There is a part of me that wants to abandon streaming services and just buy a couple of albums per month based on what I think might be cool. I find myself enjoying music significantly less now I have unlimited access to everything I could ever want. It’s become disposable; just background noise rather than something I’m actively experiencing.
There is also a part of me that wants to take those albums and keep them on an old click-wheel iPod. I always thought the early iPod nanos were among the best consumer hardware devices ever made. Just the right mix of boxy and round; small enough to be novel (at least at the time), but large enough to still be perfectly usable. Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
As someone who was a teen when the iPod really started taking off, it was a constant presence during the time music was starting to become an important part of my life. Sad to see it go, even though really it’s been gone since the iPhone launched.
I think this is actually a pretty real concern. I've noticed my appreciation for specific instances of all sorts of media has tanked with wide availability.
I actually used to buy a lot of media so I hit this problem before streaming. As soon as I had a backlog big enough with each type of media that it wasn't straightforward to burn through it, it became a cloud of equally possible stuff with the result I wasn't particularly invested in any of it. Most people were smarter than me re: dumping money into bits on a disc, but now that streaming and/or free-feed libraries have hit most media types, I think the experience is becoming more common.
I think it's a different version of Paradox of Choice: all individualization between the various choices is lost when there's too many. With PoC, the problem is that then you have nothing left by which you can prioritize. In this case, the issue is the loss of all joy you'd have found in the differences.
What's helped a little for me is going on "kicks," like finding all the bands I liked that did EDM-metal hybrid, or all the found footage movies I liked, etc. Constraining the pool you're selecting from first makes it easier, and having a mission of some kind makes it easier still.
I've kept all my old records, hard drives full of mp3s, and even cassette tapes knowing that this era was coming.
Twitter trends and YouTube as well is full of music on rails, polished pop stars that are working to spin their unremarkable music into an acting career, and it generates underwhelming results for music.
It's the very reason why device makers are getting rid of headphone jacks, and why storage is kept low, even on new on phones, and other devices. Soon we'll only have streaming as a choice, we won't be able to maintain a music collection any more for various reasons like HD/SSD failure, and mysteriously, making deeper choices will be more expensive, even though the artists don't get paid until they give in to the commercial song playlist machine.
There is literally volumes of the absolute best music being made on YouTube, but it never sees the light of day... I have to regularly go through hurdles to find it in places where artists themselves share it, and it's depressing to see them with only 50 views in many cases, completely ignored by algos.
I say this as someone who has run an underground music label for years now, the job of being a successfully creative and different artist is becoming impossible fast, and as a result, the process of finding music based on real talent is fading with it.
Hang onto your vinyl and hope your legacy devices don't get worn out, or enjoy non stop billboard top 10 on an infinite loop (Or Metallica's unforgiven again... on the radio... on infinite loop... after those 10 liberty mutual commercials). :/
There's a middle ground, too -- you can host music streaming for your own library through [Jellyfin](https://jellyfin.org/) (or Plex, or a few other alternatives) for the backend and something like [FinAmp](https://github.com/UnicornsOnLSD/finamp) on the frontend. Easy to curate your own library, and you can avoid the "sync problem" when you download a new album.
There are some bugs to iron out in the setup, but my raspberry pi home server has been running this great for 5 months now, and offline media served me very well through a cross-country move. It's a great opportunity to take back some agency from Spotify, start contributing to artists on bandcamp or similar, and cut another annoying monthly subscription from your life.
When someone hands me their phone to play music on Spotify at this point, I find the front page absolutely overwhelming. It's sort of like going back to cable after streaming for years, and seeing your first ad. You wonder how you ever put up with it.
I have always loved music and still do. I think what you describe has in part been due to scarcity. But in part it has to do with growing up. As a teenager you are often bored out of your whole mind and so have time to focus on music. You also listen to the lyrics and the ideas presented are brand new and meaningful. Later in life you are less likely to find truly novel albums, or even songs; maybe a phrase here and there but a record is less likely to capture your imagination.
