I HATE APPLE

again, phones don't have the capacity of iPods, aren't useful for keeping collections with updated metadata, will shit battery life straight out if you play music on them (instead of lasting for days), and have wildly inferior UI

― Haribo Hancock (sic), Monday, January 22, 2018 8:52 PM (yesterday) Bookmark

all of this is true but unfortunately streaming is king!

My phone has 256 GB. Everything else, I agree.

I am glad they've finally made something with bigger capacity than 128. I have the 160 GB iPod and I'm still constantly having to remove stuff to make room

also even i don’t care about the ipod classic any more, it’s old, apple is under no obligation to repair antiques

agreed but it's kind of rare for a company to sundown a popular product and offer essentially no replacement

it's not a popular product!

it was when they killed it

also even i don’t care about the ipod classic any more, it’s old, apple is under no obligation to repair antiques

An enterprise which wants to build a strong link with the customers should care for support. It would be easy for them to change the battery pack but the thing is it is financially not interesting, that is why they do not do it, I suppose. And I have decided for myself that I am not going to support this company who does not care for my interests anymore, it is as easy as that.

Exactly. I have an iPhone now because it syncs with iTunes, which I still use because I bought an iPod 13 years ago. If my iPod had broken last year I'd probably have a Galaxy or something, would have migrated my entire music library elsewhere, and most likely never would have bought an Apple product again

(I'm on my 3rd Classic BTW, they last about 4-5 years which I think is pretty good given how much I use them)

I've switched to an Android, and you know what? I can use the spare cords I've got in my drawer to charge it. I can change the icons and mess around with the way the home screen looks. It's got a headphones plug, so all of these other accessories aren't just digital waste anymore. There's more variety in the apps I can download and use. It works across more platforms. It's great.

I mean, except for the fact that it's much more open to hackers and last night, I checked an Amazon tracking order and the pop-up window was in Mandarin Chinese. But hey, that's just part of its personality!

again, phones don't have the capacity of iPods, aren't useful for keeping collections with updated metadata, will shit battery life straight out if you play music on them (instead of lasting for days), and have wildly inferior UI

enh I find just playing music doesn't drain the battery life of mine much, and SD card slots mean you can add a ton of space, maybe up to 2tb down the line (which is helpful for digital music havers like me who don't like to stream constantly)

it was when they killed it

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 9:53 AM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark

there is literally a report from 2011 that shows ipod revenues declining precipitously

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/09/why-apple-is-ready-to-kill-off-the-ipod-classic/

These are realities that have lurked in the back of iPod fans' minds since the iPod touch first came out, and the sales numbers back them up. Apple's iPod sales growth has been dwindling for years now, with the quarterly unit declines beginning in mid-2009. The first three fiscal quarters of 2011 showed a seven, 17, and 20 percent year-over-year iPod unit declines respectively. But Apple says the iPod touch—when isolated away from the legacy players—is selling like hotcakes, which only means one thing: people just aren't into traditional iPods like they used to be.

xxp yea and then there's that. I really would love to pay $400+ for a discarded iPhone X one day just to use as a 256 GB music player, but then I gotta jump through hoops to actually play anything on it because it doesn't have a headphone jack. but I guess I'm not supposed to care about that because I'm stuck in the past

from 2013 https://www.wired.com/2013/09/goodbye-ipod-classic/

The iPod was once the shining star of Apple's product kingdom. Announced in 2001, iPod sales were growing, growing, growing up until they peaked in December 2008. Since then, they have been steadily slumping as many potential buyers go for the iPhone or other smartphones instead of a dedicated MP3 player. The numbers have gotten dismal enough that in its second-quarter financial results this year, Apple for the first time left iPod numbers out of the announcement entirely. In parallel, Apple has given the iPod less time in the limelight at its periodic keynote presentations.

