Apple is discontinuing the iPod
apple.com
apple.com
There is also a part of me that wants to take those albums and keep them on an old click-wheel iPod. I always thought the early iPod nanos were among the best consumer hardware devices ever made. Just the right mix of boxy and round; small enough to be novel (at least at the time), but large enough to still be perfectly usable. Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
As someone who was a teen when the iPod really started taking off, it was a constant presence during the time music was starting to become an important part of my life. Sad to see it go, even though really it’s been gone since the iPhone launched.
I have certain custom mixtape style mood music CDs depending on how the scene in my novel is supposed to feel tonally, for example.
Yes I could make those into YouTube playlists, but the ritual of putting in the right CD has something to say for it, and also my CDs never have advertisements that manage to sneak past all of my layers of adblock, nor do they suddenly decide to be unavailable on one particular day or another.
I still play records though, simply because it is more fun, but if I want quality I play CDs.
It feels like the inconvenience is what people _like_ about vinyl? But maybe my setup just isn't good enough to tell a difference?
This is where we differ. For me that is not an inconvenience but part of the experience. I enjoy picking a record to play, removing it from the cover, checking it for dust or dirt, and putting it on the turntable. Probably mostly for nostalgic reasons.
edit: formatting
This and that I'm very deliberate about keeping track of new music I want to listen to (my queue). EDIT: There was a tool posted here on Show HN a few days ago that seemed interesting for this sort of stuff but I can't seem to find it now.
I used to do this before the streaming services existed. I used to buy a handful of MP3's from Amazon (don't laugh) per month. I would also buy used CDs and rip it to MP3. Apple Music is included with monthly cell phone bill so I now "rent" some of my music now, it's just easier. I'm careful not to just download whole albums outright though, I have a curated collection of songs I like and I still use the old star ratings in iTunes. I also pay for $25/year for iTunes Match to maintain my legacy collection.
There are some bugs to iron out in the setup, but my raspberry pi home server has been running this great for 5 months now, and offline media served me very well through a cross-country move. It's a great opportunity to take back some agency from Spotify, start contributing to artists on bandcamp or similar, and cut another annoying monthly subscription from your life.
When someone hands me their phone to play music on Spotify at this point, I find the front page absolutely overwhelming. It's sort of like going back to cable after streaming for years, and seeing your first ad. You wonder how you ever put up with it.
I share your concern that Epic will ruin Bandcamp, but part of me wonders if that wouldn't be a good thing in the long run. I don't think Bandcamp tried to monopolize digital file sales for independent music, but they kind of have, and that's bad.
I'd love to see a good open source music store pop up that labels and bands could easily self-host. You could probably build all the core Bandcamp features into a WordPress plugin in a weekend.
Question to stuartd: I am concerned about how long Apple will support iTunes Match. Have you thought about what you would switch to in order to stream your Apple Music/iTunes when or if Apple sunsets iTunes Match as a service?
Appreciate it!
https://www.imore.com/apple-music-vs-itunes-match-whats-diff...
My suspicion is that they're not going to get rid of that functionality -- it continues to be a differentiator between them and Spotify. And, assuming that's right, they don't have any particular pressure to get rid of the standalone iTunes Match service. I know there's the argument that they might get rid of the $25/yr service in order to force people onto the $99/yr service. But it seems quite likely to me that Apple figures anyone still paying for iTunes Match but not Apple Music just doesn't want Apple Music, which makes the consideration in Apple's accounting department not "$99 > $25" but "$25 > $0".
According to this link [0] iTunes Match is an integral component of Apple Music. And I pay for both!
So I guess I'm cancelling iTunes Match..
[0] https://miapple.me/apple-music-vs-itunes-match-difference
[0] https://airsonic.github.io/
I'd just be using WG if I figured out how to set it up the first time ahaha. It's nice to get rid of third-parties whenever possible, especially when it comes to my personal IT infrastructure.
My home music server has my wife and I’s mp3 collection that we’ve been building since like 2000. However, I’m continuously buying new music on bandcamp and scouring music blogs, and the collection grew until she was overwhelmed by the selection. So then I took her old click-wheel ipod music collection (which broke, but she had the music backed up), and I put that on a USB which is plugged into our Yamaha Musiccast receiver. The interface is pretty simple in the musiccast app (scroll and choose). She’s happy to have her collection locked to like 2012 in an ipod-like fashion.
But she still misses that ipod. The screen started fading, and I took it apart to replace parts, and in the process I screwed up the battery. It only works when docked and dies immediately when undocked.
Plexamp has been great for music. I can put on any CD I own, in FLAC quality, without having to go locate the physical disc. I've spent much of pandemic filing in holes in the back catalog of my favorite artists.
If I want a mix, I tend to open up Tidal and let it build a "radio station" based on my mood.
The other middle ground, between self hosting and streaming if you will, is to connect your music library to a streaming service like https://asti.ga/ .
I guess this is effectively outsourcing the self hosting bit. You can connect to locally stored music files via WebDAV or just upload your collection to any of the big cloud storage providers.
Steve Jobs was against the whole Streaming Music services idea. At the time I would have thought the next move for iTunes would be to have free Streaming of songs you have purchased. Which is somewhat similar to this idea.
Having tried Youtube Music, Tidal and Amazon Music, I feel that the UIs of most streaming apps and even most music apps in general are not that great.
I strongly prefer the "sit down and listen to a whole album" experience anyway, at least from artists who make a deliberate attempt to put together a cohesive album and not just one or two bangers and a bunch of filler.
Sitting down and listening to a Bowie album or something is a time capsule, and I'm not a boomer so it's not childhood nostalgia either. It's nice to sit down and listen to an hour of music that was specifically curated to produce a certain experience.
> Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
FYI you can replace the battery in an iPod... someone pointed me towards Cameron Sino as being an extremely reputable supplier of replacements (I've known of them for a long time but I had no idea they sold direct to consumer!).
Also, if you are not enamored with needing to use iTunes, the "Rockbox" open-source firmware targets Apple hardware and that should allow it to act like a plain old USB Mass Storage device. I used to use it like 15+ years ago on my iRiver H320 music player.
(the name "iRiver" actually predates the ipod! They were a korean company who became known for making very capable flash and HDD mp3 players for their day, with OGG Vorbis support and line-in recording and many other neat features.)
Also also, if you are interested in improvements, or your HDD died, you can get an IDE-to-CF adapter or perhaps SD/MicroSD or mSATA or M.2 (not sure what's available nowadays) and use a normal flash drive. At the time they were popular this often implied a reduction in capacity, but flash is big now and you can probably get like a 1TB drive and with Rockbox it should recognize it. Not all cards work, but I think the dividing line is often "cards that speak IDE" vs cards that don't - many of the high-spec CompactFlash cards actually have a "native IDE" mode so they speak the same protocol as the original drive did. It also substantially improves battery life, because you're going from a spinning drive pulling a couple watts to a flash card pulling ~nothing.
No affiliation with this site and haven't used them but this is basically what you'll be looking for: https://www.iflash.xyz/ipod-and-sdhc-sdxc-cards/
If your device is physically battered to hell then yeah, not much you can do besides try to find a replacement. But if your ipod is still in decent shape with a fresh battery and a flash adapter it'll be better than new. Do try to minimize the number of assembly/disassembly cycles though, there's lots of little plastic clips in most devices and they won't last forever.