Here is my solution to enjoying music: treat it as a soundtrack to your life. Create themed playlists. Spotify has collaborative playlists built in and I have a couple of friends who are or were professional DJs. I will start a playlist and then have them add things to it based on the theme and feeling. This process has gotten better and better. I now enjoy high quality music that I love while also discovering new artists and records.
This is me as well and is the primary reason I still buy albums on vinyl. I'm not an audiophile snob or anything, I just think that listening to music on vinyl is deliberate enough to overcome the "disposable" issue that you're describing. If I want to listen to an album, I have to go to the room in my house with the turntable, open the album, put it on, set the tone arm, etc. It's very deliberate and it helps me appreciate and dedicate time to music.
As a counterpoint, I enjoy music more now. Music discovery is light years ahead of where it was in the iPod era. There's no additional cost to exploring as many artists and genres as you want. Also, streaming services are doing nothing to prevent you from listening to music the old way. Yeah, Spotify has a huge library, but it's not like the whole thing is on shuffle. If you find you're not spending the time to enjoy specific things, that's ultimately your problem.
I do get where you're coming from, I'm very nostalgic for my old click-wheel iPod. Probably the biggest downside in moving away from physical media in my mind is the loss of the rest of the album art.
Modding old iPods to have them run flash memory and decent batteries is pretty common, you could look into that. I'm still using my 17 years old iPod 5G like this. Flashed with Rockbox it reads every file format (mostly FLAC) I could ever want.
One of my favourite teachers at school noted this phenomenon long before streaming was a thing. He said that once he got a favourite film on DVD he actually watched it less. Whereas before he would watch it whenever it was on TV, he can now watch it whenever he wants, so why watch it ever?
I've noticed a related phenomenon: too much choice induces anxiety. If there are like 5 films showing in the cinema it's usually obvious which one to pick. Maybe I'll watch another later in the week. But now I can watch any film ever made and I often find it hard to choose because there is a fear of missing out on all the other films I could have chosen.
I have discovered so many (good) bands via Spotify over the past 5 years it's honestly insane. If I had stuck to "guessing" at what I might like, I would not have had such a rich collection of new music from relatively unknown or foreign artists. It's also allowed me to sample so many varieties of genres without any direct monetary involvement. I wouldn't trade it for the world honestly.
I also support the artists I listen to by buying merch/going to concerts to supplement the pittance they get from streaming royalties.
I’ve abandoned streaming because you never own the music and they remove artists and albums or don’t carry some versions that I like. Youtube music and hype machine serve me well when i just want to hear something new, but otherwise I’ve been back to building my own music file library and using a media server to access it anywhere
It’s not quite the tangible feel of the ipod you describe but I find a great joy in my library being mine and not having any social or promotional features (« hot albums this week » etc.), i know what is in there and what comes in and goes out. The UI is utilitarian and not trying to drive engagement or generate revenue from me, I love it.
I've never moved to streaming; I still just load songs onto my phone. I don't feel like I'm really missing out on anything. I buy things on CD (often used) or vinyl-with-download-code or Bandcamp mostly.
I had a 6th gen iPod Classic that I used for almost 15 years before it finally died on me a few months back. Dedicated music players nowadays are a niche market, so it was really hard to find a replacement. I ended up getting a FiiO M5, and while it's definitely got some pros -- much better sound quality, can pop in a 512GB/1TB SD card for effectively infinite space for compressed songs, can play FLAC/WAV/OGG -- the ergonomics of the iPod were just so much better. It's funny how seemingly little things can be so frustrating: there's only enough space on the screen for 4 names at a time, the scrolling isn't adaptive so it takes forever to get to the bottom, the play order isn't consistent with the song display order within a folder... I used to love just browsing my music collection on my iPod on the train to work, but with the M5 I'll just pick an album or playlist and press play. It's just not as fun to flip through music.
I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy, but the iPod was a rock solid product that got all of the little things right. Given that the market for standalone DAPs is tiny because most people today just use their phones and music streaming apps, it's unlikely that we'll ever see a music player that compares to it.
It's a shame that personal music players are still so niche. The hardware coming out of China right now blows any phone out of the water in terms of usability, performance, and battery life, all at a fraction of the cost.
