person navigates a 10000 song collection without being able to see a screen and does not have access to "VoiceOver"? It's like complaining that they took the Braille off of the drive-thru ATM.
Edit: Just to be clear, when I say "see the screen", I am talking about the iPod Classic.
Wow, you are so super smart! (/sarcasm)
On a more serious note (and leaving aside the fact that visually impaired does not equal blind), there are lots of ways in which even a blind person can take advantage of thousands of songs. (S)he can create hundreds of playlists on the computer by genre, by artist, mood etc (e.g., on iTunes on the or computer) and use the shuffle feature within a playlist. (S)he can navigate by developing a sense for the number of turns of the click wheel to get from A-Z. I can think of of many other ways.
In any event, our discussion is a little theoretical, since I assume you are not blind. I am not either.
I'm very happy with my Classic. While I don't have all of my extensive music collection on it, having a large storage capacity allows me to carry around a collection of video material, podcasts, and music without having to be concerned with running our of room. As one posting noted, sales on Amazon still look reasonable, at least no reason to kill it off at this time. I can understand that Apple has little reason to upgrade or promote the Classic, but it sounds like it is still bringing in enough revenue to keep in the line up. Remember that Apple has been carrying Apple TV for quite a while, and it's unlikely that was making much money for the company.
I am frankly astounded that Apple neither updated the iPod Classic nor even mentioned it!!!?? This makes no sense. I can well imagine that their major sales are coming from the Nano and the Touch. But there must be tens of thousands of us out here (like me) who need and want to have 150 GB worth of storage in a pocket.
Not having a large capacity iPod begs the whole question of how to manage and use the large amounts of music that they're selling through the iTunes store. Unless one imagines that the principal player of all this music is the desktop Mac .... well then how are we to listen to and carry all that music around? Manually managing the tiny capacity of these Nanos and Touches in order to carry the particular thing you need at a given moment is both arduous and impractical.
I hear people suggesting that the industry is waiting until solid state drives become large enough to handle these big volumes. Well that may be, but what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I don't see a problem with continuing to use the existing Classic providing they make it and sell it. But I'm again astounded that Steve Jobs neither mentioned the model nor referenced the issue that will now face many of us. Just a simple assurance that we're working on it. Or that they'll continue to sell the Classic. Any comment would be helpful to those of us pondering next steps...
I think that one thing a lot of you guys are forgetting is that, sure the classic is an old design when it comes to the hip and trendy apple culture.
BUT
when it comes to the music industry the classic is a tried and tested solid piece of equipment.
If you are playing live you don't want to have the hassle of sliding to unlock and then fumbling around trying to press play on the ipod app only to have it stutter and change track on you.
This was where the classic shines.
So for all the nay sayers saying that the classic is dead etc, maybe take a look at the other industries that use it.
And before people say you can use the new shuffle, 2Gb wont hold most raw WAV samples what we use live. Let alone all 10.
I for one hope that Apple change the classic to the "ipod Professional".
Make it full alu unibody so its more robust for when hauling to a gig. Give it more output options for things such as 3.5mm Jack and 1x optical out, larger battery. Screen size doesn't have to play video but needs to be large enough to read when on darkened stage from a distance, maybe larger font and go back to monochrome style screen (blue/black?).
I think that one thing a lot of you guys are forgetting is that, sure the classic is an old design when it comes to the hip and trendy apple culture.
BUT
when it comes to the music industry the classic is a tried and tested solid piece of equipment.
If you are playing live you don't want to have the hassle of sliding to unlock and then fumbling around trying to press play on the ipod app only to have it stutter and change track on you.
This was where the classic shines.
So for all the nay sayers saying that the classic is dead etc, maybe take a look at the other industries that use it.
And before people say you can use the new shuffle, 2Gb wont hold most raw WAV samples what we use live. Let alone all 10.
I for one hope that Apple change the classic to the "ipod Professional".
