Apple to discontinue iPod Nano and Shuffle | Hacker News Reader

Apple to discontinue iPod Nano and Shuffle

bbc.co.uk

111 pointsstevekemp158 comments

IMHO The iPod nano is more interesting to keep around than the iPod touch. The nano has a much more convenient form factor for things like the gym and exercise. I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone. It's basically the same device without cellular network capabilities.

Speaking of cellular network capabilities, I'm still amazed that Macbook Pros still don't have the option of adding a sim-card. I know I can tether to a phone or pocket wifi, but I don't understand why depending on another device is still the status quo.

> I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone. It's basically the same device without cellular network capabilities.

Because it has no ongoing cost associated with it, like a cellular contract does. And it appears to be a lot cheaper. The iPod Touch has the same CPU and GPU as the iPhone 6 (albeit a smaller display; it's 4" while iPhone 6 is 4.7"). An iPhone 6 starts at $549 (without financing). An iPod Touch with 128GB of storage is $299.

That was also my logic circa a few years ago, but Apple's system of old models becoming the lower price unit has changed that. The 6 is 2 generations old, and with the new one coming out this fall, like usual, it's a lot cheaper than that.

I recently found a brand new 32gb iPhone 6 with no contract for $200. A Touch at the same place - walmart - is $195. The 6 is definitely superior hardware to a Touch and you don't even have to activate it.

You can also get a 5s or SE from them for about 150. When the new one comes out this fall, the 6 will be under 200.

> The 6 is definitely superior hardware to a Touch

Superior how? The iPod Touch has the same SoC/CPU/GPU/RAM. The only real hardware difference is the iPhone 6 has a 4.7" screen, and while I personally enjoy my 5.5" screens, the popularity of the iPhone SE suggests that many people disagree that a larger screen is "superior hardware".

That said, I have no idea how the camera compares. Maybe it is worse, maybe it isn't. Wikipedia isn't very forthcoming here.

Well, Wikipedia does point out that the iPod Touch doesn't have the ambient light sensor that's used for automatic screen brightness. If true, this is actually kind of surprising (I would assume that component isn't very expensive), but I guess it does technically qualify as "inferior hardware", though this is a pretty small difference.

There are so many differences that I'm quite sure that if you were to look at a thorough checklist, you would agree that it's worth five dollars.

The Touch uses the display from the 5 and 5s. Pixel dentist density is the same but contrast is less. The active display sizes are 4 inches versus 4.7.

Advantages of iPhone 6 vs '15 Touch:

  - 40% more battery capacity
  - Touch ID and NFC  
  - Dual LED Flash
  - 25% faster CPU clock
  - 4G radio
  - 1400:1 display contrast ratio vs 800:1
  - 25% larger screen, and same density meaning higher screen resolution
  - Twice the storage (the price i quoted was for a 16gb touch and a 32gb 6)
  - larger lens aperture 
  - sapphire lens cover
  - optical image stabilization

Drawbacks:

  - 1/8" thicker
  - 33% heavier
  - some people prefer the smaller size
  - costs $6 more

From Wikipedia:

> All iPods lack Touch ID, 3D Touch, NFC, GPS, an earpiece speaker and a noise-cancelling microphone. Depending on the generation, the iPod Touch may have a smaller or inferior display and camera(s). Newer models (5th and 6th generation) lack the ambient light sensor that makes automatic brightness available.

Also it shares the A8/M8 with the iPhone 6, but it's clocked down (1.1GHz vs 1.4GHz for the phone); both cameras are 8MP, but the iPhone can shoot regular video in 1080p at 30 or 60 fps (vs only 30 fps for the iPod) and slow-motion video in 720p at 120 or 240 fps (vs only 120 fps for the iPod).

I forgot that iPod Touch didn't have Touch ID or 3D Touch. But does it really not have a GPS? That's interesting. I guess the assumption is you're not going to go out and about with Maps since you're tethered to a wifi network.

Or the GPS was part of the GSM baseband, and they didn't want to stuff something else on there to replace it.

Yes. All iOS devices with the exception of the original iPhone are like this: they have a cellular baseband iff they have GPS.