We're in a Renaissance age of mobile listening thanks to ChiFi. I love carrying around a second device that has no persistent connection to the internet, no notifications, and can drive any headphones I throw at it... With sideloaded Audible and Tidal to boot.
Media used to be this easy and pleasurable to consume before phones got it the way.
If building your own isn't acceptable, I like the Sony Walkman series quite a bit. I have a WM1A and a ZX300 and I have minimal complaints other than they cost way too much. There are also a bunch of Chinese brands making players with decent DAC's, but they all use the same Android interface with minimal tweaks for the most part, the battery life and UX sucks.. Definitely wish there were more high quality off the shelf players for the non-audiophile who doesn't want to use their phone for everything.
Fiio does have the X5 which has a similar jogwheel but I agree with you that the lack of exponential scrolling does make it annoying. Not sure if that's patent-encumbered (fuck UX patents) or what.
Rockbox does have exponential scrolling, but only supports a limited list of hardware. There is an "unstable port" for the Fiio M3k but that's not what either of us own ;)
Might be a good project for someone here who wants to play with embedded hardware! It's one of those situations where once you get it up and going on a particular set of hardware, you will benefit from a lot of "passive" development from others, both past and future.
iPods have made a bit of a comeback. Checkout r/iPod there's people modding them by adding bluetooth and USB-C. There are adapters to replace the hard drive with MicroSD. (iFlash)
They (iPods) are relatively simple and new replacement parts are readily available. Pick up an old iPod off ebay and install a new battery. It's a fun little project, I've done it a few times now.
What a press release: the actual main message -- iPod touch is being discontinued -- has been weasel-worded out of the entire text, to the point that a non-native reader of English wouldn't even be able to decipher what it's trying to say.
I get that it's second nature for corporate marketing to try to dampen the message when they're taking something away, but this is on a whole new level.
For the last 2 years I’ve been using an iPod touch as my “downtime” device. I usually put my iPhone away in a drawer from early evening until I’m ready to start work the next day. I found this impossible to stick to until I got an iPod touch, because in the evenings and mornings I often need to manage things like HomeKit devices or other Apple ecosystem things like Reminders. I don’t have any distracting or time-sucking apps on the iPod touch, and the screen is small and fiddly, so I barely use it except for a few seconds here and there for something practical. The difference in stress levels and mindset has been huge. I can’t recommend highly enough separating your phone usage into ‘social/work/news/comms’ and ‘practical/home/calm’ categories, on different physical devices.
I have tried using the new iOS Focus and Downtime features to make my iPhone work a similar way (hide all the time-sucking apps at certain times of day etc), but having a dedicated device for the purpose is much simpler and much more effective.
It's essentially an iPhone 7 without a SIM. Just buy one of those. I'm assuming it would cost less than a new iPod touch and it prevents old iPhones from becoming e-waste.
Why would you even what that? I get the opposite (phone without internet), but this has all the downsides for the development of a child without the advantage of a child being able to contact their parents or vice versa?
from apple's vantage point, the watch (with airpods) is meant to fill this niche (more lucratively for them). apple even went against its own one-user-one-device edict to allow one iphone to control multiple watches to support this positioning.
edit: i should add that this is also one of the reasons apple has the "voice only" music subscription.
The iPod touch was so great for me as a kid, it provided an accessible (read - cheap) platform I could plug into a Mac and deploy iOS apps to at a young age.
Now there's really no reason to keep it around, as you can get an off-contract used iPhone that is better in every dimension for less money. Still feel a bit sad to see it leave.
I fell in love with computers through jailbreaking iPod touches. Back then, for me a jailbroken ipod felt like there was a whole world waiting for me; and you could tweak anything at all. I eventually started running a mini business at my school, offering to jailbreak anyones ipod/iphone (for a small fee, of course). I would even put a custom boot logo advertising my enterprise on all my customers device. Looking back now, that feels a bit scummy, but at the time I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
It never left. The iPhone is the new iPod, it just has more features that make it more than just a music player and more importantly has the option for a SIM (although it isn't necessary).
