Death of iPod Classic - Replaced by a 160GB HDD iPod Touch?
Hi,
My crystal ball told me that Steve Jobs will announce the death of iPod Classic on next Tuesday.
So, what possible replacement for 2008-2009?
- 16GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 32GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 160GB iPod Touch, special HDD version ($499)
Transitional product just to kill the iPod Classic
and for 2009-2010?
100% flash memory
- 32GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 64GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 120GB iPod Touch ($499)
Just my thought. And you, what's your opinion?
Chilli
My crystal ball told me that Steve Jobs will announce the death of iPod Classic on next Tuesday.
So, what possible replacement for 2008-2009?
- 16GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 32GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 160GB iPod Touch, special HDD version ($499)
Transitional product just to kill the iPod Classic
and for 2009-2010?
100% flash memory
- 32GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 64GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 120GB iPod Touch ($499)
Just my thought. And you, what's your opinion?
Chilli
Comments
From a previous AppleInsider article:
During his quarterly financial results call, Apple's chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company will make a key "product transition" that cuts back on its profit margins to help shut out rivals.
A frequent point of discussion during the hour-long call, the mystery transition will drop Apple's gross margins from 34.8 percent in the spring quarter to just 31.5 percent in the July-to-September window in which the update takes place, ultimately settling at about 30 percent during Apple's fiscal 2009.
With the above in mind, Apple just might cut the iPod Classic (HDD based system) and increase the capacity of the iPod Touch, taking the (margin) hit on the current cost of flash memory.
Meaning, no interim HDD model of the iPod Touch…
I would also like to believe that Apple will use the same margin-cutting/profit-cutting method to introduce a Mac OS X tablet aimed at the consumer market. Not a replacement for either the MacBook or the MacBook Pro, but a basic MID (Mobile Internet Device) for the masses, done with the usual Apple flair & panache…
That said, I would very much like to see higher capacity versions of the iPod Touch , to distinguish it a little more from the iPhone.
Hi,
My crystal ball told me that Steve Jobs will announce the death of iPod Classic on next Tuesday.
So, what possible replacement for 2008-2009?
- 16GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 32GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 160GB iPod Touch, special HDD version ($499)
Transitional product just to kill the iPod Classic
and for 2009-2010?
100% flash memory
- 32GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 64GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 120GB iPod Touch ($499)
Just my thought. And you, what's your opinion?
Chilli
If anything, it will be a large capacity SSD based ipod with a clickwheel. I mean....along with the new ipod touches and shuffles and nanos.
I don't really see the need for a OS X-based tablet in between the iPod Touch and the Macbook. It would be an almost useless gadget for most people considering how well the iPod Touch does internet- and if you need a real computer over an internet browsing device and/or music/video player, then the MacBook is small enough to be easily portable and large enough to be practical, so it suits you just fine.
That said, I would very much like to see higher capacity versions of the iPod Touch , to distinguish it a little more from the iPhone.
I can DEFINITELY see the need for a Mac OS X tablet! I have used the iPhone, and I cannot stand surfing the web or handling email on it, maybe it is my old eyes and fat fingers, but I know I am not alone in this?
And when you break it down, the vast majority of average computer users really only use their computers for two specific tasks; surfing the Internet & managing email. Throw in the consumer packages like iLife & iWork, a bit of iChat, maybe a little World of Warcraft; and you pretty much cover most of what many consumers might do on their computers.
Me, I believe that multi-touch is the future of computer user interfaces. Others may say that tablets will go nowhere, but the same was said of the ubiquitous mouse back in the 80's when the original Mac first came out?
Personally, my computer needs would be served by a combination of Apple products.
Give me an iPhone nano for cell calls, text messages (even though I don't do text messaging, many others do), snapping photos, playing music & videos, and a contacts list/address book (for cell #s). No WiFi, no Internet; just a cell that plays music/videos & takes pictures.
Give me the Mac OS X tablet, as outlined above. Make the screen size about two-thirds of the difference between the (regular) iPhone & the current MacBook. The overall dimensions would be larger than a standard DVD case, yet smaller than a standard sheet of notebook paper. This would be an Atom (dual core, thank you) powered device. Perfect for average usage on the go, on the toilet, or sitting at the couch watching tv.It would also interface with an improved DVR capable AppleTV as a remote control.
