I don’t go on the Apple website much. By much, I mean ever. I missed something that happened yesterday, which has me pissed.
The iPod Classic, the last evolution of the original iPod released in 2001; the very device which put Apple back on the map, some would say, has been, from the looks of it, discontinued, and I am pissed.
Why? Well, it’s really simple – it was the last, cost effective high capacity media player available.
Back in 2011, I purchased an iPod classic to replace my effectively dead Zune 80 from 2007. (Read www.xadara.com/a-year-with-an-ipod-a-quick-retrospective/ for more information)
It was the only high capacity media player available, at least, that I could easily get, and for the price, it was perfect for what I needed. See, I am a man who absolutely loves music. I collect whole discographies, and my music library alone, at its core, is easily over 130GB. I need a high capacity media player for my on-the-go listening. This also allowed me to have a ton of music on hand for any situation, be it in the car, at a friends, or just wherever – I wasn’t limited to carrying only a small portion of songs with me, and it was great.
My iPod still works, thankfully, and I think it should last me a good long while. I do worry about it, but what can you do? It will eventually die. What do I buy then? an iPod touch? Another brand media player?
See, the problem for me is simply that I don’t want anything other than a good, functional media player. I don’t want apps – I have my phone for mobile apps, and anything else I would want to do, I would do on an actual full fledged computer. I don’t have any need for iOS. I simply want to have a good media player. I would have loved to have had a high capacity Zune, as I loved that media player to no end, but since that product brand died, an iPod Classic was the only option.
So, what now? The Classic was about $250 USD for 160GB of storage. The best iPod Touch I can buy on the Apple website, right now, is 64GB for $300. That is absolutely unaccpetable – less than half the space, for $50 more!
Forgive my language, but that’s bullshit. I want storage capacity and ease of use. That is all. Give me at least 128GB for that price and we can talk – that’s at least some level of usable space to me.
Seriously, if there is another high capacity player out there for a good price, I will buy it. I would buy anything other than an iPod Touch, so long as it has enough storage for me to carry my music without having to spend hours hunting and pecking to have “only the best” music with me.
Forgive me. It’s past Midnight, and I am rather ticked about this. Several of my friends are as well, so at least I know I am not alone, but it’s not like Apple will care.
If I have to buy a new player soon, you can bet I will give it a full review here, to at least let people know there are alternatives out there.
I’d recommend to get a MP3 Player with a expansion port of some sort once your iPod classic breaks.
Certainly. 128GB SD cards, when they become standard, or even higher capacities in a media player that accepts such would be perfect solutions.
Indeed, at that point, my phone COULD become a viable media player – the real issue honestly just is the lack of storage on current players.
Thanks for the suggestion, though – I had certainly forgot about such as I was writing this!