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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > iPhone, iPad & iPod > Will September Be The End For The iPod Classic?

Will September Be The End For The iPod Classic?
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Nergol
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Aug 20, 2012, 03:40 PM
 
Yeah, yeah - I know people have been saying this for the last couple of years. But this time I think it's way more likely. The reason? The new dock connector, which by now has been so strongly suggested by so many sources that it's way more than just a rumor.

The thing is, there's no way in hell that Apple would keep just one device around with the old 30-pin connector. That's just not how Apple rolls - if they're going to commit to that drastic a change in their product line, they're going to go all the way with it. This means that Apple has two choices - redesign the Classic, or drop it. They've kept it in production for five years with the same design, likely because there was no R&D cost involved in churning them out, they had large stocks of parts, and support for it was cheap. That won't be the case if they have to redesign it. And considering the declining sales numbers for non-Touch iPods, it just may not be worth it for Apple to put in even the effort even to do the minimal redesign work involved in just putting out basically the same Classic with the new dock connector.

So what do you all think? Will we see the same Classic, the same Classic but with the new dock connector, a totally redesigned Classic, or will September be the end of the road?
     
P
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Aug 20, 2012, 11:34 PM
 
Apparently they're used by DJs still, to store silly numbers of songs. Best solution would probably be an iPod touch with a spinning HDD for massive storage, but I doubt that that will happen.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
ajprice
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Aug 21, 2012, 01:56 AM
 
I've always thought the break point for the iPod Classic would be when the iPod touch gets 128GB. It's been at 64GB since the 3rd gen in 2009, surely they've got to get 128GB in it this time around?

It'll be much easier if you just comply.
     
Eug
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Aug 21, 2012, 07:07 AM
 
So, I have a shuffle, a touch screen nano, and a clickwheel mini. I also have an iPhone 4.

When exercising or cutting the grass or whatever, I never use the touch screen nano or iPhone 4. I just use the shuffle or mini.

The loss of the iPod classic would be a significant loss to the tactile feedback iPod line. The clickwheel is the best interface ever.

P.S. I wasn't convinced the classic would ever go to 128 GB. For the DJs, they can buy two classics.
     
The Final Dakar
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Aug 21, 2012, 07:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
The loss of the iPod classic would be a significant loss to the tactile feedback iPod line. The clickwheel is the best interface ever.
Word. Navigating to a very specific item is much easier on the Touch, but doing mundane minute things like skipping several songs in a row or slightly adjusting the volume is so much easier on the Classic, seeing as you can do it without looking.
     
gooser
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Aug 21, 2012, 07:38 AM
 
i don't really care. the 60gb ipod photo is all i will ever need and the supply on them doesn't seem to be drying up. they are really good ipods. ( since none of my computers have usb 2.0 i still need something with firewire.)
imac g3 600
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-Q-
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Aug 21, 2012, 09:17 AM
 
There must be enough people buying them to make iPods of that size worthwhile to manufacture. Unless there's been a dramatic drop off in sales, I think this will continue well past September. It's still the best device for my car.
     
Nergol  (op)
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Aug 21, 2012, 10:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by -Q- View Post
There must be enough people buying them to make iPods of that size worthwhile to manufacture. Unless there's been a dramatic drop off in sales, I think this will continue well past September. It's still the best device for my car.
There's been a dramatic drop-off in sales. Sales of non-Touch iPods are way, WAY down from just a couple of years ago, and continue to decline.

Among the reasons for this are surely market saturation and lack of obsolescence. An iOS device will get out of date and unable to run the latest OS and/or apps eventually. But there's no reason why a simple iPod of the Classic variety couldn't keep doing what it's doing for the next thirty years. Part of the problem - and of the reason why they haven't been updated in five years - is that, in all honesty, the click-wheel iPods do what they do about as well as any device ever could. There really just isn't a whole lot of room for improvement in them - something that can happen when you have smart people designing a relatively simple, single-purpose device (as opposed to the pocket computers of the iOS line).

For example, I still have the second-generation mini I bought the week they debuted in 2005. I've put in a couple of new batteries over the years and replaced the hard drive with a 32GB CF card, but since I don't watch video or look at photos on my iPod, the seven-year-old mini still does everything I need it to do. There isn't a single thing that a brand new digital media player could do that would be an improvement over my mini as far as I'm concerned. Not even capacity, really - 32GB is more than adequate for me, and probably for the vast majority of people. I doubt most people really need more than 20GB, which is a capacity that iPods reached nine years ago. And even for people who do want to watch video, the video iPods they bought starting in 2005 work just fine.

The thing is, I think we're reaching a point where just about everyone who wants a simple, clickwheel iPod has got one, and has very little reason to replace the one they have with a new one. The market is saturated with devices that really aren't going to go obsolete, and thus a once-booming market for these devices is now in serious decline.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Aug 21, 2012, 11:02 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
The loss of the iPod classic would be a significant loss to the tactile feedback iPod line. The clickwheel is the best interface ever.
Unfortunately, the click wheel on the classic isn't quite as good as it was on the previous generations.

Seems really fiddly and imprecise to me (I owned or have owned an original 5GB iPod, a solid-state wheel 10GB one, a 5th-generation iPod with video—best iPod ever—, and now, for the past four years or so, a classic).
     
Eug
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Aug 21, 2012, 11:13 AM
 
I wonder if I should just sell the touch screen nano. The only reason I have it is because my wife's clickwheel nano got recalled. Neither of us EVER use the touch screen nano. Worst interface ever, except for the no-button shuffle.
     
Geoduck
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Aug 21, 2012, 11:19 AM
 
I was surprised that it wasn't dropped last year. This year 120Gb SSDs have come down even farther so I would be very surprised if they don't replace it with a 120Gb iPod Touch. I know DJs use them but how much space do they really need? I don't have a huge library but my ~5000 songs take ~12Gb of space. If that's at all typical than a 120Gb iPod would hold on the order of 50,000 songs. That's a heck of a lot of material to play with.
Though I did not know the place, I set out for the land of my dreams
When I arrived at the land of my dreams, I found I did not know the place
     
Nergol  (op)
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Aug 21, 2012, 11:43 AM
 
I wonder if I should just sell the touch screen nano. The only reason I have it is because my wife's clickwheel nano got recalled. Neither of us EVER use the touch screen nano. Worst interface ever, except for the no-button shuffle.
If you can find a good-condition 4th generation nano, I'd buy it. I had one for a while (ended up giving it to someone who was going through a rough patch and needed it), and in many ways I think it's the best clickwheel iPod ever made.
     
   
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