Make it full alu unibody so its more robust for when hauling to a gig. Give it more output options for things such as 3.5mm Jack and 1x optical out, larger battery. Screen size doesn't have to play video but needs to be large enough to read when on darkened stage from a distance, maybe larger font and go back to monochrome style screen (blue/black?).
All good points. I really like the suggestion of 'iPod Pro.'
I hope enough iPod Pro aficionados email Apple on this.
200 gigs. $299 maybe $349. That's when the Classic will die. I think generation 5.5 was the true last of its kind. It was the last white one, the way it started.
I agree with those who love their classic as I love mine. Big storage and the ability to use it without looking away from the road makes it perfect for my car. iPod touch has a ton of stuff I would not use as I keep the Classic in my car as a complete music source and traveling university.
Maybe those of us who love it should email Apple and suggest either keeping the Classic, or creating a solid state replacement that has tactile controls for use while driving.
Because it seems that Apple is pushing more and more visual features, music videos, tv shows, and eventually full length movies, it would seem prudent to keep the classic around to not only see the visual media but to store it as well. A bump in the capacity would also fare out easier and most likely cheaper in the classic
If they keep making the players smaller, hence the screen smaller as well. I fail to see how Apple intends to push and make money off of visual downloads. The selling point is being able to clearly see movement on a screen such as the classic. With the Nano, which is by all means limited, not so much.
It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Actually you do have vioce command in the iPhone since 3GS and equipped with mic and all the new iPod touch should have this option too. So although the voice command needs a huge overhaul for playing music it kind of works.
As many have mentioned, the Classic still has a very important role to fill. There will always be a need for a large capacity lossless audio bucket with a minimal interface?at least until Apple gets directly into the car stereo/navigation business (which they absolutely positively should).
Comments
I suppose you have heard of the "iPod shuffle", right?
Ah, the visually impaired surely do not deserve to hear or carry around more than a couple of hundred songs, right?
It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Interesting point, and it's close to the reason I love the click-wheel. I don't use shuffle much. I listen to tracks sequentially (audiobooks mainly), and the click-wheel is ideal for adjusting your position forward & backward with precision, skipping tracks, adjusting volume, all without looking at the device. The touch interfaces are very nice, but they require you to look at them. And sometimes that's just not the best use of my eyes (consider, for instance, when I'm driving or on my bicycle).
(touch devices let you adjust the volume without looking, but it's in steps, and it's not nearly as finely adjustable as the click wheel)
Give it another year or two, it will be gone. Flash is coming down, it's only a matter of another year or so before we see 128GB in an iPod Touch. The Classic is still great I think for someone that wants to carry an entire library with them. It will be phased out as soon as 128GB is available in an iDevice. Great updates overall today, very impressed. Still trying to grab an iTunes 10 download, but it's not up yet.
Even when a 128GB iPod Touch comes along it will still 32GB less than the Classic and be considerably costlier.
It won't survive another year. 10 years Of the classic iPod formfactor. end it on a high note.
just because the thing is still advertised and is being sold doesn't mean it survived another year. It could be just as likely that apple is trying to sell their remaining stock
I agree with JohnnyB0731.
Notice that Steve Jobs said that they're revamped and redesigned their entire line of iPods (paraphrasing). That means that the Classic, which did not get updated in the slightest, is not included in the lineup because it wasn't updated, much less redesigned.
I surmise they're just allowing people to buy the last of their stock before they take it off of the store website.
Daniel
I disagree with the above 3 posts.
This is the first evidence we’ve seen of the Classic, itself, being obsolesced, but I think it could survive another year. Remember, this is the 1st time they didn’t increase the HDD capacity which likely means Toshiba is no longer investing in denser platters for 1.8” HDDs.
Additionally, since the price wasn’t reduced to the psychologically attractive $199 on this device that is getting no new features and is using the same YoY components I have to think the Classic sales are doing well enough on their own to not warrant a price drop. Now that we have a stopping of the HDD platter density, the next step should be a drop in price when Apple feels that a price drop will boost sales enough to increase profit and prolong its life until it’s just becomes too costly to maintain this well worn tech that long ago paid for the R&D in unit sales. That could be awhile.
Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
This is a very good observation. Now that you bring this up, I have a feeling that Apple is going to hear about this one, and may have to rethink.
Don’t forget the iPod Shuffle, which has physical controls and voice feedback. And also don’t forge the Accesiblity features Apple built into iOS.
I was hoping they would bump it to 250gb when Steve said all iPods were being updated. How hard would that have been? After that POS nano was introduced and then the touch that can't take decent photos it was starting to become a potential highlight of the event for me.
Only way to bump it that much, even if Toshiba was making denser 1.8” platters would be to add a second platter, so you’d get at least 320GB with the current density HDD. Apple dropped the double-platter Classic a couple years ago and upped the single-platter from 80GB to 120GB, then to 160GB last year. I think it’s safe to say the thinner, single-platter, half-capacity Classic was the least popular or they would have continued it and not the single-platter Classic.
Or keep the price but bump it up to 320 GB.
I think the higher-capacity 1.8" drives are all 5400 RPM, intended for computers and not media players. Perhaps it's a battery life concern.
Ah, the visually impaired surely do not deserve to hear or carry around more than a couple of hundred songs, right?
Irrelevant to the discussion. The claim was made that there is no iPod that can be used by the visually impaired and I proved that claimed demonstrably false.
But, if you want to go down that route, please tell me how a blind person navigates a 10000 song collection without being able to see a screen and does not have access to "VoiceOver"? It's like complaining that they took the Braille off of the drive-thru ATM.
Edit: Just to be clear, when I say "see the screen", I am talking about the iPod Classic.
It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Flash storage will probably catch up by next year. And the visually impaired can use VoiceOver.
Capacity is only way in which it can catch up. There is capacity for a given volume and cost for that same given volume. Capacity-wise, i believe NAND surpassed the 1.8? HDD capacity well over years ago, it?s cost that is still an issue.
I absolutely LOVE the iPod Classic. I can load it up with everything I have and plug it into my car's media interface and use the car's controls almost exactly like an iPod. A Touch isn't the kind of iPod you hide and a nano is still too small.
Though my Classic will last for many many years to come I hope it is not discontinued.
I completely agree with you. I keep my whole library and plug it into my car's audio interface. I have over 100g's, so putting the music on my puny 15g car hard drive is NOT an option. I hope like hell they don't get rid of the classic! I plan on buying a second family car and I want to put a classic in that one, so we can have all our music in the other car. DON'T KILL THE CLASSIC!
I absolutely LOVE the iPod Classic. I can load it up with everything I have and plug it into my car's media interface and use the car's controls almost exactly like an iPod. A Touch isn't the kind of iPod you hide and a nano is still too small.
Though my Classic will last for many many years to come I hope it is not discontinued.
I agree - I was hoping for a 240GB upgrade. I have a Classic loaded up with Lossless music attached to my car's system. I put it on album shuffle, and off I go on a car trip with endless (almost) entertainment, with only music I truly like, and great uncompressed sound. It makes those 5 hour drives a lot better (it holds about 620 albums, which is good, but I'd like even more).
If I'm travelling and want music at night, I use a fat-boy nano, which is a great design for me, but I wish it held more than 8GB.
Irrelevant to the discussion. The claim was made that there is no iPod that can be used by the visually impaired and I proved that claimed demonstrably false.
But, if you want to go down that route, please tell me how a blind person navigates a 10000 song collection without being able to see a screen and does not have access to "VoiceOver"? It's like complaining that they took the Braille off of the drive-thru ATM.
Edit: Just to be clear, when I say "see the screen", I am talking about the iPod Classic.