I get what you mean though. I think the iPhone SE has taken its place in terms of affordability.
I've owned so many iPods from the very first and loved each one. Now I don't care for ~iTunes~/Apple Music and the dumbed-down walled garden that it lives it. It's not even because I carry a smartphone. Just the other day I was researching non-Apple music players.
To me the iPod died with the introduction of the Touch which was a cheap iPhone, that had lower quality standards even in the area of sound quality. iPhones have no headphone jack so they're not suitable listening devices if you care about audio quality (or are willing to carry an external DAC). Apple Music makes nothing about managing music on any Apple device great.
M1 Macs are doing well, and still waiting to see what happens with iPadOS and if it can live up the the 'OS' name in terms of creation not consumption apps.
> iPhones have no headphone jack so they're not suitable listening devices if you care about audio quality (or are willing to carry an external DAC).
The $9 official headphone dongle is a superior DAC to most audiophile products and has a bigger R&D budget than that entire industry. Same goes for Google’s USBC dongle.
You can still carry around an amp if you have very power hungry headphones though. Personally, I don’t think I could ABX lossy audio while outside dodging cars in the crosswalk.
Since smartphoners have taken over, we are seeing most businesses insisting on users' owning and sharing their phone numbers. WiFi-only devices like iPod Touch could have played an important role in resisting this trend - especially with kids. Too bad there never were any popular WiFi-only models in the Android world.
I don't get it. Though iPod Touch is a lotta bit of feature creep, surely the portable media player market is still profitable. I just want it to play music and fit all my music in my change pocket. Bring back the iPod Shuffle!
Sorta-related topic: I like to listen to music while I run. I currently use a 7th Gen iPod Nano. It works because it's small and it has Bluetooth; I just put it in my pocket and go. However, I would rather have this same functionality (play music, Bluetooth) on a wristwatch device, as the iPod bouncing around in my pocket can be kinda annoying.
All the popular "smart watch" devices are packed with functionality I just don't want - not interested in having my fitness tracked or reading text messages while I run. I just want music and Bluetooth, and I guess a stopwatch/timer, too. That's it.
I've looked around and the best I could find was a wristwatch device straight outta Shenzhen. I bought it, and unsurprisingly, it was junk.
Does anyone know of a quality wristwatch device that only plays music and has Bluetooth (and stopwatch/timer)? Does a product like this exist? Or, is it "smart watch" or nothing (or junk)?
I think the iPod was somewhere in the area where I discovered all the nice to have features and polish of Apple products that made me admire Apple. (I was into PCs long before that but my exposure to Apple was limited and I wasn't all that impressed)
By no means was the iPod perfect, and it was effectively the same product as many other media players that came before and after, other products even had more features sometimes ... and yet the friction of using the iPod was just lower to the point that I enjoyed using it more than other media players at the time.
It's a mysterious process to me finding those places to make use of a thing easier, more intuitive and etc. When something is bad it is easy to see, but there's a step beyond "take away the bad friction" that I'm always wondering about when I'm building things. I never quite reach that Apple-ish feel.
> it was effectively the same product as many other media players that came before and after, other products even had more features sometimes
For me, at the time, the iPod (Classic) was a worst-in-class product (required iTunes, pretended it didn't know what a file was, annoying to navigate, etc.) The iPod Touch was that but also not attractive.
This might be true, but only if you stay on the "beaten path". If you do anything they don't intend you to do with these devices it ends up being a massive pain and you often just end up getting hit with the ol' "you're holding it wrong".
To be honest I was surprised that it lived on this long, and couldn't even understand why Apple released the 7th generation. It doesn't have a non-niche use, at least not in any profitable form worth supporting a device category.
It was great for its time and I've owned and loved my iPod touches, but we can't expect a for-profit company to keep selling a device with no future and only a niche market, eventhough the device was iconic at some point in the past.
Good move, and a big cherish to the iPod for changing the way we listen to music back then.