Also, Fiio made some devices with very similar ergonomics to the ipod (eg the scroll wheel) like the X5 and X5ii, although like most others they've gone to android nowadays. I have an X5ii that will take a pair of 128GB microSD cards and it has a solid hifi headphone amp built in.
https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/fiio-x5-2nd-gen-premium-hi-...
I actually used to buy a lot of media so I hit this problem before streaming. As soon as I had a backlog big enough with each type of media that it wasn't straightforward to burn through it, it became a cloud of equally possible stuff with the result I wasn't particularly invested in any of it. Most people were smarter than me re: dumping money into bits on a disc, but now that streaming and/or free-feed libraries have hit most media types, I think the experience is becoming more common.
I think it's a different version of Paradox of Choice: all individualization between the various choices is lost when there's too many. With PoC, the problem is that then you have nothing left by which you can prioritize. In this case, the issue is the loss of all joy you'd have found in the differences.
What's helped a little for me is going on "kicks," like finding all the bands I liked that did EDM-metal hybrid, or all the found footage movies I liked, etc. Constraining the pool you're selecting from first makes it easier, and having a mission of some kind makes it easier still.
This meant my access to movies was basically whatever was on broadcast TV that night or if I was really lucky whatever was available at our local video rental store.
I remember not always loving whatever movie we chose (or whatever was on TV) but I watched it because it’s what I had.
Now, like many others, I stare at the home screen of a few different services each night, start and stop a few different things, then give up.
On the other hand, TV series have never been better - we seem to be in some kind of golden age where you can find tons of high quality well acted series on every streaming service. There was a bit of a lull (for me) during Covid, but my backlog is completely full through the next year.
There's always older films to watch. I'm at a point where I'd far rather put the time into something older, with solid actors, than watch the latest and greatest mostly-CG special effects laden [whatever]. That most of those movies are unwatchable unless you're "deep into the fandom" doesn't encourage me to invest in them either. And if it's not those, it's the "How can we prequel all the popular things," even when it makes no sense at all. To yell at a cloud briefly, Han Solo doesn't need a prequel. He's a standard drifter archetype, and to nail his past down doesn't do the character any service at all.
old man makes great point
There was some threshold that was crossed probably close to a decade ago for me where CG effects stopped being interesting in any way, but watching older movies with their incredible special effects and stuntmen really does look impressive to me. There is no CG in the world that compares to the immersion in Apocalypse Now, for example.
I do think there are many ways to use CG to subtly support the impact of a scene driven by characters, but when the scene itself is driven by the CG (in ways that are unrealistic for actors or stuntmen to perform) it just feels like a lazy way to progress a storyline.
Yes, there's some CG for the flame effects and such, but the bulk of it is just practical effects - and when you watch it, the movie stands out because of them. Everything they're doing can be done - as proven by the fact that they did it. Is it insane madness in the desert? Yes, but they filmed insane madness in the desert.
I started getting annoyed at CG heavily around the Star Wars Prequel days - when you've got movies in which the plot serves the tech demo, not the other way around. That's not a style of storytelling I enjoy, and more and more it seems to be the style used.
(side note: the one they just released, Everything Everywhere All The Time, might be one of the best movies I've seen in the last decade)
I agree though, fortunately I'm someone who doesn't mind rewatching old films I like, and also there are surely many greats I've yet to see. Television is not all hits, but there seem to be many more than in film, and then once you have one that's firstly and most simply more hours of entertainment; secondly it's a virtuous circle having more time for character and plot development etc.
Feel petty mentioning this, but you mean you couldn't care less right? As in you care nothing about latest movie, right?
Took me a moment to work out what you were saying, hence why pointing out, although aware small, potentially peevish position on my part
The internet, and Hacker News, is not that place.
There are plenty of people on here who will read "could" and "couldn't" as the actual words they are rather than the phrase they're a part of.
Couldn't care less - absolute zero care. Nothing can disappoint me whatever happen. Could care less - some degree of care is present. Thing can actually get worse
Never been a social guy, but I found enjoyable a short talk with the guy at the counter.
He gave me his opinion on the tape I was about to checkout and made suggestions about the new acquisitions. I guess after some weeks he knew my tastes and give a human-curated list, hehehe. They mostly tend to by nerdy, so we made a good fit, but they curated the list to old ladies, families and so...
A miss here and there, but I always found something enjoyable in all tapes. Even in the low budget, low quality ones.
Looks like ages ago...
It's quite useful experience to have, helps in adult life when you have to survive long meetings that are not particularly engaging nor interesting.
There's just too much of everything. There are too many musicians, movies, and games that friends, family, and the recommendation algorithms all swear I absolutely must experience before I can call my life complete.
As I'm in the late stage process of potentially joining a start-up, I am doing so much what-if and what-about-that analysis and it is completely paralyzing my decision process! But it reminded me that I was once a 20-year-old sophomore in college that created a business plan with a friend for a start-up without once wondering what else might be out there. Times have changed.
I've noticed a related phenomenon: too much choice induces anxiety. If there are like 5 films showing in the cinema it's usually obvious which one to pick. Maybe I'll watch another later in the week. But now I can watch any film ever made and I often find it hard to choose because there is a fear of missing out on all the other films I could have chosen.
Having physical media or something that is individual to the music makes me respect my collection and helps bring it to life. I can’t stream from a big service because it ruins the feeling. I don’t really listen to much music on my phone either unless I’m in the car. I like it that way. It feels defiant that I’m not just randomly bombarding my ears with whatever cool new trash is being forced into my ears.
My only real complaint is that nothing wants to work together, so migrating services / backing up playlists / etc is a real nightmare. But I never actually maintained that in any real fashion to begin with, so I do the ones I care about by hand and ignore the rest and I've become fine with that.
This is what I do! And for similar reasons. It's actually really great because a) you can pick up used CDs and vinyl for cheap, b) you get to listen to the whole album, c) there are no screens involved. I didn't realize how oppressive screen-based music selection has become until I ditched it. I love my setup (and you can pick up great used audio equipment for cheap now, too.) Just do it - and if you don't like it you can get rid of it all on ebay.
I also support the artists I listen to by buying merch/going to concerts to supplement the pittance they get from streaming royalties.
Pulling up lyrics and going through my favorite records is quite a nice evening.
Music that is part of my own playlists is there because I discovered it organically (was in a movie I watched, heard on the radio etc.) which is the same as you would discover it pre-streaming.
Songs and playlists that friends share with me is the equivalent of old cassettes that friends would make for you.
I do the same thing outside of music streaming too, there are browser extensions like Undistracted that can help avoiding recommendation systems (but unfortunately Undistracted doesn't work on Spotify).
Here is my solution to enjoying music: treat it as a soundtrack to your life. Create themed playlists. Spotify has collaborative playlists built in and I have a couple of friends who are or were professional DJs. I will start a playlist and then have them add things to it based on the theme and feeling. This process has gotten better and better. I now enjoy high quality music that I love while also discovering new artists and records.
I do get where you're coming from, I'm very nostalgic for my old click-wheel iPod. Probably the biggest downside in moving away from physical media in my mind is the loss of the rest of the album art.
