“For most of us, the iPod is a footnote in history,” Michael Simon writes for Macworld. “But Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver has shown us that the iPod hasn’t lost any of its cool factor. And its spirit is still very much alive in Cupertino. While the iPod may have long ago lost its dedicated tab at the top of Apple.com, you’ll still find iPods on display at most Apple Stores, which is more than you can say for the Mac mini.”
“And while Apple hasn’t updated its iPod line in nearly two years, two new products clearly take their inspiration from the minuscule music player: AirPods and HomePod,” Simon writes. “It’s not just their surnames. Apple two newest products are built for music lovers and embody everything we once loved about the iPod: freedom, fun, and high-fidelity. And they could be the first step in a full-scale reboot of the iPod.”
“for all the freedom Apple Music represents, there isn’t a way to listen to to its vast collection without carrying around a player,” Simon writes. “Apple’s ‘Pod’ lineup is missing a killer device: something small and wearable that lets you listen to Apple Music wherever you are. You know, an iPod for the streaming generation.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We already have Apple Watches, AirPods and Apple Music memberships today. All we need is cellular connectivity built into Apple Watch to have Apple Music streaming.
The movie Baby Driver is right, a classic iPod loaded with the right tracks is immensely cool an can provide a soundtrack for lift. Fans of the classic hunt down versions with the Wolfsburg chip that is supposed to provide better sound fidelity. Things can be done to add features to these old pieces of hardware: swapping the stock hard drive with an ssd, attaching a Bluetooth dongle that could connect to wireless speakers, of course updating the batteries.
the fictional Baby got alon just fine with the old tech, including using an original iPod 1.
I don’t think there is a market for an updated iPod in the numbers Wall Street wants, but a Bluetooth ready wirelessly syncing 100 gb iPod update in all kinds of colors and sizes would be kinda cool, and irresistible to provide ones soundtrack for life.
I have the original Shuffle, pack of gum size, the sound coming out of that still beats everything else. Just amazing.
Just repurpose a previous iphone to have your ipod. I did that with a iphone 5 in airplane mode.
Just a correction here. The Digital Analogue Converter used in the earlier iPods was a Wolfson not a Wolfsburg chip as refereed to above.
Correct. Wolfsburg are the guys with the Diesel crime.
A whole lot of companies have been caught doctoring SW to skirt emissions. VW just got tarred in the press.
Gubmint Motors sold millions of cars and trucks with ignition switches known to be defective that killed people and hardly a peep in the press.
VW cheated, but the difference in emissions was tiny compared to the diesel emissions from more lightly regulated trucks and heavy=y equipment. Of course, since GM is Amurrkin’ and makes Chevy Trucks- the official ride of Coca Cola Cowboys everywhere we have to look the other way.
Thank you
Yeah, it was the son of Wolfsburg.
I miss the iPod with a *lot* of storage.
iTunes on iPhone sucks the camel’s winkie.
Apple killed large storage on portable devices to push you into iCloud — another heap of garbage from Apple.
It’s worth noting that the iPhone comes in up to 256GB and the iPad 512GB. Some are speculating that this year’s iPhone will be available in 512GB.
I don’t think Apple is killing large storage on portable devices at all. I think it’s more of a factor that not enough people like me have music collections greater than 1TB (or other storage needs) to justify larger configurations.
I’ve got over 10,000 pointers to song files on Apple Music in my iPhone. Only a couple of these have been downloaded. This all streams at no extra cost thanks to T-Mobile while I’m out, and free thanks to Spectrum while at home. Pretty neat.
I still occasionally use my 160GB iPod Classic and it’s in pristine shape. I doubt Apple will continue selling any iPods because Apple seems to neglect any product that won’t make money for them. In some ways, I can’t blame them. There’s probably isn’t much demand for iPods.
Most of the time I use an AGPTek memory-expandable player with Bluetooth. I can keep a bunch of memory cards and swap them whenever I want. I can drag and drop files and playlists from iTunes and the song order stays correct. For a cost of $30, an incredible bargain. If it breaks or gets lost, no sweat. I don’t have to baby it like I always did with my iPods.
Another product category Apple basically abandoned as not being worth their time and effort. It’s a pity.
“I doubt Apple will continue selling any iPods because Apple seems to neglect any product that won’t make money for them”.
Who in their right mind would spend time and effort making a device no one but a few goofballs want to buy? Apple doesn’t neglect anything that they are not trying to kill themselves. iPod needs to die now. It needs to rest in peace.
The iPods were a “thing” when people didn’t have a nice easy way of carrying around their music. Remember, not too long ago, you would have had to pay exorbitant prices and jump through hoops (like emailing a file to yourself to incur data usage fees even if your phone had a perfect fine USB connector) to get legal music on your phone. There’s just not much demand anymore, though I WOULD like to see an A10 enabled iPod Touch 😉
Apple Watch’s(first gen) battery is so bad that I have to turn on airplane mode and do not disturb All the time. I can’t even use it for calling because it drops from 100 to 10 in minutes! Backplate pop out and it was replaced But the replacement is doing the same thing! It does in the middle of the day without using it.
I would like to see a 5.5-inch iPod touch, but I understand why there isn’t one.