Comments

2
I have a 1G 8gb touch (free with a MacBook pro) and an 4G 60gb ipod. they plug into my car and my stereo and I use them all the time.

someday i'll upgrade but I also have a working cassette deck so don't hold your breath.
3
Several of my kid's friends have iPod touches they use for messaging each other and playing music/games/etc...
4
I'm not an iJerk so I don't own any of AAPLs fine products, but to the extent that "iPod" is just a homonym for MP3 player, yes, I still make extensive use of and regularly buy small Sansa Clips...amazingly enough, sometimes from Best Buy. I have a Galaxy3, and a huge chunk of my ripped CD collection on it, and use that a lot, but not for running, yardwork, etc. A small MP3 player is still ideal for podcasts.
5
Mike, how did your apple ipod use a USB cable ? We're talking about the company that used firewire and a 30 pin connector until comming up with another proprietary connector.
6
My 160 GB Classic is gathering dust ever since I got a new computer and competely destroyed my iTunes library in the process. The music's all there, but the library recreated itself and it is sufficiently large that getting it all set up again would take literally hundreds of hours, selecting and unselecting tracks. Fuck me. My phone only holds a few albums' worth. But I mostly listen to CDs in the car or LPs at home, so I don't miss it much. For digital music I mostly use YouTube, which has virtually everything ever recorded on it. I mean EVERYTHING - I have a friend who is actively loading his entire collection of hundreds of pre-1900 wax cylinders onto YouTube, none of which have ever been reissued in any other format.
7
Yup. Was just podin' moments ago on my 80 gig "classic". It has no Electric Eels. It needs Electric Eels.
8
@5 TRUE! Damn, it wasn't USB! HAHA! Ugh, yeah...whatever connector cable to RCA had shorted out. Their cables were always crap too, I had an Apple made power cable CATCH FIRE while in use a couple years ago.
9
I have nearly a terabyte of digital music and I definitely still use my iPod Classic 160. And for reference, I'm in my mid-30s and enjoy vinyl as well.
10
Looks like I bought one just in time. I wanted something that would hold a large amount of music and that I could leave in my car, so I bought a 160Gb iPod Classic 2 weeks ago.
11
I definitely still use my "classic" ipod. With no fancy touch screen, the battery lasts forever and its solid metal construction means it can be crammed in a purse or left in a hot car with no issues. It's a durable, dependable product. So of course they've discontinued it.
12
I use my iPod classic almost daily, and I know my wife relies on hers at work. We're not generally Apple fans, but we'll be heartbroken when they finally give up.
13
I have an ipod touch and I love it, music, podcasts and taking pictures. some games for my kids. no monthly bill. since I'm on my sister's family cell phone plan, my cell phone (a "dumb phone") is $15 a month, I make calls and text on it. honestly I don't want the Internet with me everywhere I go
14
What @1 said. I like iPods. Used to have a big one with all my ripped music I've got in one spot. It's convenient.

Like the little ones too. I listen to music on my phone now cause it's what I got, but don't keep a lot on there, don't care for streaming it, and kinda hate the hassle of having it in my ears when I'm using it for something else.
15
@13 been thinking of going this route as well. The only time the internet would be useful is for directions, but the only time I need directions is when I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere and I can't get maps to work anyhow.
16
I've got friends regularly using specialized waterproof cases to have an iPod to play music while they swim laps or decompress from long scuba dives. They sure aren't going to risk their smart phones for this purposes and most commodity mp3 players don't have these accessories available.
17
Also have the 160 gig classic and given how rough I am on it I am really sad about this. I am often in places with no internet at all, and I like having my entire music/podcast library on the ipod. I need those 160 gigs! I am going to have to stock up on a few while they are still available....
18
@15, iPod Touch isn't big enough. I want a screen that's big enough to read on but still fits in a shirt pocket. Samsung Note 2 with the Kindle app -- it's a dream come true. I used to always carry a paperback book (Penguin, Dell, Fawcett Gold Crest, Pocket Books, Ballantine, Vintage, Avon) in the pocket of a suit jacket, but this is even better -- the reading page size is almost as big and the selection is almost endless -- currently reading the new Rick Perlstein, "The New Jim Crow", and "Restless Generation" by Pete Frame, more or less simultaneously. And you wouldn't believe how much early British rock'n'roll is on Youtube and no other place (mostly because it's terrible).
19
RIP floppy disks
20
I use an iPod in part because I don't want a steel pin half in and half out of my phone, constantly trying to lever the phone to pieces. Bad enough I've got that with my iPod. I could solve this with a Bluetooth headphone adapter instead - but as long as I'm carrying an extra device an iPod is a reasonable alternative, and doesn't use up my phone battery or cause other problems.
21
Yeah I still use mine and I love it, either in the car or on a sound dock in the background at small parties, or some other situation where you just want to make a playlist, set it and forget it. I think my sound dock is probably a piece of junk though because it sounds way better in the car, even via cassette adapter.
22
I have a 160GB Classic, and use it all the time. Reasons?
1) Connectivity on the road is a pain.
2) Since I own most of the Ipod's music on CDs already, it's better to play what what's on a drive than search for it.
3) To listen to high fidelity music loud, CDs on a traditional sound system is great, but sometimes I want to play something quietly on the docking station.