An improved AppleTV, with DVR functionality. And please Apple, let us rent for more than 24 hours! I would pay an extra dollar per rental to have a movie available over the weekend!
For when I want to do some REAL computer work, there is the old standby, the iMac. For me, that would mainly be for Photoshop, SketchUp & occasional modo work. Some may use a Mac Pro for larger tasks, but it may be overkill for most.
And finally, if I can have the option of using the tablet as a multi-touch interface for the iMac (Mac Pro) when I want, all the better?
But that's just me and my wants!
I can DEFINITELY see the need for a Mac OS X tablet! I have used the iPhone, and I cannot stand surfing the web or handling email on it, maybe it is my old eyes and fat fingers, but I know I am not alone in this?
And when you break it down, the vast majority of average computer users really only use their computers for two specific tasks; surfing the Internet & managing email. Throw in the consumer packages like iLife & iWork, a bit of iChat, maybe a little World of Warcraft; and you pretty much cover most of what many consumers might do on their computers.
Me, I believe that multi-touch is the future of computer user interfaces. Others may say that tablets will go nowhere, but the same was said of the ubiquitous mouse back in the 80's when the original Mac first came out?
Personally, my computer needs would be served by a combination of Apple products.
Give me an iPhone nano for cell calls, text messages (even though I don't do text messaging, many others do), snapping photos, playing music & videos, and a contacts list/address book (for cell #s). No WiFi, no Internet; just a cell that plays music/videos & takes pictures.
Give me the Mac OS X tablet, as outlined above. Make the screen size about two-thirds of the difference between the (regular) iPhone & the current MacBook. The overall dimensions would be larger than a standard DVD case, yet smaller than a standard sheet of notebook paper. This would be an Atom (dual core, thank you) powered device. Perfect for average usage on the go, on the toilet, or sitting at the couch watching tv.It would also interface with an improved DVR capable AppleTV as a remote control.
An improved AppleTV, with DVR functionality. And please Apple, let us rent for more than 24 hours! I would pay an extra dollar per rental to have a movie available over the weekend!
For when I want to do some REAL computer work, there is the old standby, the iMac. For me, that would mainly be for Photoshop, SketchUp & occasional modo work. Some may use a Mac Pro for larger tasks, but it may be overkill for most.
And finally, if I can have the option of using the tablet as a multi-touch interface for the iMac (Mac Pro) when I want, all the better?
But that's just me and my wants!
My crystal ball told me that Steve Jobs will announce the death of iPod Classic on next Tuesday.
[\\quote]
I'm not convinced that classic has to die, the could simply add a larger harddrive and make many happy. The biggest problem there is that I have seen any new potential drives in the industry rags of late.
[quote]
So, what possible replacement for 2008-2009?
- 16GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 32GB iPod Touch ($399)
[\\quote]
This is where I see your first big mistake, that being the flash sizes for the prices you mention. I'd be surprised if Apple is paying more than $25 for 16GB flash chips these days especially in the volume Apple can dangle before a vendor. So I'd expect a cheap Touch for around $175 in a 16GB variant with a 32 GB $50 - $75 more. What will get us back up to the big $$$$$ will be a Touch using the new premium 32GB flash to produce a 64 GB Touch from two devices. What should be noted here is that with the right integration Apple might find itself with enough room for three flash devices on the new Touches mother board. What this means is that we might not be stuck with storage sizes held to the increments one or two chips provide. This 48 or 96 GB flash devices become possible.
[quote]
- 160GB iPod Touch, special HDD version ($499)
Transitional product just to kill the iPod Classic
[\\quote]
I'm not one to dismiss a magnetic hard drive in a Touch, I just don't see it as a replacement for a Classic. The primary concern, for me any ways, is that I want the reliability of flash.
[quote]
and for 2009-2010?
100% flash memory
- 32GB iPod Touch ($299)
- 64GB iPod Touch ($399)
- 120GB iPod Touch ($499)
[\\quote]
I'm not sure what incentive there is for Apple to wait for the coming year when the flash chips to implement 32 & 64GB Touches are already on the market from more than one vendor. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to hear about an iPhone 3G upgrade before Christmas to 32GB.
Just my thought. And you, what's your opinion?
Chilli
Well some opinion in line above. Obviously Apple needs to adapt it's product line to what it thinks the market conditions will be like. This is where all the talk about lower cost Touches come from. That won't keep Apple out of the high end though this a Touch offering up the latest flash technology. It is my hope that the high end machine offers up far more uniqueness than just the latest flash tech though. What this amounts to is Apple offering the user far more choice in Touch based devices.