No non-cellular Apple devices have GPS that I'm aware of. My wifi-only iPad Air certainly doesn't, but my mother's cellular iPad mini 4 does

Except Google Maps at least lets you download an area for offline use. Not sure what Apple maps does.

I use this all the time on my Android phone because I don't have a data plan for it.

Besides lacking some other features (as mentioned in another comment), it is worth noting that even though it’s using the same SoC it is clocked lower at 1.1 GHz vs the iPhone 6’s 1.4 GHz. (Source: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks )

It's great for integrated/specialist apps that only communicate via wifi or something (i.e. Plane ticket scanners and hundreds of other applications). My bet is that iPod touches are for industry. I deploy on them in some instances, they are perfect for limited location use where you can bridge connectivity by a non cellular means

> My bet is that iPod touches are for industry.

My understanding is that they're for children, to help get them hooked into the ecosystem when they're young.

Maybe that was the case years ago, but I feel like now there's plenty of hand-me-down iPhones or iPads.

my anecdotal experience agrees

We use 20+ iPod Touch 6 with Infinea X barcode scanners and their free WebHub app to run a web-based warehouse/inventory system. A decade ago it was a pain to deal with Symbol/Motorola scanners and native app deployments. Now it's as easy as JS thanks to iPod Touch and WebHub.

[1] https://ipcmobile.com/products/ios-peripherals/infinea-x/ [2] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/webhub-ipc-browser/id1015159...

I've seen tons of people using iPod touches as dev devices. Much cheaper having multiple iPod touches running older iOS, or iOS betas, then having that many iPhones.

We deploy them at work. There are some devices that only integrate with iOS and an iPad is overkill.

What do you use them for?

Lot of consumer/prosumer-grade sports science gear syncs with iOS only via Bluetooth. It's annoying but I'm not about to reverse engineer / packet sniff their stuff to get it on my PC.

From my personal anectode, iPod touch is a great option for entertainment and media for someone who uses an Android phone.

>An iPod Touch with 128GB of storage is $299.

But a comparable Android phone with 4G would cost around $100 these days. The iPod touch was a great product and it made sense when they released it in 2007. Smart phones were still extremely expensive and you had to have an additional expensive data contract to go with it, so it made sense to have a cheaper option. Now you can get superior functionality from a cheap Android phone with an SD card, so I can't imagine they are selling many anymore.

I would compare it to cheap iPhones instead. You can get a iPhone 5 for $100 or less, or a 5S for a little more, or a 6 for about 200, with no contract.

I bought a cheap Kyocera last year and it was a nightmare compared to the experience i would have had with even an iphone 4s. Outdated system software with no updates, a terrible camera and poor reception were my main issues.

> > An iPod Touch with 128GB of storage is $299.

> But a comparable Android phone with 4G would cost around $100 these days.

128GB storage for $100?

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-express-Unlocked-Android-Came...

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSDXC-Standard-Packaging-...

Lots of Android phones do include microSD card slots, so (assuming you can get a phone for $100), you could just add ~$50 for a 128GB microSD card, maybe.

(Edit: Added the parenthetical about getting a $100 phone. AndroidCentral's best "budget" pick was still $250 on Amazon.)

As an Android phone user, SD cards are no substitute for a reasonable amount of flash storage. There are a limited number of things you can move to SD and a limited number of applications which support storing their generated content there. My 128 GB SD card has only about 19 GB of data on it (mostly Spotify), but my 32 GB of onboard flash storage is routinely at capacity. I'll never lean on SD so much again, and just spring for more onboard storage...

I had an Amazon Fire 7" tablet that I used for comics and occasional TV shows on airplanes, and I routinely would ask the question of various Android fan in real life, on Reddit, and on this forum, I'd ask one simple question: How do I get my Downloads folder to map to my SD card? When I download something, I don't want to have to manually move it to the SD card, I want it to download directly to the SD card.

The answer, after 2 years of asking, is always "there's gotta be a way" followed by "but I'm not sure how". 4GB of onboard storage fills up quick, which is why I bought a 32GB SD card. But stopping every other download to manually move files over is just a poor user experience. It's what I expect from 2005, not from 2017.