Not that I want music discovery to cost more, but I do think a consequence can be that it’s also easier to not discover music you might otherwise have. If I buy an album, and it doesn’t immediately capture me, I have N-1 other tracks waiting to change my mind. And I’m invested in that possibility. Endless discovery possibilities gives me an incentive to move on to another artist. Sure, I might like that other artist too. But pretty much all of my now-favorite artists were a pass before they grew on me.
I’m not saying that’s the attitude everyone should have, or that others wouldn’t or even ought to explore this way. Just sharing my own perspective for whatever it’s worth.
And this isn’t like a chore I’ve set out to get musically enriched. It’s just “oh yeah, I have that album! I didn’t like it last time but I’m in the mood to have another listen.” Some of these have been years between and sudden discoveries that I had buried my own treasures.
It I’ve ever felt like trying to appreciate an album was a chore but one I wanted to pursue anyway, it was Radiohead’s Amnesiac. I loved the band already but felt put off by the work at first. Even then, I put it away, came back later and fell in love on whichever was the next fresh listen.
But several of my favorite artists, I literally had no interest in at all at first. Then they just caught me in the right moment and the right emotional space. Some of these albums date back to the first I bought, around 13ish(?) and have been favorites for well over 20 years.
Again I don’t think everyone should experience music this way. It’s just my experience. My only point in sharing it, besides sharing a bit of my own joy, is to welcome other people who do find it appealing to either pursue it or feel less oddball for it.
You’re welcome to enjoy listening and discovering music however you see fit. I’m glad you like what you like! This isn’t a conflict or at least it shouldn’t be.
Edit: I also want to be clear, my investment in revisiting music I'd panned wasn’t monetary at all. I have hundreds of CDs I listened to once or twice and tossed in a binder, ignored ever since. My investment is “something about this work felt interesting to me; it still does, even if I’m not ready for it now; I want to revisit it again, and having some artifact [whether it’s a physical album or even just a download] leaves me something to re-discover.”
So really all to say, it might be worth trying some habit hacks before flipping the whole thing over.
The part I don’t always like is the app experience. Not that it’s hard to use but browsing a shelf /rack is so much better. Just like finding a movie at blockbuster was easier than on Netflix. Grocery store > instacart.
I highly encourage giving it a try if you’re inclined. I personally never took to streaming services, largely for the reasons you express.
For me it’s mostly because I dislike shuffle, and prefer listing to full albums. Not a hipster snobby thing, it just fits my attention span better and has led to several artists becoming favorites when I’d felt pretty meh about their singles.
The self curated playlist idea on a nice dedicated device is also very attractive, not least because I still do that on streaming, pity that its support is an Nth tier for the providers behind 'intelligent' and 'AI' and 'just for you' bullsh*t pushed into my face, dealing with own lists is very often a struggle or even an uphill battle.
Yes, I should pick up the old habits too and pay attention more to 'own mix albums', elevating the experience.
I support my favorite artists directly on Bandcamp by buying their digital albums. I put them in my personal Plex server to listen when/wherever. And you usually get download options for lossless formats.
Will sometimes buy the vinyl version as they usually come with a digital download. It's even nicer to lay on the couch and blast the full album without any iPod clicking to deal with ;)
I just wish Amazon digital albums were available in Canada, I don't want to have to buy CDs.
Twitter trends and YouTube as well is full of music on rails, polished pop stars that are working to spin their unremarkable music into an acting career, and it generates underwhelming results for music.
It's the very reason why device makers are getting rid of headphone jacks, and why storage is kept low, even on new on phones, and other devices. Soon we'll only have streaming as a choice, we won't be able to maintain a music collection any more for various reasons like HD/SSD failure, and mysteriously, making deeper choices will be more expensive, even though the artists don't get paid until they give in to the commercial song playlist machine.
There is literally volumes of the absolute best music being made on YouTube, but it never sees the light of day... I have to regularly go through hurdles to find it in places where artists themselves share it, and it's depressing to see them with only 50 views in many cases, completely ignored by algos.
I say this as someone who has run an underground music label for years now, the job of being a successfully creative and different artist is becoming impossible fast, and as a result, the process of finding music based on real talent is fading with it.
Hang onto your vinyl and hope your legacy devices don't get worn out, or enjoy non stop billboard top 10 on an infinite loop (Or Metallica's unforgiven again... on the radio... on infinite loop... after those 10 liberty mutual commercials). :/
This is my experience too. And I think "algos" are doing music-lovers a disservice…
Technology has the potential to democratise music making. You can produce music on any computer. If you make electronic music you need nothing else. If you play physical instruments you need a bit, but not much more, gear to get the sound into the computer to produce tracks which you can publish online.
So, if you want to make music, you can – no one can stop you! And you can put it online and anyone can access it, in theory, but making it discoverable by an audience is a completely different matter.
The streaming services do not need new and innovative music made with passion by god and everybody. They need the old hits, which people look for, and small amount of "new hits" to push on people to make everything feel fresh.
I want to say that there could be a different streaming service, which better serves the audience and makers, but I am not sure exactly what that means.
How about you? Do you have a YouTube list you can share with such music? I'd love to listen
For many (most?) people, the most important role of music is participating in a shared culture. You want to be able to sing along with the same songs as your friends, to get the references made in conversation, to share moments together with a soundtrack in the background.
To the extent there is absolute quality for music, it is secondary to what people want. The thing where most everyone in a group listens to the same stuff on repeat is an important feature of the process.
This one compares how niche your tastes are compared to different countries.
This is a discovery tool.
For me the discovery functionality of Spotify and 3rd party discovery tools work perfectly. I keep discovering new music, the algorithm has learned my tastes pretty well, yet there are still tools if I want to go beyond that.
I want to believe this. Do you have a YouTube list you can share with such music? I'd love to have a listen
As for buying albums- Do it. Something about listening to a whole album puts my head at ease. My car's glovebox is stuffed with CDs I got in places ranging from the local bookstore to a dive bar in Memphis. It's great music, but it's also a fond memory.
I've discovered nts.live somewhere in 2021 and have been listening a lot to their shows. The selection of music is diverse and very obviuosly curated.
Where else would I find a podcast of lofi outsider pop that ventures from brittle shoegaze/ambient track into one of the greatest disoc/pop songs ever sung by a 10 year old girl: https://www.nts.live/shows/okonkole-y-trompa/episodes/okonko... (Around 1h40min)
It’s not quite the tangible feel of the ipod you describe but I find a great joy in my library being mine and not having any social or promotional features (« hot albums this week » etc.), i know what is in there and what comes in and goes out. The UI is utilitarian and not trying to drive engagement or generate revenue from me, I love it.
Is anyone aware of any geeky workflows for this, e.g. having a giant collection on a server and regularly updating the local selection. A simple player app etc. A service independent way to store favourite tracks and playlists etc.
Or have streaming services stolen all tha air from this sector?
The aggressivness of Apple Music hints that those services will start getting annoying.
I've seen it being carried as a daily driver instead of a phone by few privacy and security conscious folks. Considering that use case, iPod Touch was a great value for money. Guess they'll carry iPad mini now i.e. if they really want to stick with Apple (app) ecosystem.