As to Nano frankly not even remotely interested.
I'm still pulling for a iPod Touch Maxi. Mainly so that it has an HD aspect ratio or better for videos and an overall slightly larger sceen. Of course an even slightly larger device means more room for flash, battery and other stuff.
When it comes right down to it I see a market for a number of Touch based devices and frankly I hope Apple has a clue here. Maybe they won't be ready in Sept but I'd be very disappointed in Apple if they don't have more different Touch based devices in the works. By the way I'm not talking about micro Mac tablets which would be stupid but rather devices that fit easily into one hand.
Oh let me clear up one thing I don't think that a Mac tablet would be stupid. It's just an issue of size where it becomes impractcle to use Mac software on very small devices. From what I can see a Mac tablet would need to be steno size or bigger to make the use of a wide array of existing software.
Finally a few other things I'd like to see in at least some of the new Touch devices:
1.
BluTooth. I can't repeat this enough, further Apple needs to get cracking on supporting the common profiles sonthat we can make use of some of the cool stuff out there.
2.
Support for the same headset jack as the iPhone this to allow voice recording, VoIP and other neat uses. To me this seems like a no brainer. The alternative of course is an analog in jack or a built in microphone.
3.
Physical controls for volume and mute! Allied would be one or more application defined push buttons. Mainly because the touch screen sucks for camera control an programmable buttons certainly would be handy for other apps.
The three above seem to have strong community support. The items below seem to get a mixed reaction.
4.
A host USB port
5.
More physical sensors especially temperature.
6.
A better WiFi antenna.
7.
Replacable battery.
8.
HMDI outputs through the dock connector. What I ideally want to see is an iPod totally optimized for video in the same way that the current unit is optimized for music. This is not for the low end.
9.
Battery life! More is always better but I'm hoping that PA Semi can have a massive impact here.
10.
More processing power. A high end device needs more of every thing. That is more RAM, processing speed, integrated video acceleration, graphics and WiFi. The goal should be a unit twice as fast with the same battery life as today. Again I think PA Semi can deliver this via SoC technology. Ideally this would be on a Newton 2 like device, that is something physically bigger than the current Touch to deliver a bigger screen.
There you go - what do you think?
Dave
The capacity would be wonderful- certainly something made for playing videos needs all the space it can get- but it's not happening. Maybe a high-capacity flash model, but that wouldn't be cheap even if Apple were willing to let it eat into their margins.
Putting a hard drive in the touch would kill the battery life, kill the interface speed, and kill the sleekness of the design.
The capacity would be wonderful- certainly something made for playing videos needs all the space it can get- but it's not happening. Maybe a high-capacity flash model, but that wouldn't be cheap even if Apple were willing to let it eat into their margins.
The way that flash memory has been dropping I suspect that Apple could easily double the capacity of the Flash based Touch iPods. That at the current price points. That really doesn't answer the need for video storage but it is a lot better than the current machines. Further doubling flash, in Touch, should make the vast majority of audio users happy.
You may very well be right about the disk drive and user interface responsiveness but there are ways to deal with that. Caching would be one. A hybrid approach might be heplful where the code and certain data make use of Flash and the media goes to disk.
The one thing I don't expect to see Apple do is to leave the high capacity users high and dry. That means there has to be at least one iPod on the market with the same or better storage than the current classic. Even then I suspect that Apple will alienate professional users if the click wheel disappears.
Nice thing is that this whole thread becomes history in 5 days.
Dave
I don't really see the need for a OS X-based tablet in between the iPod Touch and the Macbook. It would be an almost useless gadget for most people considering how well the iPod Touch does internet- and if you need a real computer over an internet browsing device and/or music/video player, then the MacBook is small enough to be easily portable and large enough to be practical, so it suits you just fine.
That said, I would very much like to see higher capacity versions of the iPod Touch , to distinguish it a little more from the iPhone.
excactly! great point.
They won't kill the 160GB hard drive iPod until they can viably replace it with a 160GB flash model (or other storage type). They will not go down in maximum capacity (i.e. from 160GB maximum to 120GB maximum). Not now. Not ever.