again, popular is a relative term, I just think it's weird that they essentially did nothing for those customers

like, saying "get an iPhone and put in an SD card" would be good enough, except they won't play music off an SD card

lol 'why didn't apple commit resources to developing a new version of the product that was seeing steep declines in sales since 2008... i find that really weird'

come on guy

sony has some pretty cool artisanal gold-plated audiophile digital file walkman units now

it's one of those things where I look at the specs, get super hyped, and then remember the trail of unloved electronic trash in my wake and that I really like my phone/bluetooth headphones

xp thats not really what I'm saying though

you want to cancel the iPod, fine

but you're still left with customers who want something that syncs with their iTunes music library and can store a lot of music. at the time the 'best' option was the 64 GB iPhone 5

this really shouldn't be hard, either increase storage or allow it to play music off SD cards like every other smartphone has been doing for years. alternatively you can continue to support and profit off repairs for the old Classics for a while, much like car dealers will continue to fix discontinued models. instead they just told people to shove it. kind of a weird strategy for a company whose entire business model is locking people in for life

you're left with customers who were introduced to the iphone 6 at literally the same event the ipod classic was killed at, which by the way comes in a 128 GB storage option and syncs with their iTunes music library and can store a lot of music.

digital audio file players aren't a desirable product anymore, they're insanely cheap and commonplace and there's no specific value Apple adds to the market

like I get the impulse for wanting them to still make what we think was the best single-function digital audio device but the majority of the world doesn't want that anymore, and for people that do, there are knockoffs (or just nth-tier post-ipod devices, whatever) that fulfill the same function. the more specialized ones cost more and have audiophile crap, the cheap ones you can get off a bargain rack

There is no knockoff with a functional click wheel.

or one that syncs with iTunes.

even if the 128 GB came out the same year, you're still essentially telling your customers "pay more to get less"

if they allowed you to drop in SD cards I probably would've bought one for $600 or whatever a long time ago

SD cards for iOS from which you could play music would be a universe changer imo

even if the 128 GB came out the same year, you're still essentially telling your [ever-shrinking, miniscule-ly small group of customers 98% of whom are ILM posters] "pay more to get less"

fixed that for you

how many of the "sync with iTunes" ppl here are also the "iTunes is the fucking worst at syncing" ppl

the operating system that runs the computers they sell should be a higher priority than rounding errors in their revenue like the ipod, and macos is basically abandonware, so it's hardly a surprise that the ipod got canned.

jfc the ipod?!?!?!? that's your complaint about apple?! that's the final straw?

I kind of considered installing Rockbox on an iPod 5g I found when digging around my junk at home but it looks like I wouldn't gain anything over the default software unless I'm really committed to jacking around with files on the device itself. Sound right?

jfc the ipod?!?!?!? that's your complaint about apple?! that's the final straw?

the only product of theirs I actually liked and the sole reason I got an iPhone and continue to have any Apple software on my computer, yeah

I mean that's the whole point of this thread isn't it? I've got a company who's basically locked me into iTunes, who won't even do the bare minimum to keep my business nor even make their products workable unless I'm willing to buy additional stuff. I've got someone's old Touch and it won't charge on the Classic dock, nor will the Classic charge on the Touch car charger (they use the exact same input and I even get a "this is not compatible" message upon pulling it in).

this kind of thing is trivial for every other tech company, but for Apple it's all throwing their hands up in the air and saying "oooh I'm sorry you wanted an antiquated *headphone jack*, but it's actually impossible for us to make one and plus you're kind of a luddite for wanting one in the first place"

i'm not unsympathetic to nostalgia for the ipod! i had a 3G ipod. i had the headphone out stripped and replaced with an audiophile capacitor so it become a direct line-out. i hooked it up to a portable headphone amp that i rubber banded to the ipod and carried around in a stupid case! but the thing is people don't download music anymore! they stream it! in 2018 people who are not middle aged ILMers do not think of music as precious rare files to be hoarded away! they open spotify which is 95% good enough and for that other 4% they can't find they go on youtube and find it there and then the final 1% is what the 20 posters on ILM care about who still run soulseek and maintain meticulously tagged libraries and open last.fm daily to check their stats. coincidentally, this group has a 100% overlap with the group of people who still care about the death of the ipod classic. even if this weren't true and there was still a significant number of users who care about having mp3s of every song they've ever liked, apple has been running itunes into the ground anyway (along with the rest of macOS as caek points out) and oh yeah the music app on the iPhone is completely shit now too. sorry dudes, spotify runs the world now!