I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy, but the iPod was a rock solid product that got all of the little things right. Given that the market for standalone DAPs is tiny because most people today just use their phones and music streaming apps, it's unlikely that we'll ever see a music player that compares to it.
We're in a Renaissance age of mobile listening thanks to ChiFi. I love carrying around a second device that has no persistent connection to the internet, no notifications, and can drive any headphones I throw at it... With sideloaded Audible and Tidal to boot.
Media used to be this easy and pleasurable to consume before phones got it the way.
I'm also really into single-purpose electronics. My whole library is FLAC, so these players should be right up my alley. Except they tend to be heavy and expensive, and when it comes to UI, either they're using Android poorly, with incredibly bad battery life (HiBy R5/R6, Fiio M9, A&K anything), or they're using a custom UI with pre-iPod UX sensibilities. And even when they use Android, they try to graft their own UI onto it, so that in the end you have the worst of both worlds -- just watch what happens to the volume settings on any Android-based HiBy DAP after connecting with Bluetooth.
The communities that buy this stuff are much more into the technical and theoretical sound quality than how it actually comes together as a product. The marketing reflects that; the product pages are all litanies of incremental DAC processor upgrades, circuit diagrams, and cryptic audio codecs. And because this is what folks care about, it's hard to find reviewers who even mention into UX.
If you have a rec I'm all ears, because I'm on the verge of resuscitating my original Pixel just for this.
I'm using an AK SR25 right now and absolutely love it. It's pretty small.
Can it drive Bluetooth headphones? That's the only reason I no longer use my Xduoo X3.
If I had something similar (small, minimal screen, dual TF slots) that worked with Bluetooth, I'd use it all the time.
For Bluetooth usage a year or two ago I would have recommended the Shanling M0. All these devices have awful touchscreens and the M0 is no exception, but it's tiny, light, and has long battery life. Unfortunately, in this space the manufacturers tend to discontinue products in favor of new ones within a year.
- candybar form factor
- OLED screen
- 2 TF slots (ideal) or 1 TF slot (must support at least 200GB card)
But you already have a phone (I guess) so the cost you're competing against is zero.
Also I think they playback with hardware don’t they? They aren’t running the CPU. It uses a trickle of charge just like your iPod.
Can you point to anything in particular? I bought a Chinese mp3 player earlier this year and it's a piece of junk.
I also prefer it not to have internet, notifications, etc, so that sounds perfect.
The thing is thick and dissipates so much heat that they have an official active cooling stand to go with it. How is that portable? What makes the whole situation funnier is that they spin it as a feature, calling it "Desktop tier heat dissipation" (you can't make this up).
In contrast, Shanling's M9 still looks normal.
Can you recommend an audio player with a better UX than the default Sony app?
Exactly, so I was curious if you had replaced the Sony player app by another app while still using Sony hardware?
Rockbox does have exponential scrolling, but only supports a limited list of hardware. There is an "unstable port" for the Fiio M3k but that's not what either of us own ;)
Might be a good project for someone here who wants to play with embedded hardware! It's one of those situations where once you get it up and going on a particular set of hardware, you will benefit from a lot of "passive" development from others, both past and future.
They (iPods) are relatively simple and new replacement parts are readily available. Pick up an old iPod off ebay and install a new battery. It's a fun little project, I've done it a few times now.
I get that it's second nature for corporate marketing to try to dampen the message when they're taking something away, but this is on a whole new level.
> Customers can purchase iPod touch through apple.com, Apple Store locations, and Apple Authorized Resellers while supplies last.
That's pretty clear that more won't be made.
This is:
"You can buy our product while we sell it"
"Music is super great isn't it"
"We have lots of ways to let you listen to music"
"We love that our customers like listening to music"
"So yeah, as we clearly said, you can buy our product while we sell it"
I'd argue that the primary message they were trying to convey was something that had to be inferred from their text, as opposed to being something clearly stated in their text, and therefore that it is NOT clear.
This is true for every product ever made
People see this news as the "end of an era" -- an era that began with Apple's reinvention in the early 2000s. That's the implicit message. There are two ways to interpret this:
1. Wow, what an iconic product. Come to think of it, we haven't really felt that way about a new Apple product in a while... Maybe this is not just the end of iPod, but of Apple's product innovation, too?
2. Wow, what an iconic product. Wild to think that we could only have 1,000 songs but even that was revolutionary. Apple changed music forever and they're still ahead of the industry with products like AirPods and Spatial Audio. I wonder what they'll do next?
Interpretation #1 is a very real risk to Apple’s brand. It's the job of their PR team to steer the message toward interpretation #2.
It doesn't help that Apple was pretty much hiding that they still sold them. They were not discoverable through the site or most Apple stores. You have to use the search or ask someone about it, respectively. They were pivoting away from it first.
That doesn't follow (and all three above assertions are false, to boot).
I have tried using the new iOS Focus and Downtime features to make my iPhone work a similar way (hide all the time-sucking apps at certain times of day etc), but having a dedicated device for the purpose is much simpler and much more effective.
On my iPad, even messages with friends, emails, etc are all blocked. Not even red badges on the app icons. Nothing that can possibly prompt or notify me in any way. I don't think I could get away with that on my main phone
Though it won’t be possible to get new iPhone SE 2nd gen for long. At that point, a refurbished or used 11 or XR or SE 2nd gen will not be too much. The latter two should be cheaper than a new iPod Touch.
I have been looking for a cheaper, no-data SIM card to use with 2FA Mules - this is very helpful.
You literally can't "just buy one" that's new to give to a kid.
Chiefly, it weighs 88g vs the 138g for the iPhone - a considerable difference for a child.
Some apps are a little cramped on what is now considered a small screen though (e.g. TikTok UI takes up most of the screen).
I got one for my kid as a camera. Why? Because it costs as much as many kids cameras, while they're absolute trash, and the camera module/software in the iPod takes really high quality photos that are easy to export or manipulate.
Old iPhones are inexpensive, but you cannot disable emergency calling for a good reason, but that good reason still doesn't make you want to hand one to a 7-year-old as a glorified camera.
Or maybe they see that as belonging to the iPad mini’s purpose.
The tablet also has more educational value as it supports handwriting and drawing, though it comes at the cost of not being pocket-size (adding inconvenience for users who just want to listen to music).
Mini has the small bezels, USB-C port, supports the magnetically charged stylus, and has an A15 with 4 GB RAM, so it's priced more in line with the iPad Air even though it's the small one.
I used to have an iPad Mini, I think 3? Whichever model was before it got Touch ID. Back then it was a smaller and cheaper version of the normal iPad, more recently it's moved to the middle of the line (but below the "Pro" versions).
I think what I had was a 2 purchased after the 3 came out, someplace was clearing them out for around $150 off even though it was practically the same device except it took half a second longer to unlock. Pretty good deal, eventually got demoted to kitchen recipe screen.
I think the iPad Mini makes sense as a product line in general. Which is being a smaller screen (and thus cheaper) iPad Air. It does work as an option, but so do iPads.
iPod touches also sent iMessages, since all you need is an Apple ID.
https://support.apple.com/guide/ipod-touch/set-up-messages-i...
That's why I said "having an iPod touch keeps the kid from getting bullied by the "Blue Message" crowd" - It was the device you could buy a kid and not worry about the green messages.
iPhones without phone contracts can still call 911.