The way that flash memory has been dropping I suspect that Apple could easily double the capacity of the Flash based Touch iPods. That at the current price points. That really doesn't answer the need for video storage but it is a lot better than the current machines. Further doubling flash, in Touch, should make the vast majority of audio users happy.
You may very well be right about the disk drive and user interface responsiveness but there are ways to deal with that. Caching would be one. A hybrid approach might be heplful where the code and certain data make use of Flash and the media goes to disk.
The one thing I don't expect to see Apple do is to leave the high capacity users high and dry. That means there has to be at least one iPod on the market with the same or better storage than the current classic. Even then I suspect that Apple will alienate professional users if the click wheel disappears.
Nice thing is that this whole thread becomes history in 5 days.
Dave
You're right that Apple can't leave out the high capacity users. Either the classic stays, or there will be at least a 64GB touch. 128GB is possible, but I don't see Apple jumping that far without something in between for a while.
You're right that Apple can't leave out the high capacity users. Either the classic stays, or there will be at least a 64GB touch. 128GB is possible, but I don't see Apple jumping that far without something in between for a while.
The best that I can see Apple doing right now is about 96GB in a Touch sized device. A device that wouldn't be cheap as it would have 3 Flash devices in it. That of course implies Apple achieving enough integration to allow for 3 flash ships on the Touches motherboard. Personally I think it would be worth their while to stretch Touch enough to assure 3 chip capacity and hopefully at the same time change the aspect ratio of the screen to be more suitable for Movies, and HDTV.
Less than 5 days to go.
You're right that Apple can't leave out the high capacity users. Either the classic stays, or there will be at least a 64GB touch. 128GB is possible, but I don't see Apple jumping that far without something in between for a while.
Even if there's a 64GB touch, Apple will not kill the Classic. Even if there's a 128GB iPod Touch, Apple will not kill the classic. They will not go down in maximum capacity. Not now, not ever.
Not now, not ever.
And many said the same about Apple using Intel chips?
Even if there's a 64GB touch, Apple will not kill the Classic. Even if there's a 128GB iPod Touch, Apple will not kill the classic. They will not go down in maximum capacity. Not now, not ever.
Amazing how someone with zero inside information and nothing but a bunch of ideas and conjecture can make such powerful statements. No one on this forum knows what Apple will do, and everytime someone says something absurd like "not now, not ever" they end up looking foolish when Apple does whatever it is.
I don't really see the need for a OS X-based tablet in between the iPod Touch and the Macbook. It would be an almost useless gadget for most people considering how well the iPod Touch does internet- and if you need a real computer over an internet browsing device and/or music/video player, then the MacBook is small enough to be easily portable and large enough to be practical, so it suits you just fine
I do, the iPod touch etc is too locked down, they need a device that gives you the freedom of a Mac, so you can use BT for anything, install anything, use a CLI without hacking the device.
Amazing how someone with zero inside information and nothing but a bunch of ideas and conjecture can make such powerful statements. No one on this forum knows what Apple will do, and everytime someone says something absurd like "not now, not ever" they end up looking foolish when Apple does whatever it is.
When has it ever been that Apple has reduced the maximum capacity of a device? I guess the transition from the Mini (6GB max) to the Nano (4GB max)... but then again there were always the full-size iPods for people who needed more room.
I'm not saying there will be anything new at 160GB. In fact I don't think there will be. I think the new announcement will be for new Touches, Nanos and possibly Shuffles.
But Apple won't EOL the only 160GB+ option. Maybe replace it with a thinner version and cancel the 80. Or make it a 160GB HDD Touch.
When has it ever been that Apple has reduced the maximum capacity of a device?
Past behavior is not a predictor of future behavior. It's that simple. You can make all the conjecture you want to, but you don't know anything about what Apple's plans are. And not knowing what their plans are, to make statements about what they definitely will or won't do is patently absurd.
Apple won't kill the classic until there is a 160GB or greater replacement. Could be a touch-style device. Might not.
They won't kill the 160GB hard drive iPod until they can viably replace it with a 160GB flash model (or other storage type). They will not go down in maximum capacity (i.e. from 160GB maximum to 120GB maximum). Not now. Not ever.
i definitely agree. the capacity of the 160gb classic is a major selling point. would love the interface of the touch, but for now it's more attractive for me to be able to have my entire library with me. if 160gb becomes viable in flash in the near future then i will be strongly attracted to buy and i think there are many people like me