Wow, you are so super smart! (/sarcasm)
On a more serious note (and leaving aside the fact that visually impaired does not equal blind), there are lots of ways in which even a blind person can take advantage of thousands of songs. (S)he can create hundreds of playlists on the computer by genre, by artist, mood etc (e.g., on iTunes on the or computer) and use the shuffle feature within a playlist. (S)he can navigate by developing a sense for the number of turns of the click wheel to get from A-Z. I can think of of many other ways.
In any event, our discussion is a little theoretical, since I assume you are not blind. I am not either.
Not having a large capacity iPod begs the whole question of how to manage and use the large amounts of music that they're selling through the iTunes store. Unless one imagines that the principal player of all this music is the desktop Mac .... well then how are we to listen to and carry all that music around? Manually managing the tiny capacity of these Nanos and Touches in order to carry the particular thing you need at a given moment is both arduous and impractical.
I hear people suggesting that the industry is waiting until solid state drives become large enough to handle these big volumes. Well that may be, but what are we supposed to do in the meantime? I don't see a problem with continuing to use the existing Classic providing they make it and sell it. But I'm again astounded that Steve Jobs neither mentioned the model nor referenced the issue that will now face many of us. Just a simple assurance that we're working on it. Or that they'll continue to sell the Classic. Any comment would be helpful to those of us pondering next steps...
BUT
when it comes to the music industry the classic is a tried and tested solid piece of equipment.
If you are playing live you don't want to have the hassle of sliding to unlock and then fumbling around trying to press play on the ipod app only to have it stutter and change track on you.
This was where the classic shines.
So for all the nay sayers saying that the classic is dead etc, maybe take a look at the other industries that use it.
And before people say you can use the new shuffle, 2Gb wont hold most raw WAV samples what we use live. Let alone all 10.
I for one hope that Apple change the classic to the "ipod Professional".
Make it full alu unibody so its more robust for when hauling to a gig. Give it more output options for things such as 3.5mm Jack and 1x optical out, larger battery. Screen size doesn't have to play video but needs to be large enough to read when on darkened stage from a distance, maybe larger font and go back to monochrome style screen (blue/black?).
I think that one thing a lot of you guys are forgetting is that, sure the classic is an old design when it comes to the hip and trendy apple culture.
BUT
when it comes to the music industry the classic is a tried and tested solid piece of equipment.
If you are playing live you don't want to have the hassle of sliding to unlock and then fumbling around trying to press play on the ipod app only to have it stutter and change track on you.
This was where the classic shines.
So for all the nay sayers saying that the classic is dead etc, maybe take a look at the other industries that use it.
And before people say you can use the new shuffle, 2Gb wont hold most raw WAV samples what we use live. Let alone all 10.
I for one hope that Apple change the classic to the "ipod Professional".
Make it full alu unibody so its more robust for when hauling to a gig. Give it more output options for things such as 3.5mm Jack and 1x optical out, larger battery. Screen size doesn't have to play video but needs to be large enough to read when on darkened stage from a distance, maybe larger font and go back to monochrome style screen (blue/black?).
All good points. I really like the suggestion of 'iPod Pro.'
I hope enough iPod Pro aficionados email Apple on this.
Maybe those of us who love it should email Apple and suggest either keeping the Classic, or creating a solid state replacement that has tactile controls for use while driving.
The Classic has by far the largest screen.
Because it seems that Apple is pushing more and more visual features, music videos, tv shows, and eventually full length movies, it would seem prudent to keep the classic around to not only see the visual media but to store it as well. A bump in the capacity would also fare out easier and most likely cheaper in the classic
If they keep making the players smaller, hence the screen smaller as well. I fail to see how Apple intends to push and make money off of visual downloads. The selling point is being able to clearly see movement on a screen such as the classic. With the Nano, which is by all means limited, not so much.
It would be very, very bad to lose the classic. Bigger storage for those who want to play music. Not forgetting this is the only ipod that can be operated by the visually impaired. It really should be kept, storage upped, price dropped a little.
Actually you do have vioce command in the iPhone since 3GS and equipped with mic and all the new iPod touch should have this option too. So although the voice command needs a huge overhaul for playing music it kind of works.