1) although having had to make a 911 from Car Play, I wouldn't worry about accidents, but it was concerning how long it took to make the damn call.
Cost. $199, new.
I wish I learned the trick of "buying quality devices that are a few years old and using them until end-of-life" ages ago (also works great with laptops, though Apple's ones tend to stay expensive despite their age, so it works better with Thinkpads), I've spent so much money on brand new devices, which did not benefit me in any meaningful way.
More to the thread: I too am puzzled by the idea of giving my child a device that allows them to rot their brain but doesn't allow us to call each other. Seems like it should be the other way around—I keep hearing how the people who run big tech companies don't let their kids use technology, because they know how harmful it is.
edit: i should add that this is also one of the reasons apple has the "voice only" music subscription.
Now there's really no reason to keep it around, as you can get an off-contract used iPhone that is better in every dimension for less money. Still feel a bit sad to see it leave.
I get what you mean though. I think the iPhone SE has taken its place in terms of affordability.
To me the iPod died with the introduction of the Touch which was a cheap iPhone, that had lower quality standards even in the area of sound quality. iPhones have no headphone jack so they're not suitable listening devices if you care about audio quality (or are willing to carry an external DAC). Apple Music makes nothing about managing music on any Apple device great.
M1 Macs are doing well, and still waiting to see what happens with iPadOS and if it can live up the the 'OS' name in terms of creation not consumption apps.
The $9 official headphone dongle is a superior DAC to most audiophile products and has a bigger R&D budget than that entire industry. Same goes for Google’s USBC dongle.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
You can still carry around an amp if you have very power hungry headphones though. Personally, I don’t think I could ABX lossy audio while outside dodging cars in the crosswalk.
I ended up having to buy Bluetooth headphones just to listen to music on my iPhone which has its own problems because they have to be charged all the time.
I am currently looking around for a standalone digital player, no market, no apps, no fancy anything, with a wired headphone (currently looking at KZ EDX Pros, despite the crinacle drama). Might end up getting another sandisk and doing a mod on it to hold 1TB. Those things are damn near bullet proof but their secret weakness is my washing machine
Radio provided shared stories and feelings.
The Walkman provided a soundtrack for my life.
The iPod provided a full solo theater of emotions.
Smart playlists now provide a feeling of serendipity.
But, that personalized experience feels selfish and hollow.
Maybe I should get out more.
I agree that a relatively simple, relatively low-priced media player with great build quality would have a market - but Apple would be cannibalising it's 'fitness-oriented' market if they allowed both the Shuffle and the Watch to exist.
Until then, if you want to use it as an 'iPod', it's just another expense on top of the iPhone you already have that's your 'iPod'.
Apple cancelling the iPod line completely is frankly dumb. I know at least a dozen parents who use these for their kids.
Also, what's with all the people suggesting parents just buy an iPhone with no sim? Y'all realize that the cheapest iPhone is twice as much as the $199 iPod Touch? :/
Just to highlight this point, an iPhone is required for activation. You can't activate with any other Apple device. You can use a family member's iPhone.
Especially if you're on Wi-Fi and I believe on cellular (we still don't have it here in 3rd world) you can just go hiking with the watch and stream your music on Bluetooth without phone.
Same for messaging, fitness tracking, and voice calls. I think it's enough for that device.
For a company their size I don’t think they’re wrong. It’s never going to move the needle any noticeable amount for them.
Or you know, Garmin, split-off your wearables division in separate company, Apple buys it, Apple takes some Garmin thingies into Apple Watch, create Apple Watch Pro based on Garmin Hardware and sports functions, add Apple software and we're golden. This is a business advice, if Garmin/Apple decide to do this, compensate me. /s
All the popular "smart watch" devices are packed with functionality I just don't want - not interested in having my fitness tracked or reading text messages while I run. I just want music and Bluetooth, and I guess a stopwatch/timer, too. That's it.
I've looked around and the best I could find was a wristwatch device straight outta Shenzhen. I bought it, and unsurprisingly, it was junk.
Does anyone know of a quality wristwatch device that only plays music and has Bluetooth (and stopwatch/timer)? Does a product like this exist? Or, is it "smart watch" or nothing (or junk)?
I know a few folks who bought the older models or the new Apple Watch SE solely for this purpose.
Is it more expensive than an iPod? Yup.
Does it work amazing when running? Also, yup.
By no means was the iPod perfect, and it was effectively the same product as many other media players that came before and after, other products even had more features sometimes ... and yet the friction of using the iPod was just lower to the point that I enjoyed using it more than other media players at the time.
It's a mysterious process to me finding those places to make use of a thing easier, more intuitive and etc. When something is bad it is easy to see, but there's a step beyond "take away the bad friction" that I'm always wondering about when I'm building things. I never quite reach that Apple-ish feel.
For me, at the time, the iPod (Classic) was a worst-in-class product (required iTunes, pretended it didn't know what a file was, annoying to navigate, etc.) The iPod Touch was that but also not attractive.
One of those cases where the first in the market consumers / enthusiasts weren't the best folks to take your hints from as far as the future of that tech.
Arguably they've long been left behind by streaming services and etc. My piles of files are certainly just ... sitting there now.
Also, buying an mp3 player was a bit of a minefield back then, because you couldn't tell if it behaved as a drive or through some elaborate software DRM/obfuscation dance that might even be specific to Windows ("playsforsure," maybe? Talk about an Orwellian name.) At least people knew that the iPod would work.
edit: I mean, it was on every billboard and the side of every bus in solid dayglo colors. Comedy shows like SNL did sketches about the ads. This went on for years.
The iPod was the first MP3 maker on the market that crossed this bar.
It was great for its time and I've owned and loved my iPod touches, but we can't expect a for-profit company to keep selling a device with no future and only a niche market, eventhough the device was iconic at some point in the past.
Good move, and a big cherish to the iPod for changing the way we listen to music back then.
* There's still one iPad model with a headphone jack, but that's not quite in my definition of "handheld".
Other vendors fail to understand that sometimes the reason people use their product is because it's not Apple. Most of the regressions I've seen in the Windows 11 UI/UX are from them trying to imitate Apple.
It's probably true that most people just get their music and podcasts through streaming services on their phones though, so perhaps they don't care to keep a niche product around.
https://buy.gazelle.com/collections/iphones/products/iphone-...
The iPhone is cheaper because it really is a vending machine in disguise.
An iPod Touch and an iPhone run the exact same apps.
"Smart" TVs are cheaper because the manufacturer is selling your data.
Do wonder why LG OLEDs fall so hard in price after a year but there’s probably an innocent explanation.
(He was convinced, for whatever reason, he couldn’t figure out how to use an iPhone…despite he uses an iPod touch, and an iPad, and quite fluently. And within 1 day he was delighted, because he finally had something approximating a useful camera in his pocket.)
I think a lot of non tech people would REALLY benefit from a setting to "confirm before dialing" in ios.
For example, touching ANYTHING in the phone app will immediately dial that number.
That leads to real problems with inexperienced users, who then get the mindset that they're not good with tech.
To be clear - the blame here is 100% on apple.
Most people I know have butt dialed. I consider myself highly aware of my phone, yet have accidentally called back spam callers. yikes!