I imagine that Apple would never bring back an iPod in the future with the clicky wheel because it could be perceived as 'backwards looking' and cuts against their desired image as 'innovators' who bring out the 'next thing'. Bit sad, because my memory of the later generations of the Nano is that it was an excellent device.
It's probably true that most people just get their music and podcasts through streaming services on their phones though, so perhaps they don't care to keep a niche product around.
Looks like I finally moved my dad from an iPod touch to an iPhone SE at the right time.
(He was convinced, for whatever reason, he couldn’t figure out how to use an iPhone…despite he uses an iPod touch, and an iPad, and quite fluently. And within 1 day he was delighted, because he finally had something approximating a useful camera in his pocket.)
Reading the comments of the young'uns here, yes, you should buy an iPod and keep music on it. As a child of the 80s and 90s, I re-found mechanical pencils and it changed my 40s. I kid you not. I'm so happy to pick up a mechanical pencil, it's ridiculous. Why? I don't know. Who cares? Happy.
unfortunate, the ipod touch was a super handy device for all kinds of applications. Great for giving to kids so they could have an 'iphone'. Bought a ton of these back in the day and paired them to bluetooth pairable RFID reader/writer guns for an RFID retail POC. Nice to be able to write software for a platform you know, or can easily hire for, and deploy it to this kind of device. They often have either weird built in SOCs with proprietary apis for UIs.. though sometimes you are now seeing built in android devices so shrug.
End of an era I guess. Couldn't just rebrand it the 'iPad Micro' and keep selling it :)
[+] [-] deergomoo|3 years ago|reply
There is also a part of me that wants to take those albums and keep them on an old click-wheel iPod. I always thought the early iPod nanos were among the best consumer hardware devices ever made. Just the right mix of boxy and round; small enough to be novel (at least at the time), but large enough to still be perfectly usable. Unfortunately, finding one that both holds a charge and isn’t battered to all hell is quite difficult these days, and even so, it’s much harder to justify a single use device for music when I literally always have my phone with me.
As someone who was a teen when the iPod really started taking off, it was a constant presence during the time music was starting to become an important part of my life. Sad to see it go, even though really it’s been gone since the iPhone launched.
[+] [-] geoelectric|3 years ago|reply
I actually used to buy a lot of media so I hit this problem before streaming. As soon as I had a backlog big enough with each type of media that it wasn't straightforward to burn through it, it became a cloud of equally possible stuff with the result I wasn't particularly invested in any of it. Most people were smarter than me re: dumping money into bits on a disc, but now that streaming and/or free-feed libraries have hit most media types, I think the experience is becoming more common.
I think it's a different version of Paradox of Choice: all individualization between the various choices is lost when there's too many. With PoC, the problem is that then you have nothing left by which you can prioritize. In this case, the issue is the loss of all joy you'd have found in the differences.
What's helped a little for me is going on "kicks," like finding all the bands I liked that did EDM-metal hybrid, or all the found footage movies I liked, etc. Constraining the pool you're selecting from first makes it easier, and having a mission of some kind makes it easier still.
[+] [-] winternett|3 years ago|reply
Twitter trends and YouTube as well is full of music on rails, polished pop stars that are working to spin their unremarkable music into an acting career, and it generates underwhelming results for music.
It's the very reason why device makers are getting rid of headphone jacks, and why storage is kept low, even on new on phones, and other devices. Soon we'll only have streaming as a choice, we won't be able to maintain a music collection any more for various reasons like HD/SSD failure, and mysteriously, making deeper choices will be more expensive, even though the artists don't get paid until they give in to the commercial song playlist machine.
There is literally volumes of the absolute best music being made on YouTube, but it never sees the light of day... I have to regularly go through hurdles to find it in places where artists themselves share it, and it's depressing to see them with only 50 views in many cases, completely ignored by algos.
I say this as someone who has run an underground music label for years now, the job of being a successfully creative and different artist is becoming impossible fast, and as a result, the process of finding music based on real talent is fading with it.