I kind of considered installing Rockbox on an iPod 5g I found when digging around my junk at home but it looks like I wouldn't gain anything over the default software unless I'm really committed to jacking around with files on the device itself. Sound right?

― mh, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 11:39 AM (thirty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sound quality will be somewhat improved, you get real EQ control and some useful dsp functions such as adjustable crossfeed and adjustable compression. The ability to delete things right from the device, which I like. And... I love managing the library with simple folder structures and never want to go back to an itunes syncing type model.

this kind of thing is trivial for every other tech company, but for Apple it's all throwing their hands up in the air and saying "oooh I'm sorry you wanted an antiquated *headphone jack*, but it's actually impossible for us to make one and plus you're kind of a luddite for wanting one in the first place"

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 12:01 PM (thirty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Zune hardware players were discontinued in October 2011. In June 2012, Microsoft announced plans to discontinue all "Zune" services; instead Microsoft would distribute its digital media content and services under the Xbox Music and Xbox Video brands available on its line of products including Windows 8 PCs and tablets, Xbox 360 game console, and Windows Phone smart phones.

it sounds like what you all need is PONO

I think the audiophile walkman thing keeps coming to mind because hideo kojima keeps sharing pictures of his on twitter

damn you, kojima!

the 64gb walkman NWZ-A17 is for me the best ipod replacer, though it has its flaws. It costs just a bit less than an iPod used to and ticks most of my critical boxes:

--long battery life, y
--takes any size micro SD card, y
--fast scrolling through long lists, y (it does it by page flipping which is fine for me)
--custom syncing software not necessary, simple folder drags, y
--really good sound, y
--small, y

the bad:

--requires proprietary sony plug to usb cord
--rebuilds library each time you unmount it from the computer which takes a few minutes
--rebuilds library if you switch out the micro SD card on the go, which takes a while depending on the SD size
--there is a preference on the device that determines whether you will be accessing the onboard memory or the micro SD memory when you are plugged into a computer. You can't manage both on yr computer at the same time.

I'm sorry, as a software developer, some of those points are making me crack up and I salute the boldness of their development team

"management is demanding that we don't have library database problems like prior models had."
"let's rebuild the whole thing any time it'd likely get corrupted"
"management's never going to buy that! it'd take forever!"

and they somehow pulled it off, beautiful

Zune is kind of a different thing, as far as I know you weren't locked into a certain piece of software with all your library information, and Microsoft wasn't continuing to make more expensive Zune-like devices with half the storage

they discontinued Zune services and had bought all the smartphone assets of Nokia within a year!

I had one of those but had to return it because of that startup rebuild thing (on mh-like objections), it not working well with playlists and some crashes when scrolling.

Sounded great though

(The Walkman not the zune)

right but you can still use your Zune, you can drag and drop the files onto the thing

wait do you feel locked into itunes or the ipod?

wasn't continuing to make more expensive Zune-like devices with half the storage

― frogbs, Tuesday, January 23, 2018 1:58 PM (twenty-six minutes ago) Bookmark

...that also happened to make phone calls and access the internet from anywhere in the world and which you were carrying around anyway because smartphones are replacing personal computers as people's primary devices.

wait do you feel locked into itunes or the ipod?

yeah. I have a ton of playlists and metadata loaded into it. plus (for the time being) my classic still works

you're going to end up like these people http://www.newser.com/story/208407/whats-so-special-about-this-japanese-chalk.html

I've been that person for like 3 years now

can't believe apple no longer supports my Newton, what a world

tbh chalk is way better than markers

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1tAYmMjLdY