At least every single phone call doesn’t interrupt at the absolute highest level of priority and take over your screen entirely. Up until…iOS 14?…you didn’t really have a choice to not deal with an incoming call while using the phone: a call immediately took over.
Be happy, humans. Be happy.
End of an era I guess. Couldn't just rebrand it the 'iPad Micro' and keep selling it :)
It would be funny and maybe even possible! To have a comeback as an iPad Micro and be the size of the normal iPhones or the current 13 Mini. Though I heard because of its unique size for apple hardware, some apps don’t look correct on it.
Edit: I flubbed. Apple TV has to be under $200. Maybe their Alexa competitor too.
A smart phone is a poor substitute. The walkmans battery lasts much longer, it's simpler to transfer music too (it's just a USB drive), I can alter the volume change/track just by feel without having to pull it out of my pocket, I can just plug it into my cars USB port, I can drop it, I don't have to use a touch screen or update an OS..,
EDIT: just looked it up, mine is the B series, basically a thumb drive with a little display and some touch controls.
https://store.sony.co.nz/walkman/NWZB183FL.html
I haven't used the much more expensive ZX series which seems... well a bit pointless to me. Like I said, big advantage of my B series as I can do it all by tactile feel without looking at a screen.
But I literally just plug it in like any other usb drive. It can only play mp3s, but that's fine for me.
https://www.sony.co.nz/electronics/walkman/nwz-b180-series/s...
Looks like the modern version of what I have can play mp3s still, unless I'm missing some fine print.
[0] https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/res/manuals/W000/W0...
I have a Sony NW-A45, but there's a few models in the NW-A line-up that are attention worthy.
I also prefer single purpose devices for retro gaming and taking photos.
I don't want a phone (all the time) anymore.
What I have seen is using the 5th gen iPods with new firmware is great.
We (the family) were at a car dealership that evening and to entertain my 3 year old I put the ear buds in her ears and gave her the iPod to rock out to.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, no one batted and eye or seemed to take notice of a little girl sporting the white earbuds that would become so iconic later.
Related memory after the iPhone had come out: I remember being on a train in Tokyo where, counting the two other Apple employees with me, we all three had our iPhones out.
Looking around the train though at all the Tokyo-ites with their flip phones and lanyards I began to doubt whether the iPhone was ever going to be able to conquer Japan. If for no other reason, where do you attach a lanyard?
(Or maybe there's a better term for that bit of "personalization" that dangled like a tassel from all the cool, urban Japanese flip-phones.)
The rest of the world we never stop hearing about 'there isn't a market for X' but Japan is this tiny market that gets their own things all the time.
I believe the Japanese call it a "strap", transliterated directly.
My first device was an iPod touch - but the iPhone is better (clearly). A consolidated line-of-effort for one less platform will be helpful, I think, in allocating talent behind the other products that matter.
They were as they designed them. Not everyone wants/needs a phone. No reason they couldn't put a top-end camera in the iPod.
It's a shame it's being discontinued, it was the perfect first device for children.
I see so many bemoaning streaming. Your iPhone can store far more music than an old HDD iPod. Don’t see the difference.
I mostly stream with Spotify. It recommends good obscure music for me, and I can find most of the weird 70s/80s punk I love.
I still have my old records and use them when I want that captive experience. I kept my CDs of super obscure local bands.
For me it’s not an xor, but an and. I like both the new and old experiences. And I still listen to albums more than songs.
The streaming sound quality isn’t nearly as cringe inducing as old MP3s. I’m no audiophile, but hated MP3 less than barely compressed. That crunch on the high end was brutal.
I don’t miss maintaining ripped CDs: fixing metadata, keeping FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 for different devices, etc. Never bothered recording my records. I’ll never understand anyone longing for cassette tapes beyond personal mix tapes.
I do still pay for records when I love an album just to kick them more $. But they mostly just go on the wall or collect dust in a bin. I usually only listen to my old LPs.
I used to have a whole workflow of rip to FLAC, import metadata then fix it, then a script to convert. I overengineered as usual, I’m sure.
I have a long train trip coming up. I'll have my iPhone with me, but I'll also bring my iPod shuffles. They're simply better suited to the task than to have to deal with all the compromises of a device that tries to be everything to everyone all the time.
- Vastly superior battery time. In part, because it's not trying to do a million things other than play music.
- Better ergonomically. I can lay in my berth at night with my wired earbuds and listen with a tiny, durable device instead of a large, fragile device. It's not tragic if I roll over on a Shuffle, or drop it out the side of the bed.
- A shuffle on a small train table takes up much less space than an iPhone. Or no space at all, since I can clip it to my clothing.
- To me, the Shuffles just sound better than the phone. I'm sure there are a million blogs that dispute this with all kinds of mathematical blather. But I use the same earbuds with my Shuffles and my iPhone, and the Shuffles just sound better to my ears.
Apple never released new versions frequently though, meaning certain apps became incompatible over time, since iPods couldn't be updated to the latest iOS. My fifth gen device was stuck on iOS 9 for a number of years now and it basically became unusable (and very insecure since apps couldn't be updated along with the OS).
I will be snapping up as many devices as I can from AliExpress & eBay though. Still worth having a few to toy around & tinker with.
Apple never released new versions frequently though, meaning certain apps became incompatible over time, since iPods couldn't be updated to the latest iOS. My fifth gen device was stuck on iOS 9 for a number of years now and it basically became unusable (and very insecure since apps couldn't be updated along with the OS).
I will be snapping up as many devices as I can from AliExpress & eBay though. Still worth having a few to toy around & tinker with.
Twenty years is a long time.
> The original iPod, introduced on October 23, 2001, was the first MP3 player to pack a mind-blowing 1,000 songs and a 10-hour battery into a stunning 6.5-ounce package.
The NOMAD had more storage than the first iPod (6GB vs. 5GB), but weighed 14oz and had a four hour battery life.[0]
[0] https://archive.org/details/manualzilla-id-7341241/page/37/m...
[1] this kind of thing - https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1891964717.html
Plus, it's arguably worth risking accidental 911 calls to allow necessary ones. And landlines have had the same risk for decades.
You can't uninstall the dialer. As far as I know you can't even lock the dialer down.
> Plus, it's arguably worth risking accidental 911 calls to allow necessary ones
One of my friends kids (about 5) went through a phase where she was fascinated with calling 911. The iPod Touch became the way to handle this, you could hand her the iPod and know she couldn't dial out. Sure an iPad could work, but this girl had siblings and the parents didn't want to have to buy everybody an ipad.
Kids should be taught about 911 at a very young age anyway. IMO, if they're old enough for an iPod Touch, they're old enough to be taught about 911.
My little cousins (under 12 years old) get a cellular Apple Watch. That allows their parent to always know where they are and can contact them, but prevents the kids from being able to use the internet.
My mom's bf's 6 year old loves sonic and loves playing sonic video on youtube. We were having dinner and it had autoplayed into some naughty sonic furry stuff and we had to change it also while trying to maintain his innocence and not explain things he might not be ready for. lol. This was last year which I think is after youtube really tried to improve video for children but it still happened somehow.
I remember being 9-10 years old and accidentally clicking a popup and learning about genitals. It's not the best way to learn as a kid. It's better coming from their parents.