I gave it away and bought a tablet with enough storage built in. My advice? Don't get suckered into the "but it has an SD card slot" nonsense. SD cards suck. Moving files around sucks. It should have storage built in.

You can definitely set some apps to download directly to the SD card, for example Flud, the torrent client.

Enable adoptable storage, and Android will treat the SD card as an extension of the onboard memory. You just won't be able to take out the SD card and read it on other devices without formatting it.

But we're talking here in the context of an iPod Touch.

Moving all your audio onto a SD card is exactly what a SD card is perfect for.

Newer android versions can treat both internal and SD card as one extended volume.

Or you can get an iPhone SE, which uses the same SoC as an iPhone 6s starting at $300.

With the SE prices so low, the iPod Touch is a pretty bad deal.

Isn't the SE $400/500 for the same storage of the iPod Touch at $200/300? If you don't need cellular $200 seems like a big price to pay for the upgrades.

Yeah it's a great device to web application compatibility with iOS without carrying 2 phone contracts if you prefer android.

Holy shit, I had no idea there's a 6th gen, AND it came out in 2014.

I thought they were still using a handicapped A5.

Parents buy iPod Touches for their kids, so they have a cheap wi-fi enabled gaming and entertainment device, with no monthly contracts, that fits in mom's purse.

Companies buy iPod Touches to use as ticket scanners, credit card readers and product catalogs among other things. Same reason – cheap, wi-fi enabled, no contracts.

> I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone

So they can give their kids what is essentially an iPhone but not have to worry about a cellular plan. Then they get all the games/goodies/Apple Music/Netflix at home on wifi.

Yep, I had an iPod Touch as a kid for this reason. Though nowadays you could get an unlocked smartphone for a reasonable price and not put a SIM card in it.

I've considered that but was concerned about accidental calls to emergency services (young child here). Maybe android can be locked down to have the cellular radio always off, I should look into it.

I have an iPod touch and (perversely) like not having data when I'm out. I can still use Google Maps and connect to WiFi when necessary, but prefer when my psychic default isn't always "plugged in".

Of course, I'm a market of one. I imagine the real reason the iPod touch still exists is for kids too young to have phones.

I would like to see them replace the iPod Nano with a Siri-enabled version that plays music from the cloud over cellular. In the US, T-Mobile offers a DHH post-paid plan for $20/month that zero-rates Apple Music. You could stick their SIM in that device and have an infinite cloud iPod with Siri as the DJ. Sort of like what the Pebble Core was going to be.

I owned maybe the first or second model of the Touch, in the early days of the iPhone-era smartphones.

At the time an iPhone did cost some 600€+ in Europe, while a Touch was 200€ or so.

Considering that at the time mobile apps were much less "connected" and advanced than today, it allowed to have most of the functionality of a smartphone (playing games, music player, video player) at a much lower price.

I agree that today makes much less sense, since smartphones have been getting "smarter", cheaper (aside from flagship models), and the apps more reliant on a data connection (which in turn has been getting cheaper and faster).

I imagine the way forward in that space is the watch. I wouldn't be shocked if the prices come way down this fall. If the use case is athletics, Apple could hit that market well if they drop below $200.

They want you to buy an apple watch which is being targeted to people at the gym and elsewhere. Since you can sync music to it and pair Bluetooth headphones it kinda makes sense.

> I know I can tether to a phone or pocket wifi, but I don't understand why depending on another device is still the status quo.

Because cellular providers, even with shared-data plans, charge per device. If it was just a one-time hardware cost to get each device its own cellular data access, it'd be more popular, but it's an additional ongoing cost that isn't (for most users) warranted by the additional utility.

That explains phone tethering but doesn't explain pocket wifi.

There is no reason that pocket wifi functionality can't be in the computer, eliminating an entire device.

The iPod Touch is a cheap alternative to the iPhone for in-house/enterprise apps which don't require a cellular connection.

Honestly my experience with the iPhone tethering has been so good, I don't see a compelling argument to add cellular to the Macbook itself.

Seriously, I've streamed Netflix over my phone with zero issues. If the tethering works that well, why go through the expense to add a cellular radio to the Macbook itself, plus the data plan charges?

