“I hold a small metal device in my hands and twirl my finger on a circular controller, navigating the menus on my iPod classic. I haven’t done this in a long time,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld. “I have a full range of iPod models, and this one, bought back in 2008, doesn’t get much use any more. That click-wheel controller was never a great idea—it’s clunky and inefficient—but it’s emblematic of the early iPod line, before tapping on a tactile screen became the norm.”
“In a way, there’s something nostalgic about listening to music on a device that does little more than play music,” McElhearn writes. “(Yes, it can play videos and display photos, but with its tiny display, I’ve never used it for either of those things.) It reminds me of the early days of the iPod, when music listeners marveled at the ability to store so much music on a pocket-sized device, to listen to any of it with a few spins of the click-wheel, to play music in shuffle mode instead of one CD at a time.”
“The story of the iPod is, in many ways, the story of Apple’s comeback,” McElhearn writes. “But now the iPod product line is on its last legs.”
Read more in the full article here.
this guy is a clown. The click wheel was a huge innovation at its time, allowing the user to go through menus and songs with ease. There was nothing else like it on the market
Bingo. Author failed to put the click wheel in proper context, which is that almost everything else from 2001 to 2007 was digital buttons which are fine for volume control (with very limited set of values) but horrible for scrolling hundreds/thousands of songs.
Until swipe-scroll came about with the first iPhone, I don’t think there was a more efficient way of going through large song lists.
I’m still using my 2004 & 2008 iPods. I’d buy a newer iPod Touch if they had 128Gb storage. I use the storage to store pics and videos on my iPhone 5, not music, and video and books on my iPad. iPod’s are still great for taking walks or plugging into my patio music system. They’ll be useful for some time to come. (Even my first 20Gb second generation iPod which I gave away to a friend still works to this day.)
I still use my iPod classic every day.
How do you spell Eulogy? The right way!
Unless the original writer meant to say elegy (after all, iPod is still not dead, hence a bit to early for eulogy; elegy probably fits better).
Either elegy (a lament for the passing of someone or something) or eulogy (a tribute to someone or something) would be appropriate for this article.
A tribute sounds better, as the iPod helped get Apple moving upward.
An elegy and a eulogy are not the same thing!
The iPod? You mean that lame thing with no wireless and less space than a Nomad?
I had the first 10GB model with the mechanical scroll wheel back in 2002. I wish I hadn’t given it away when I got my second one.
——RM
LOL! Downvotes! I guess some people didn’t get the joke about Slashdot; they saw “lame” and though I was being serious.
In 2001, Slashdot’s entire review of the iPod famously read as follows: “No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.” A lot of folks never let the website live that down.
——RM
I just pulled my 60gig classic from the drawer and updated the software, and loaded all my tunes and audiobooks onto it. It stays in my car, and accompanies me on the kayak. My iPod touch cannot hold this amount of music plus all my apps. The sound quality is excellent due to the Wolfson DA chip in it.
I’m starting to think that the reason the classic iPod is ‘falling out of favor’ is not so much the technology, but the current state of the music industry. Most people just stream the latest and greatest, not caring about preserving the music for posterity. Why? Because most of it is crap! It is boring, monotonous, lifeless, and ugly. Call me an old fogey (I am), but today’s music can’t hold a candle to the classics of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s (before disco).
80’s can hold a lot of candles!! Many artists defined music trends in that decade. From mid 90’s, music is 95% crap.
It’s been my observation that the type of music popular during your teenage years frequently remains your favorite music for life.
And our parents said the same thing.
I have the best one of them all, the original gum stick iPod shuffle. That thing takes a beating and it just plays and plays. Sailing, kayaking, beach, car, camping, etc. It holds my faves just fine.
Fun fact: I understand that the individual who created the idea for the iPod click wheel was Phil Schiller.
Oh Kirk, really? You HAD to pull that move?
“But now the iPod product line is on its last legs.”
*sigh* I’m buying the next new model. How about we let reality let us know when iPod is on its last legs rather than MAKING it so by statement.
I had an original 10 GB iPod. The mechanical wheel was an absolute delight – waaaay better than its successor. Rather than dragging your thumb across plastic, the wheel actually moved and it was as smooth as glass.
When the battery finally caved, I brought it in for a replacement and the bonehead replaced it with a used/dead battery. When I brought it back again, the moron at the Genius bar told me that the battery on an unused iPod was supposed to go from a full charge to totally dead in 8 hours (of non-use). (I had been using the thing for three years and knew how the battery behaved.) After pressing the point with another “genius” I gave up and I never made it back to the Apple Store for this. Still have it, but I have my tunes on my iPhone, so that mechanical wheel iPod of mine is more of a nice memory than anything else.