If Apple could every put out a high capacity flash drive Ipod, I would buy it in a second.
23
I have a classic 160GB iPod that I use in my Jetta (the factory stereo has a specific iPod adapter in the arm rest. But honestly, most of the time I just use an FM transmitter on my iPhone and listen to music on my car stereo through that
24
I have two, and I'd never use iTunes otherwise. Hate Apple.
25
It's nowhere near the numbers they used to sell, but Apple still sells in excess of 2 million iPods per quarter (2.9 million in the most recently reported quarter).

Which works out to more Pods sold in the last quarter than Microsoft Surface Pros. Not to mention more iPods in a single day than all of the Fire phones Amazon has managed to sell.

So, sure, they're selling just over 12 iPhones for every iPod, but I'm nut sure that counts as "no one is buying them."
26
I use an iPod Nano in the car as the music source for my stereo. iPod Touch is popular among people who want an iPhone, but don't want a cell phone contract.

Also, I think there's still room for them for people who want to listen to music, but don't want to carry the weight of a phone or put their phone into danger.

I used to have a record player in the car, but it didn't end up being a good fit for my driving style.
27
@5 Apple transitioned to USB for the iPods in 2003 and continues to use it to this day.
28
I'm still using whatever iPod it was that I bought in 2006. It still works like a charm.
29
@# 27
Apple transitioned to USB for the iPods in 2003 and continues to use it to this day.
This is half-true. Apple stopped trying to push FireWire, so your iPod cable ends in a USB plug instead of a FireWire plug. But, at the iPod end, it's still the Apple 30-pin adaptor (or is it a second, different Apple 30-pin adaptor now?) instead of the standard mini-USB that seemingly every similarly sized digital device on the planet not sold by Apple takes. Also, at the USB end, Apple imposes requirements on the power device that are in some cases arbitrary and unreasonable; read up sometimes on the problems third-party power adapter makers have to figure out in order to get your damned iPod or iPhone to accept electricity, requirements imposed for no reason other than to sell licensed power adapters.

And then there's the inconceivable lunacy of the way Apple laptops connect to video devices (what their having used five different plugs in a recent five year span). Why, just yesterday and for about the hundredth time in my life I was at a seminar that was interrupted for nearly ten minutes until an audience member volunteered their flash drive to rescue a presentation from the clutches of Apple hardware,

PS also, a lot of sympathy with what #24 said.
30
I have a Nano that stays permanently connected to my alarm clock and is used every single night and morning and I have a 160G Classic that lives in my car. I sometimes drive for work all over the state and it's nice not to have to rely on CDs or radio when I move through huge deadzones and I like being able to download whole books (on tape) to my iPod and have something I can listen to for my entire trip. I was just crossing my fingers that they would put out a bigger Classic as I hate not being able to have my entire library on one device.
31
I sync this giant Podcast list (I don't listen to much music) to my Nano irregularly but dedicatedly. I just turned 40, so clearly that's why I listen to Oldie Radio.
32
I have an iPod Touch and enjoy it most on long journeys, especially by airplane. The size works for me when I want to listen to music, watch a movie or a string of episodes of a TV series. I enjoy it being unobtrusive, and I've owned it long enough that, if lost or stolen, I would not shed too many tears.

Unfortunately, the battery is starting to die and I need to decide if I want to plunk another $70 down for a replacement battery.
33
My iPod is my main source of music in the car and at the gym. Count me in as one of the people sad to see them discontinued. But then I also miss the original iPod mini.

I also refuse to pay $80/month for a cellphone, so an iPhone won't cut it.
34
Up until around 5 years ago I had one of those 200 CD monsters hooked up to my stereo. Finally I decided to retire it and "upgraded" to a 160Gb classic. A few painful afternoons of ripping, and it's all on one little thing and well organized.

There's a real lack of high-capacity-storage devices to play music on a home stereo. That said, recently I've let Google upload all of my music to the cloud to use on my phone (if only it was even close to as well organized as iTunes), and I suppose I could just buy one of those little devices that downloads from the cloud. Then again, it's nice having a copy at home that doesn't rely on cable or the stability of my wifi.
35
I have a classic and use it nearly every day. My nano died roughly 2 years ago and this seemed like the sensible route to take. I have a huge collection and like having it all at my fingertips. You never know when you're going to want to pull out "that" disc after not listening to it in nearly a decade. Shuffle is a joy. It's chock full of podcasts and playlists. It's nearly perfect. I don't have an iPhone and I don't want one, so this serves all my on-the-go listening needs.
36
The ipod touch that I was given as a gift became obsolete (as in most of the software in the app store can't be downloaded) so fast that I decided to stick with the google/android ecosystem with music. That turned out to suck as well; most phones are <10GB, and my library is >30. I bought a cheap samsung tablet and a big SD card, but software support for it has been terrible, either not finding music, or not supporting the format (I have some ac3s and some flac files lying around that I'm too lazy to transcode). Google really really wants you to upload your music to their cloud service.
37
My iPod color was my first apple device and it acted as a gateway. Now I've got an Apple hardware household.
38
iTunes Match ($25 a year) solves problems with 10,000+ song music collections. Your iPhone only needs to devote a small cache of space to music, because it all fits in the cloud and streams/downloads on demand. Beware roadtrips, but it all works fine downtown.