The Nano is pretty clearly going to be replaced by the Apple Watch for those uses.

I would expect future series Apple Watches to become more and more independent of the phone. And with wireless headphones like the AirPods the only annoying thing about that form factor is going to be taken care of.

I still have the small clippable square iPod nano and love it for using at the gym, hope it doesn't break down.

iPod touch: $249CDN iPhone SE: $579CDN

If dropped or lost, it's not the end of the world as a parent of two kids. Same reason why they both have $100 Android phones to carry around. For $350CDN, they have a phone/SMS device and a reasonably fast iOS device and decent camera.

The Nano is pretty clearly going to be replaced by the Apple Watch for those uses. I would expect future series Apple Watches to become more and more independent of the phone.

In my personal experience it seems that many parents give their children iPod Touches with the mistaken belief that the children won't be sexting and such without a cellular network.

You give it to your kids instead of a cell phone, mostly.

And an iPhone won't serve this role, because it needs a SIM to activate. So the iPod Touch takes users from Android that can't be served by an iPhone.

I love my nano. I hope someone else picks up the baton and form factor.

Search for mp3 player on Amazon. You'll find pages of similar devices for under $20. Many of them look identical to the Nano and Shuffle.

its the iPad nano :-)

To those answering "because the iPod is cheaper", understand that the alternative to buying an iPhone is buying an iPod + a smartphone.

I'm sad. The Shuffle has been my best electronic device investment in terms of price/value. Solid and reliable with a neat design. Such a great product. Been washed out several times and using for 5 years still with its original battery.

I personally hate that the Shuffle is dead. It was a prime example of a device that did one thing only and did it well. No love for minimalism these days, I suppose.

If you want an MP3-playing USB drive, there are still plenty of S1s[1]to be had for incredibly low prices, some very Shuffle-like in appearance:

https://www.aliexpress.com/price/mp3-player-usb-drive_price....

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player

(I played around with S1s when they were really popular; they're a cute little Z80-based embedded system. It's rather surprising that they are apparently still in production, for over a decade now.)

Apple Watch + Bluetooth headphones is the replacement.

So a $1,000 replacement for a $50 device. And the watch has exceptionally inferior battery life, and is exponentially more breakable.

New Apple Watches start at $269 and you can pick up a pair of Bluetooth headphones for less than $10 these days. Why are you saying $1,000?

It has battery life that lasts almost two days, which is more than enough for most people.

How is it exponentially more breakable? By what measure?

$269 is still a lot more than $50. Where I'm from anyway.

The Shuffle was great and still easier to use than the standalone music playback capability of the Watch.

Sure, but $269 is far less than $1,000 too. If you want to complain that it's more expensive, that's fine. What I'm objecting to is the outright misrepresentation of the facts.

...plus the $1000 iPhone you need to use the watch?

You can buy a new, unsubsidised iPhone for $399, and everybody in the target market for Apple Watches already owns one anyway.

Why are people here so intent on misrepresenting the cost of Apple gear? You don't need to spend a grand on an iPhone to get an Apple Watch to work and you don't need to spend a grand on an Apple Watch either.

I thought this required the iPhone to actually store and play the music?

If the watch itself can store it, hell I'll buy one today. Anything to avoid lugging the phone on a run.

You need an iPhone to activate and sync data to an Apple Watch, but the watch retains many capabilities when disconnected from the phone. It will pair with headphones, join wifi to fetch emails, and play music.

I use an Apple Watch Series 2 for running and cycling. The S2 has GPS, so Strava works without the iPhone. I love it, but I have two gripes:

1. Only one playlist (up to 2GB) can be synced to the watch at any time. This is an annoying artificial limitation.

2. The heart rate monitor can be spotty. Around 10% of the time, it picks up my cadence instead of my pulse. I've tried every possible combination of orientation and band tightness.

For exercise, I much prefer the watch to a phone + armband. It's less weight. It's far easier to glance at. And it's waterproof, so I don't have to worry about damage from rain or sweat.

If you're interested, you might want to wait before buying one. It's been almost a year since the last update. Apple will likely release new hardware before the holidays.