X10 popup ads claim another victim ;)
those things were everywhere back in the day!
So a sim-less phone would still allow for an emergency call in that sense.
Also they sometimes need to use laptop/desktop for school but that is rare now that most everything works in Safari or there is an app. Even printing etc works great and they love the pencil. They also have mouse and keyboard for them usually for schoolwork.
As a variation of the iPhone 7, maybe they just want to finally be done with that era of hardware and having to manufacture chips for it (although they've been great about support), and the volume definitely isn't there to justify an update to a more modern chip.
Assuming you buy them new, the cheapest iPhone is $399 vs. the $199 iPod Touch. Buying used is often a mixed bag. An iPad Mini is $499!
This is basically just a kick in the pants to parents who bought these for their kids.
Guess those parents are going to go off and buy another brand and type of product now, since Apple refuses to offer a price-equivalent product for kids like this. I don't think it would've hurt Apple to keep producing this product...
After a lot of research I'm currently testing self hosted solutions:
- Navidrome [1] + Substreamer [4]
- Audiobookshelf[2] + Audiobookshelf-App [5]
- Nokia 1.3 phone [3] without sim (<100$, small, headphone jack, Changeable battery, microSD slot)
Just in case someone finds this interesting: It looks promising to me, but I've not tested the audio quality in detail, which might be a huge difference to the high quality output of iPods.
[1] https://www.navidrome.org/
[2] https://github.com/advplyr/audiobookshelf
[3] https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-1-3
[4] https://substreamerapp.com/
[5] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.audiobooks...
Instead of selling the watch as an add-on to the phone, the watch could be the central device and the screen of the iPod could be brought out when the voice assistants come to their rare limits.
There is no need for a phone when better screens are available most of the times (e.g. at the desk, the car or the tv).
Give it a maximum of 5 years, and there'll be some social trend to offer an "minimally online" device to help you disconnect better from your overwhelming digital firehose in the interest of "wellbeing", and some new iPod device will come back.
The 2020's equivalent of the iPod shuffle - deliberately feature limited for a very specific market.
The real reason I did all this was because I got nostalgia and could not afford an iPod back in the day but now I see myself buying more exclusive harder to find music because nothing is more annoying that having playlists on Spotify where songs are no longer available/blacked out or deleted rare music from youtube due to copyrights. I would like to have some kind of ownership over my music independent from an internet connection or a streaming service (nice to discover new music) dacs of course are not as good as modern phones of today but goddamit-NOSTALGIA!
You can tell when he’s not just selling something, but believes that what he says he is selling is what he is selling.
He knew full well an iPad Mini was coming the year after. He just had to sell what was on the shelves now.
The struggling computer company first got into people's pockets with a device that played music (a key insight - people make emotional contact with media). That position then bought them the time to finance development of know-how around pocket computers in plain sight. And then finally when the timing was just right and nobody expected it, they basically leveraged that position to deliver that pocket computer to the masses.
The iPod changed my life when I was 12 years old. I gave you 6 months of my savings to pay half the price of an iPod (the other half was a Christmas present).
Your sticker said "Don't steal music."
So I stole music. I repaired friends' iPods. Now I work in Embedded Systems.
Now I can't fix my original iPod 1st Generation (P68 Prod) because I don't have the parts. I tried to buy your 5GB hard drive but that didn't work. I asked Tony Fadell and he put a <3 on the tweet.
https://twitter.com/tfadell/status/1520470531123945474
What is your intellectual property team protecting now? Please can you share the schematic and boardview for the old iPod? It's my "right to repair" or something like that. And the wonderful company that I work for here in New Zealand has an amazing lab with all the tools for fixing everything.
God bless you! Peter
I bought it off ebay as a replacement for my iPod Nano 4th generation (2008) that was stolen in a home break-in!
I love it. I dread the day the battery stops working, which it will eventually, and which is probably the only thing that would ever lead the thing not working anymore.
I still put podcasts and mp3's on it. I listen to it in my car (which is also old enough to work with it via a hardwire USB hookup, I also dread the day I replace my car with one that own't), or with headphones when walking.
I've become one of those middle-aged people who doesn't want to change. But the iPod nano still seems like amazing futuristic science fiction technology to me. it's tiny. It Just Works. (although MacOS has started having trouble sync'ing files to it without going crazy with duplicate files, I'm afraid).
I still use my 6th generation iPod Nano, mostly for radio, but the usefulness of it is dwindling as more and more stations move away from the FM-band and go digital, it's still a cool device and it also still works with Music/iTunes.
And at that point, bam, you have a phone.
You could try to make it "not a phone" by removing the speaker and microphone, but people will occasionally want to play a game, so you'll need the speaker, and someone might want to record speech for note-taking, so you'll need the microphone.
TBH, I'm not sure how you could possibly make a "not a phone" PDA.
Nobody would buy an offline PDA. At least, not enough people to pay for the development of it.
I hope the current generation goes on offer before they sell out. Here in Europe there's never been a significant sale on them. I got my current previous-gen for 139 euro but the current model has never been below 200 here.
An iPhone is way too expensive (even the SE is ridiculously expensive in Europe) and I don't want second-hand / "refurbished" crap that third party sellers will have put questionable batteries in. And I don't need a SIM.
But I guess what I want is a really small niche.
The cheapest iPods were second-hand, from drug dealers in high school. Broken. For as cheap as 40 CHF.
Never underestimate the power of a child with a screwdriver.
If you really don't want to use iFixit to learn, I'd be happy to buy you the best iPod in the world.
My prediction is that -- if there isn't such a forum, one will start soon. It's too big of a niche and I'm told that Apple filled it reasonably well.
The battery eventually died. Replacements are about $8 and the surgery is easy.
What makes a huge difference though is replacing the HDD with a board that holds an SD card. The board plus a 256GB card cost me around $75 total. The physical swap is relatively simple, and migrating your data is as simple as making a backup through iTunes and restoring it.
I mostly leave it plugged into my car, which has native support for controlling it. Unlike anything Bluetooth, it actually works!
Oh, and I buy music on Bandcamp. Fuck streaming.
Based
I used to travel for work and would rent cars. I would spend 3+ mins after picking up each car trying to get my bluetooth to work with my phone until I realised I could just plug in an iPod (from 2005!!) into the USB port of a MY2018+ vehicle and have my entire music library accessible through the car's interface with artwork. Just plug it in, and it would just pick up where I left off, on the podcast/album I was listening to on the plane.
I now use a 16GB 6th gen Nano set to shuffle for all my music needs in my car. I got it cheap since the battery doesn't last that long but it's fine when plugged in all the time.
And; yt-dlp --recode-video mp3 https://youtu.be/P5JplB64m5U
Most of my collection for research purposes of course.
iShoot was one of my favorite games to play on it, I miss it.
When it comes to competing for attention music has a lot more to compete with now than it did then. If I had to predict I can't see a significant cultural change happening like in the 20th century unless new musical instruments are invented
The Apple A10 first released 5.5 years ago in the iPhone 7 Geekbenches at 555 single-core in the iPod (1.6GHz) and 722-750 in the iPhone 7/iPad (2.3GHz). Multicore is 1069 for the iPod and 1280-1398 for iPhone/iPad. That single-core speed matches up nicely against processors used in current Android phones like the Snapdragon 690 (571-590), Snapdragon 778G (714-777), Snapdragon 750 (582-643), or Snapdragon 765G (570-593). It's kinda amazing how Apple's A10 from 2016 matches up against the best non-flagship (non-8-series) Qualcomm processors for single-core performance.