Hang onto your vinyl and hope your legacy devices don't get worn out, or enjoy non stop billboard top 10 on an infinite loop (Or Metallica's unforgiven again... on the radio... on infinite loop... after those 10 liberty mutual commercials). :/
[+] [-] dont__panic|3 years ago|reply
There are some bugs to iron out in the setup, but my raspberry pi home server has been running this great for 5 months now, and offline media served me very well through a cross-country move. It's a great opportunity to take back some agency from Spotify, start contributing to artists on bandcamp or similar, and cut another annoying monthly subscription from your life.
When someone hands me their phone to play music on Spotify at this point, I find the front page absolutely overwhelming. It's sort of like going back to cable after streaming for years, and seeing your first ad. You wonder how you ever put up with it.
[+] [-] IgorPartola|3 years ago|reply
Here is my solution to enjoying music: treat it as a soundtrack to your life. Create themed playlists. Spotify has collaborative playlists built in and I have a couple of friends who are or were professional DJs. I will start a playlist and then have them add things to it based on the theme and feeling. This process has gotten better and better. I now enjoy high quality music that I love while also discovering new artists and records.
[+] [-] dkonofalski|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vlunkr|3 years ago|reply
I do get where you're coming from, I'm very nostalgic for my old click-wheel iPod. Probably the biggest downside in moving away from physical media in my mind is the loss of the rest of the album art.
[+] [-] Bayart|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|3 years ago|reply
I've noticed a related phenomenon: too much choice induces anxiety. If there are like 5 films showing in the cinema it's usually obvious which one to pick. Maybe I'll watch another later in the week. But now I can watch any film ever made and I often find it hard to choose because there is a fear of missing out on all the other films I could have chosen.
[+] [-] halfmatthalfcat|3 years ago|reply
I also support the artists I listen to by buying merch/going to concerts to supplement the pittance they get from streaming royalties.
[+] [-] mguerville|3 years ago|reply
It’s not quite the tangible feel of the ipod you describe but I find a great joy in my library being mine and not having any social or promotional features (« hot albums this week » etc.), i know what is in there and what comes in and goes out. The UI is utilitarian and not trying to drive engagement or generate revenue from me, I love it.
[+] [-] zerocrates|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mjr00|3 years ago|reply
I don't consider myself an Apple fanboy, but the iPod was a rock solid product that got all of the little things right. Given that the market for standalone DAPs is tiny because most people today just use their phones and music streaming apps, it's unlikely that we'll ever see a music player that compares to it.
[+] [-] cush|3 years ago|reply
We're in a Renaissance age of mobile listening thanks to ChiFi. I love carrying around a second device that has no persistent connection to the internet, no notifications, and can drive any headphones I throw at it... With sideloaded Audible and Tidal to boot.
Media used to be this easy and pleasurable to consume before phones got it the way.
[+] [-] femiagbabiaka|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulmd|3 years ago|reply
Rockbox does have exponential scrolling, but only supports a limited list of hardware. There is an "unstable port" for the Fiio M3k but that's not what either of us own ;)
Might be a good project for someone here who wants to play with embedded hardware! It's one of those situations where once you get it up and going on a particular set of hardware, you will benefit from a lot of "passive" development from others, both past and future.
[+] [-] TavsiE9s|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windowsrookie|3 years ago|reply
They (iPods) are relatively simple and new replacement parts are readily available. Pick up an old iPod off ebay and install a new battery. It's a fun little project, I've done it a few times now.
[+] [-] brundolf|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] needle0|3 years ago|reply
I get that it's second nature for corporate marketing to try to dampen the message when they're taking something away, but this is on a whole new level.
[+] [-] playpause|3 years ago|reply
I have tried using the new iOS Focus and Downtime features to make my iPhone work a similar way (hide all the time-sucking apps at certain times of day etc), but having a dedicated device for the purpose is much simpler and much more effective.
[+] [-] asciimov|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] windowsrookie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] daptaq|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clairity|3 years ago|reply
edit: i should add that this is also one of the reasons apple has the "voice only" music subscription.
[+] [-] MBCook|3 years ago|reply
Or maybe they see that as belonging to the iPad mini’s purpose.