Zero firsthand experience, but it sounds like you can store 1gb of music on the watch itself (and you can up that to 2gb) and play via Bluetooth headphones.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204691

Funny enough, the Shuffle had 2gb capacity over the past 7 years. I'm guessing that was the sweet spot for Apple.

I'm currently using 2nd gen watch and airpods hoping that my workout experience would be more hands free.

There are couple of things that I find off-putting about the experience and tend to simply stick with airpods + iphone.

1) You only get a few options in terms of what music you put on your phone. You cannot simply select the albums you want, you can choose these options:

* Classical Music

* My Top Rated

* Recently Played

* Top 25 Most Played

* 90's Music

* Playlists

I would much rather upload specific albums instead and find it really annoying that I have to jump through hoops to accomplish that goal.

2) Airpods really struggle to switch between iphone to iwatch. Half of the time they cannot pair correctly. My macbook pro and iphone have no troubles at all pairing but the iwatch seems to struggle a lot.

If those two things do not bother you then go for it. When you have the music you want on the iwatch and the airpods pair correctly, it's a really nice experience especially with exercising.

You can do this with the 2nd generation I think.

I'm in the android ecosystem, and have had 2 watches that do this: Moto 360 Sport, and now have Polar M600 that can store music (from Google Play), and which allows running without a phone.

I think it is able to store up to 2GB of music. And I just saw this for Spotify -- https://snowy.rocks

Yes, watch works standalone; you need an iPhone to fill up the music though.

I used to love my shuffle since running with a phone wired up to headphones sucks (well, before the iPhone, an iPod). I'm quite happy with bluetooth headphones for the gym today though, it doesn't solve the running problem completely, but works perfectly fine for a stationary machine.

Ah, the last device to allow me to listen to terrestrial radio and MP3s without using data or my limited phone battery is now gone.

I know, who still does that? Well, actually many of us in the NYC area who listen to NPR in the morning... because the data drops out and our phone batteries are dead from the frantic early morning emails we all do.

Sure, we all love our spotify downloads and our podcasts, but the MP3s I've collected, and the simple OTA radio just worked, in many places were data didn't.

And I'm even sadder that they never went to digital or "HD" radio. Sometimes we think we are so clever with our streaming stuff, when we are literally suffering with a crummmy stream when we could just get it free OTA. Compressed, staticky, and annoying, sure, but free!

So RIP, my iPod friends. From hard drives to SSD, you faithfully carried books and music for me across the world and at every hour of the day, something I can't say of my phones, and you did it well.

This seems a little dramatic. I mean you can still choose from dozens of other mp3 players.

On the low end this is 14 bucks and seems to meet your needs: http://www.tmart.com/8GB-MP3-Player-with-FM-Function-Red_p13...

On the higher end the Sony Walkman is now an mp3 player: https://www.sony.com/electronics/walkman-digital-music-playe...

It's probably not worth Apple's time to focus on such a niche market, but there are still plenty of other players in the space.

On the low end this is 14 bucks and seems to meet your needs

FYI that is an S1, a design that has amazingly been in production for over a decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S1_MP3_player

Seeing those brings back some good memories for me... and they're still being sold! I don't think any other chaep consumer electronics has remained in production for this long. They take a single (replaceable) AAA battery and don't require any special software, just USB mass storage.

> On the low end this is 14 bucks

The same model is under $4 in AliExpress.

The Sandisk Clip line of players do that. So do models from a lot of other brands.

Indeed. I recently looked for an MP3 player for trail running. My sister has an iPod nano that I liked for having tried it a few times, but when I saw the price it was a no go, especially when I saw that I can get the same functionality for 1/3 of the price.

I got an Sandisk Clip Sport Plus: 16Gb, Bluetooth, 3.5 Jack, FM tuner, micro-USB, ~20h battery, FLAC support, water-resistant.

Don't expect the same product quality as the nano though (plastic case, no touchscreen, smaller screen, etc…) but at least for sport you don't need this anyway.

I have a simpler model; no bluetooth or color screen, but it has a microSD card slot. 4GB base memory, with a 16GB card in it. I think it was about $20 when I bought it years ago, and it's still going.

I've always loved iPod with buttons. The color display ipod nanos (4th gen) and iPod classic was good as it got. They still had physical buttons but allowed you to see album covers.