I'd guess it might be more around how long Apple wants to support iOS on the hardware. The iPhone 6s (A9) has access to the latest iOS (7 major versions), but I think there's a decent chance that it won't get iOS 16. That would mean Apple would support the iPhone 6s for 6 years post-introduction and 4 years post-discontinuation. If Apple wants to support the iPod touch for a couple years post-discontinuation, they'd probably want to discontinue it now so that they can stop iOS updates in 2-3 years. If they stopped iOS upgrades in 2-3 years, that would mean supporting the iPhone 7 for 7-8 years. That's quite the lifespan for that hardware.
20 years, huge run.
https://apple.slashdot.org/story/22/05/10/1650258/the-ipod-i...
It's basically the same form factor, can do the same things, just with better chip by 5 generations.
It costs 2 times more; but it's also leagues faster.
Or you can buy SE 2, which is still faster than iPod Touch, and goes for about the same price.
I am a Linux fanboy so take it from me that this was actually a great product.
I have an old 6th gen iPod touch that I recently replaced the battery in, and my son uses it a lot. I had thought about getting another one for my daughter, but I was waiting in hopes that apple would release an 8th gen sometime soon.
Thinking of getting one for my daughter, who has a Chromebook from school. Of course I could manage it from my Mac, but it would be nice to give her the power.
- Apple ecosystem
- long lifecycle of the devices
- standardised form factor for laser barcode scanner sleeves
- controlled environment in terms of OS versions and screen size variaty
- low price / costs for the users
What will Apple offer for B2B niche use cases in the future?
Edit: formatting
The only downside of buying a discontinued Apple product is knowing that you'll have to switch devices if/when it dies, but even that's mitigated by the fact that you'll likely be able to buy used ones for many years.
I might pick one of these up so I can do that now in color.
They used to have a good algorithm, but because it was truly random, some users complained about hearing the same artist quickly in sequence.
Instead of implementing a list of recently played songs they changed the algorithm to be 'smart' but it's actually quite dumb because it really never plays some songs. Especially when you have only a few artists in the playlist, and some with less songs than others. As I tend to do.
They say it's "more appealing to the human brain" but I think it stinks. I wish they had an option to switch back a truly random one. If I don't like a song I'll skip it anyway. But never presenting some is worse.
https://medium.com/immensity/how-spotifys-shuffle-algorithm-...
The last time I tried this (years ago, admittedly) the iPhone would not "activate" without a working SIM card.
I do like AWS style announcements. Their headlines are a bit long, but skimming them it's the what, and then the tag
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/
For week in review I wish they did parens for services - ie, Week in review (RDS, IAM, ECS).
Some services are basically dead from an updates perspective, others like RDS seem to have pretty solid budgets.
Turns out it was something much more benign, but I agree that headlines have gone straight to hell these days.
<this happened>: <this is what it means> - <this is what you need to do>
Example: “Database X ran out of space: all orders since 20-04 14:30 are stuck - request to increase space”
No one wants to read a long email from what I see. "hey john... " just isn't great.
It happened way earlier than 2022. iPod has been in life support for the longest time now and arguably the last true iPod was the last iPod Nano in 2012.
iPod users were in awe when saw what this little machine could achieve.
It got stolen from my coat pocket at the canteen area at my weekend job; the lockers were always occupied. Probably by this weasely looking kid who got a new scooter not much later. The company gave me a gift certificate to get a new one out of graciousness I guess, they weren't obligated, and I used that to get an ipod nano.
I mean it was good, but not the same. Anyway, I too loved that one. I contemplated getting an iphone (3G at the time), but eventually decided against it because I'd be locked into a phone contract, without actually using a phone that much, so instead I got an ipod touch. It was neat for having a screen and apps and no contract, but not the same. I ended up using it alongside a regular flip phone for years, and later I got an Android phone (a cheap Samsung) but it languished in my bag because I much preferred the Apple interface and syncing.
Eventually I got an iphone through work and got rid of the flip phone. My ipod touch is in a drawer somewhere, I sometimes charge it up but don't really use it, it's too slow.
Anyway TL;DR I want an ipod mini / nano again, just for music and maybe podcasts, but there's not been any decent competitors filling the gap. I don't really understand why Apple doesn't have more competition for high-end portable devices.
They never actually say so in the press release.
Am I wrong about that?
I guess Apple marketing team didn't want to put it clearly what they are doing.
To me, the subhead "iPod touch will be available while supplies last" succinctly performs double-duty: (1) We discontinued iPod touch, and (2) if you want (another) one, this is your last chance.
Will iPhone some day be quietly, ambiguously sent to the grave in a similar fashion?
HN's title rule is "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait", and corporate press release titles are usually both. For that reason we usually rewrite them.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
As my XO used to say, "Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining."
Slide 1: Leg: Anatomy and Function of Bones and Muscles, Plus Diagram
Slide 2: Establishment of ownership of leg to a soldier, attached and special conditions of detachment
Slide n: ... blasé blasé blasé
Only if you're reading it as a discontinuation notice, but the purpose of the release is far broader than that. It's a celebration of the impact the iPod touch has had on the world, a prompt to iPod touch fans that this is their last chance to buy a new one, and a reminder that Apple continues to express its love of music through other products.
I understand none of that will resonate with you or seem authentic to you, which is fine since you're not the audience for it. For someone who grew up with an iPod touch, it's going to seem as sincere and bittersweet as the person who wrote it intended.
verb [no object] archaic
1 equivocate or prevaricate in action or speech: if you palter or double in your answers, I will have thee hung alive in an iron chain.
2 (palter with) trifle with: this great work should not be paltered with.
DERIVATIVES
palterer noun
ORIGIN
mid 16th century (in the sense ‘mumble or babble’): of unknown origin.Be honest.
Seemed straight forward to me.
Gonna hold my breath now, okay? :)
/s
Basically, everything required for third parties to support the devices to the same level that Apple did before discontinuing them.
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(Getting downvoted for a strong right to repair stance? I wasn't really expecting that here, but OK.)
My last Apple hardware purchase was over five years ago.
When Apple came out with the iPod Touch it made a huge impact in the handheld gaming world. It even caused some gaming companies to focus on handheld more. Now with the Nintendo Switch (even 3DS), SteamDeck and even prior with the PSP there is more competition there. However, it still allows kids to have a device that has their Apple games and not have to use parents phones or having to get them a phone to play.
iPod Touch was one thing Apple had over competitors before the iPad and iPad mini, there wasn't a comparable Android handheld that wasn't a phone.
We make handheld/mobile games and our iPod Touches are nice to have to test smaller screens over using iPhones and optimizing for the smaller devices makes the iPad devices perform better. Lots of gaming companies buy touches up.
I think this is a mistake that will impact them on some of the handheld gaming side. It will also mean more parents phones being used over getting them a more expensive iPad or iPad Touch. It may end up with less devices sold and less games played on Apple devices.