And when iTunes inevitably crashes and corrupts the library file and/or eats half your music, it really is "click-click-Download-wait" and the problem solves itself. Also when you import a new song the process to get it then synced to your phone is much, much faster. I don't know why iTunes Match is faster than a USB cable, but it is.
39
@34 and @36 (and everyone else)

For ripping mp3s (or queued rip/encode of mp3s and flac at the same time like I did) I highly recommend dbpoweramp . Album art is no problem and it uses an online database of "checksums" to other people's copies of CDs you're ripping to alert to any quality issues (like a scratched cd). Free trial.
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
40
Knowing it was on the verge of extinction, I bought another 160 GB Classic early this year to replace the one I bought 5 years ago. My partner and I take epic motorcycle trips through remote parts of the west where streaming is a non-option. She drives the bike and I DJ. Having access to my entire collection at all times is sublime. May this one endure for another 5 years.
41
Still use the 160GB iPod Classic. I'm actually on my second one because the first one's hard drive died. I lament more the loss of a high capacity MP3 player than of the iPod itself. A friend and I were lamenting this part of the rollout and he mentioned this thing called the Fiio that I am on looking into when this iPod eventually dies.

What is more interesting to me is that it completes the switch from people "owning" music more towards renting it through Spotify or Pandora. Sure, you've bought the same song on LP's, tapes, CD's and MP3's, now they are selling it to you again through streaming. How will they sell it to you the next time? tune in 10 years and find out.
42
@ 33, I got my iPhone through Virgin Mobile. Even though I paid full price for it, the service is so cheap and reasonable that I save compared to being locked into a two year contract. But if you go out to rural areas frequently I wouldn't recommend it.

Regarding Apple cables, they now have new ones for the iPhone 5 (presumably for use with the 6) that's reversable (yay) but you may get a message that you can't use it for you phone because it wasn't made by Apple... even though it was. And the only solution is to get a new cable. It happened to my sister in law (driving her into Samsung's arms) and myself (I persevered with tech support and got a free replacement).

RRegarding the iPod classic, I just ugraded to that late last year. Mine is still not half full even though I have 35 days' worth of music on it. Still, I'm going to grab another one (they should be on clearance I hope) and try to keep it alive for when I need it down the road. Unless there's some other option for carrying my growing library...
43
My 5G 160gb just passed away 4 months ago after 6 years of constant use at home and work. RIP.
44
There are many people (myself included) who have large music collections, and these include symphonies, operas, long jazz compositions, and audio books. I have also digitized Vinyl jazz records (not avail on CD) that I had when I was ten years old and are out of print (That would be albums from 47 years ago in case you're wondering)

Many of us don't want to stream music - I'm often out of cell phone range, and when listening to say a long piece of classical music (i.e. Beethoven piano sonatas or something) it's nice to have the higher quality without any dropping.

I have 3 iPod classics, and I keep them all in sync by rotating them. I have a long commute (45 min each way) and having the iPod I'm my car keeps me listening. Then I listen to my other iPod at my office, sometimes the whole day. The third I have plugged into my stereo in the living room. So, what to do.

I think there is a small but selective market here, and this might do the trick:

http://www.fiio.com.cn/products/index.as…

Looks good, has good audio specs, and upgradable storage.

45
My husband found at ipod classic at a trailhead that was loaded with 9500 songs. Score! Later he found another one at another trailhead - also loaded with decent stuff. We are set for car listening now, where we often travel out of streaming range. I use an ipod nano for podcasts and some music while I commute and work in the mountains. The battery life is pretty decent. Plus it is tiny and great for walking/hiking.
46
I still have the original, first iPod, 5 gig, Firewire, about a week after it's release. Still have it and it still works. Within a week of buying it I bought a shit-ton of AAPL stock.

So, as an AAPL shareholder since 2000, I thank you all for making me shit tons of money; you paid for my house, my cars, my vacation in Portugal this summer with the family plus plenty of money to any candidate in WA state who will not raise my taxes.

Seriously, thank you.
47
Only at the gym. So lately, not at all.
48
If you look on eBay there are a few people who specialize in upgrading iPod classics to bigger drives. There will always be a market for people who work in black holes or other places where they can't get Pandora or satellite radio. A big market is in Northern Canada in the oilpatch and mining areas where the XM and Sirius footprints are shaky. Hell, I live in New Brunswick at 47 degrees north and you can always tell when the birds are cycling over to the new ones.
49
They can pry my iPod Classic 80G out of my cold dead hands. When my pod from 2007 finally started to die (after running for 7 years without a hitch), I went online to find a refurbished (used) make of the same pod. I am happily using it now. The battery lasts for days, there are no internet connectivity/reception issues—especially important for subway listening, and the storage capacity is huge. It's a long-lasting great product—so naturally they discontinued it. Arggh.

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