[+] [-] Vladimof|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foogazi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mwint|3 years ago|reply
Now there's really no reason to keep it around, as you can get an off-contract used iPhone that is better in every dimension for less money. Still feel a bit sad to see it leave.
[+] [-] stnmtn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Snowworm|3 years ago|reply
I get what you mean though. I think the iPhone SE has taken its place in terms of affordability.
[+] [-] karmakaze|3 years ago|reply
To me the iPod died with the introduction of the Touch which was a cheap iPhone, that had lower quality standards even in the area of sound quality. iPhones have no headphone jack so they're not suitable listening devices if you care about audio quality (or are willing to carry an external DAC). Apple Music makes nothing about managing music on any Apple device great.
M1 Macs are doing well, and still waiting to see what happens with iPadOS and if it can live up the the 'OS' name in terms of creation not consumption apps.
[+] [-] astrange|3 years ago|reply
The $9 official headphone dongle is a superior DAC to most audiophile products and has a bigger R&D budget than that entire industry. Same goes for Google’s USBC dongle.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/r...
You can still carry around an amp if you have very power hungry headphones though. Personally, I don’t think I could ABX lossy audio while outside dodging cars in the crosswalk.
[+] [-] Wump|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nileshtrivedi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] musesum|3 years ago|reply
Radio provided shared stories and feelings.
The Walkman provided a soundtrack for my life.
The iPod provided a full solo theater of emotions.
Smart playlists now provide a feeling of serendipity.
But, that personalized experience feels selfish and hollow.
Maybe I should get out more.
[+] [-] Maursault|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimt1234|3 years ago|reply
All the popular "smart watch" devices are packed with functionality I just don't want - not interested in having my fitness tracked or reading text messages while I run. I just want music and Bluetooth, and I guess a stopwatch/timer, too. That's it.
I've looked around and the best I could find was a wristwatch device straight outta Shenzhen. I bought it, and unsurprisingly, it was junk.
Does anyone know of a quality wristwatch device that only plays music and has Bluetooth (and stopwatch/timer)? Does a product like this exist? Or, is it "smart watch" or nothing (or junk)?
[+] [-] duxup|3 years ago|reply
By no means was the iPod perfect, and it was effectively the same product as many other media players that came before and after, other products even had more features sometimes ... and yet the friction of using the iPod was just lower to the point that I enjoyed using it more than other media players at the time.
It's a mysterious process to me finding those places to make use of a thing easier, more intuitive and etc. When something is bad it is easy to see, but there's a step beyond "take away the bad friction" that I'm always wondering about when I'm building things. I never quite reach that Apple-ish feel.
[+] [-] pessimizer|3 years ago|reply
For me, at the time, the iPod (Classic) was a worst-in-class product (required iTunes, pretended it didn't know what a file was, annoying to navigate, etc.) The iPod Touch was that but also not attractive.
[+] [-] meibo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] can16358p|3 years ago|reply
It was great for its time and I've owned and loved my iPod touches, but we can't expect a for-profit company to keep selling a device with no future and only a niche market, eventhough the device was iconic at some point in the past.
Good move, and a big cherish to the iPod for changing the way we listen to music back then.
[+] [-] jfultz|3 years ago|reply
* There's still one iPad model with a headphone jack, but that's not quite in my definition of "handheld".
[+] [-] DizzyDoo|3 years ago|reply
It's probably true that most people just get their music and podcasts through streaming services on their phones though, so perhaps they don't care to keep a niche product around.
[+] [-] darknavi|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alx__|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GeekyBear|3 years ago|reply
https://buy.gazelle.com/collections/iphones/products/iphone-...
[+] [-] perardi|3 years ago|reply
(He was convinced, for whatever reason, he couldn’t figure out how to use an iPhone…despite he uses an iPod touch, and an iPad, and quite fluently. And within 1 day he was delighted, because he finally had something approximating a useful camera in his pocket.)
[+] [-] killjoywashere|3 years ago|reply
Be happy, humans. Be happy.
[+] [-] sleepybrett|3 years ago|reply
End of an era I guess. Couldn't just rebrand it the 'iPad Micro' and keep selling it :)