It was a great balance.

The iPod touches, by comparison, are not as good. What took a second to do, now took at least 3 seconds to do because you have to swipe to get into the interface, open up the music app, and then change the song.

Meanwhile, I just got something to switch my iPod Classic to flash storage, expanding the storage up to half a terabyte or so.

I got the largest capacity iPhone a year ago and I still have to manage space on it.

Probably my favorite project I've done in the past few years. I managed to snag a mint condition 5th generation iPod (later called "Classic") and put 4 x 128GB microSD cards in it, with an expanded battery. Perfect for flights. Once the price of 256gb cards goes down I'll make another to get close to 1TB.

Rockbox that thing, download some WADs and play some DOOM!

> I don't see why people would choose the touch over a low-end iPhone.

You can let children play with them without worrying they'll call emergency services.

A couple of great products have now come to pass.

That said, the Nano and Shuffle no longer belong in the Apple ecosystem. An Apple Watch and a pair of AirPods replace them. Both totaling $428 USD minimum.

It's no wonder they discontinued the shuffle and nano. They're have a larger margin, and can boost sales of the apple watch in one fell swoop. Kind of a bummer but an interesting move.

The margins from streaming are probably even better.

https://www.recode.net/2016/12/7/13864776/apple-spotify-60-m...

If they wanted to continue the iPod nano line, Apple should probably use watchOS. It's perfect for a device that size.

Basically such an iPod nano would be a vertically elongated Apple Watch with a scroll wheel instead of the "digital crown" (that tiny wheel on the side of the Watch), and a Lightning connector instead of wireless charging.

I wonder if this is a step toward killing iTunes. Now they no longer sell any devices that require syncing over USB.

Do you want to help me make a replacement?

It's really nice to have a small, dedicated device that just plays music and does it well even if you're in an area with poor reception.

Luckily, there seems to be a viable replacement for a small fraction of the cost: https://goo.gl/176cos.

If they could figure out a way that doesn't take 5 hours to load music onto an Apple Watch, I'd consider one again (mainly so I can use Bluetooth headphones while running) over a shuffle (I understand the price difference).

Though ideally a sweat / water resistance Bluetooth iPod shuffle would be perfect.

Fun fact, there is a very healthy after-market for the iPod shuffle among swimmers.

The device can be easily and robustly waterproofed and is small enough to clip to your goggles. I expect many of these 3rd party companies will be buying up remaining shuffle lots.

But what sort of earphones can you wear while swimming that don't fall out?

I think IEMs that have a waterproof shell would work. They create an air-tight seal with your ear.

There's a type of earphone that utilises bone conduction.

I hear they're generally waterproof

Shuffle was great for things like jogging and other outside activity (for those of us that don't care about Endomondo, and letting the whole world know that you jogged). Nano is much easier to let go.

Discontinuing the Shuffle makes sense. But I'm surprised that they don't just update the Nano to support their current services. It does have a screen.

I would sooner buy a Shuffle than a Nano (I have neither). For the exercise use case, Shuffle is a third the weight of Nano, a third the price, smaller form factor and has a clip for your clothes. If all you want to do is shuffle your playlist while you run for an hour, it's perfect. I never understood the people who run with a half-pound smartphone strapped to their arm.

It's not that I don't want something smaller. It's that I don't want the hassle of configuring and updating one more thing.

If I had an "iPod shuffle" app on my iPhone that would just keep the shuffle updated with music wirelessly, I'm in.

I'm guessing the apple watch is the replacement. It tracks cardio and can independently play music stored on it via bluetooth.

Ah, discontinuing the Nano because it competes with the watch does seem likely.

I'm afraid you are right, but, boy what a price hike for the use case!

I have a Shuffle, and your comment describes exactly how and why I use it.

I'm sure this allows them to drop a lot of legacy. Keeping the shuffle means continuing to support a non-Darwin based OS [1] and any legacy protocols it used. It's continuing to be a shrinking market, so I can't imagine investing much r&d to add support for current services.

Another poster asked why not use Apple Watch guts to update the Nano. I'm sure for similar reasons including the hardware used in the watch is likely significantly more expensive than what's in the nano, now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixo

The marketplace for these devices is probably shrinking as smartphone penetration increases. The BOM for the ipod touch is probably similar enough to the iphone for them to justify keeping it around.

The market for them were already hurting back when Featurephones were a thing, so i am surprised to learn they still exist.

Heck, featurephones with music capabilities were probably what drove Apple to make a phone in the first place.

The iPod Touch is still incredibly popular among kids since it doesn't require a cellular contract. Given that most schools and places have wifi an iPod Touch is great on the budget.

Considering how much Apple is focused on Apple Music, I'm not surprised. Both the Shuffle and Nano don't support the service, only able to sync content within an iTunes library.

It would've been great to see Apple Music support added to either device but I imagine there's many reasons why they couldn't/wouldn't spend the resources doing it.

Insignificant number of users/purchasers probably. How many people don't have a smartphone with a music service on it? And out of the people that would prefer a device like the Nano for certain activities (e.g. gym) how many need a new version? I still have the first Nano that had a video camera and it works as well as the day I bought it.

> And out of the people that would prefer a device like the Nano for certain activities (e.g. gym) how many need a new version?

And for those who do, Apple would probably prefer to sell you an Apple Watch with 2GB of music storage than an iPod Shuffle.

> How many people don't have a smartphone with a music service on it?

More than six billion?

Maybe those expensive wireless earphones could even keep a playlist in memory and then you can go for a run without the phone..

Optimistic they will be introducing a high-end iPhone, made from scarce parts. Through price anchoring, the Touch will seem like a bargain low-end screen device.

What "scarce parts" are you going to use to build a phone?

For Apple, nearly anything new is scarce at their scale. There's a lot of speculation that a new high-end phone will be added to the lineup to allow them to introduce technology that can't be scaled as fast as Apple would need.

See http://www.macworld.com/article/3207552/iphone-ipad/apples-r...

Assuming "current services" includes Apple Music, the Nano does not have wifi.

This seems like the strongest explanation. Apple has a greater chance at upselling someone to a subscription service if there is wifi or cellular data. That said, they could have added wireless connectivity to the Nano maybe.

A cellular based iPod shuffle with Siri and the ability to tether with the Watch would be really great! Kinda like Apple's version of what Pebble's Core was going to be. It would be really cool to just leave the phone at home and take something really small to play Spotify while I run, and still have access to emergency calls.

I loved the 6th get iPod Nano so much. Small, clips on you, has a screen and all of the goodies. Favorite iPod of all time.

This product change makes me wonder if they're considering a small player based on the Apple Watch. Similar form factor to the 6th get nano, clips on you, has most of the goodies of the Watch.

I can dream, I guess.

Me too. That iPod Nano was the first Apple product that I ever owned, and it was great. Actually a first product with a capacitive touch screen I had. It was so tiny and functional and worked so well, I remember those cool multi-touch rotations, distance tracking for running, awesome clip. It seemed to me like a miracle of engineering when it was released. Really magical experience for me to use it. I loved it so much that the next phone I bought had to be an iPhone.

These days I'm used to running with a phone because I like to use Spotify and GPS tracking. But it's so bulky and heavy. I miss the days of the Nano.

My 6th gen came as a replacement for my original 1st gen Nano thanks to the recall for the burning Japanese units, long past the original warranty. Still works great despite one unfortunate incident where it went through both a wash and drying cycle in the pocket of a pair of shorts.

The interface sucks balls, hard buttons like the last Shuffle would have been much better, but I'll use it until it dies.

I'm still sore over the complete extinction of the gen-1 shuffle. Such a perfect design. So minimal, so clean. And it had its USB plug built in. Too beautiful to live.

The Chinese have been producing clones of those, and likely will continue doing so for the forseeable future. Here's one company I found from a quick search of "USB drive MP3 player":

http://challengeusb.com/product.asp?classid=22

(The bonus is that these don't require iTunes or other proprietary software --- they're standard USB drives.)

In fact this might be why Apple discontinued that model --- the underlying components and design have become so easy to replicate and also public-domain that Apple doesn't feel it provides any differentiation.

The iPod Touch never made sense to me.

It is the same form factor as a phone. So why would anyone carry it instead of, or in addition to, their actual phone?

It has always been cheaper than an iPhone with equivalent storage. It's niche is use cases where you want a pocket computer, but don't need telephony functionality.

I carry an iPod Touch with my main phone (Nexus 5X). I use the iPod as a dedicated MP3 player. There are a few advantages:

* Much better battery life than a phone (> 80% left after 8 hours of playback on a 6 year old device).

* I can dedicate the full capacity to music storage and free up the same space on my phone.

* No need to change apps to toggle music.

* No music interruptions due to notifications.

Kids are one reason for cost and not wanting them to have a cell phone for other reasons.

I also know people who use an iPod Touch when deployed to locations where they'd like to have that form factor of iOS device but are not allowed to have a device with the possibility of having a SIM card in it. This is obviously an unaccountably small segment of the market.

It's my alarm clock that also happens to play podcasts and can browse and check email when needed. I guess it fits in a lot of niches.

Developers might find an iPod Touch useful for iOS app development and testing.

I leave my touch in my car

The nano is great for the gym, small, and no worries about sweating my regular phone to an early death. Sad to see it go.

Cannot beat the iPod shuffle for activities that include water, such as winter sports. RIP an amazing product.

RIPod.

I've noticed apple cutting under-performing products over the years to boost their stock price. It works but think it leads to a poorer ecosystem in the long run. A shame.

For example I was a big fan of their wifi express, and purchased several, but they have been dropped too. So one day I'll have to go back to a clunky linksys or belkin and their insecure attempts at ease of use.

> I've noticed apple cutting under-performing products over the years to boost their stock price.

I suspect you're wrong about the motivation. Steve Jobs was ruthless about cutting products that under-performed and/or stretched resources in directions that he didn't feel were strategic.

And Steve Jobs didn't really care much about stock price.

Apple made wifi products when the available options mostly sucked. Now that there are some pretty interesting mesh products out there, and Apple would have to do a lot of development work to match them, I can understand why they've stopped active development. Opportunity cost is a very real thing.

I don't like it, but I don't for a minute believe it has anything to do with their stock price.

You don't believe for a minute that financial decisions have any weight? Their stock split of a few years back shows Jobs' unconventional financial ideas were only followed as long as he was around.

I don't know of any other tiny, strong, so easy to use access points with style like the express from a company with a known track record. Doesn't need any more features, maintenance could be done on a shoestring, guess that's too boring though.

And yes, financial decisions are financial. But to tie the decision to stop improving a minor product line to "we must appease Wall Street" is quite the stretch.

Growth has plateaued, how do you expect that financials are improving? Through cutting costs. If you don't believe it, well you don't know much about large corps.

They're still selling them, so they're apparently still being maintained.

Do you mean the Airport Express? It is not discontinued.

https://www.apple.com/airport-express/

https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/21/apple-reportedly-stops-develo...

That story is 8 months old and wrong! Apple still sell them.

They may still sell them, but that surprises me because the story is correct, they stopped developing them. Nobody works on the AirPort anymore. They're just selling the last device they had, and it's only a matter of time until they stop. I'm actually surprised they haven't stopped already.

They might still be selling them but it's not wrong that they haven't developed them either.

There hasn't been a new one in over 5 years and while most of their hardware has supported 802.11ac for 3-4 years (iMac since 2014, Retina MacBook Pro since 2013, iPhone/iPad since 2014) their first party wireless router doesn't.

their first party wireless router doesn't

The Airport Extreme support 802.11ac. In fact, I am using one now ;).

One of their first party wireless routers then.

> Apple still sell them.

That doesn't mean they're working on the next version.

I used to love my Airports, but the most recent version dropped SNMP support, and the Airport Utility has been dropping features as well. No Quality-of-Service capabilities since its inception, either - my wife's Flickr uploads kill my connection while they run.

Do you think it has anything to do with the CEO?

Yes, I like Cook and the strategy is "Wall Street" rational, but it's a shame to see best of market products neglected and dropped.

R.I.P. Time Capsule

In other news, Apple still sold the iPod Nano and Shuffle

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