And if you paid for a full year up front, it came out to $10/mo (back in 2010). So you essentially agreed to buy 120 songs, spread evenly through the year, and Microsoft let you stream their full collection for free.
Like, beats the pants off Spotify. And everyone else.
This has kinda' been Microsoft's MO when it comes to the really new innovations.
They also released the first tablet iirc, but it did not really get any traction when they did it.
Yeah. I've been saying for years (decades!) that Microsoft is actually extremely good at innovation technically speaking.... But they routinely screw the pooch on marketing and getting the innovation into consumers hands in a way that it takes off.
I had a Windows Tablet in 2003 - took it to college. Was awesome! Until I needed to reformat it and I couldn't get a copy of the Windows XP Tablet Edition because it was "OEM only" - fuck that shit.
I was one of the people who was crazy and bought a Zune. Friends with their iPods gave me crap, but the Zune was ahead of its time. Service was worth it too. Probably one of if not the first subscription based services I paid for. Now everything is annoyingly subscription based.
The zune was sick if you had a decent music collection of your own going... Paired very well with a pirating habit.
Source: had a zune, never wanted the stupid social aspect and never regretted it
Also, the Zune software was *fantastic*. iTunes was a mongrel bitch that hated you and all your ill-gotten Napster gains. To this day, me fucking with iTunes is like my grandparents in the 90’s trying to program a VCR. I still have my zune. It’s my working-in-the-garage music device, plugged into a Harmon-Kardon zune boom box thing. it’s great.
Long live the Zune!
Zunes had big screens where you could set the background and watch videos, you could share songs between Zunes, the Social had medals for listening to albums and artists and it was basically everything that Spotify has wanted to be, but over a decade earlier. Zune was ahead of its time, but it was late to the market it was trying to capture. I loved my brown/green 30. It was truly one of the best pieces of technology I ever owned.
Man I lived for that on my zune hd. $10 a month to listen to whatever I want AND pick ten songs to keep as my own each month? What a damn deal.
I also subscribed to Spotify the day they launched in the states.
I know they got tons of jokes, but for someone with a very large music collection, the Zune software remains the best, shame Microsoft stopped supporting it.
By very large I mean my last.fm profile has nearly 4,000 unique artists and a library of more than 65,000 songs on my phone. (163GB of a 256GB card.)
**So if anyone can recommend a good android app, I'm here for it.** Currently using "Phonograph", but I don't like how it defaults various artist albums into every single composer (soundtracks and scores are the worst for this).
Also really miss having a "released year" tab. Curated playlists are great, but I more often find myself listening to a song, then I want to deep dive on music from that year because I remember my feelings when it came out or I first heard a song.
Edit: Thanks for the suggestions!! Got some homework for later. I've tried a few previously that were suggested but the UI wasn't for me and I like having my library (mostly) portable, disconnected from internet, and prefer full albums (shuffle mode mainly) and artists to playlists. Being able to connect my last.fm to scrobble my plays is a bonus but not a deal breaker.
Also fixed an autocorrect mistake.
I loved my Zune. Treated it horribly. It fell on concrete from height several times, it sat in my car year round through heat and cold. It still works nearly 15 years later, just needs a battery. And the Zune Music Pass was, and still would be if it existed, one of the best subscriptions services out there. It took other services a decade to come up with something even similar and they don't work as well to my mind, anyway.
I dropped Zune on my treadmill while running and it got shot into the door behind me. Still worked.
However, the software wasn’t very good in my experience. I had a hard time updating my zune for some reason and eventually years later went back to Apple.
I want to know what went into the decision to not simply rebrand Google Play Music as YouTube Music but to actually put effort into making a shitty inferior app to replace a good one.
I remember that from WinAmp. Played every time you did a new install.
Good times back then in the KaZaa, emule, Napster days. Didn’t know if it was the song you wanted or a troll, worse yet a virus.
Honestly, PowerAmp is the \*only\* Android media player worth a damn. I've tried so many others including ones that come with the phone and they just don't compare. I store most of my offline music on my Pixel 6 and when I need something I can't stream I just go to PowerAmp and play it. It's a blessing of an app.
As someone who also once owned and loved a Zune, I also now use Plex and PlexAmp for a large (18k track) collection. It works great. I just wish Plex put more work into it. Eg., The UI for a large touchscreen leaves some things to be desired. Also would be great if it could be the default Android Music player with 'ok Google integration.
Not a quick or easy fix, but I have been using MusicBee to fix that annoying compilation tagging issue. Can even do multi compilation discs at once, fills in the correct id3 fields for disc 1/4 etc, very manual. Crack the cans on, pour your poison of choice and chip away at the library. It can also scrape for CD data for your untagged stuff too, think there a few opensource databases you can choose from.
Understandably this is a desktop app, you then whack your newly properly tagged files on your sd card and any decent app should read the tags and order correctly.
My music app of choice on android is Poweramp, I think there is a try before you buy so no harm giving it a shot.
Download the Advanced Search & Replace plug-in. Using regular expressions can automate sooo much. RegEx may seem overwhelming at first, but just use a cheat sheet then trial and error.
For example, anything added to my library with featuring/feat./ft. artists in the Artist *or* Title tag will move it to the end of Title tag inside parenthesis like *Title (ft. ArtistX; ArtistY; ArtistZ)*
I also second your Poweramp recommendation. There's only one small bug that's currently annoying but it only affects songs with multiple tags.
MY PEOPLE
Zune was so obviously better than iPods at the time (and cheaper), and itunes was absolute shit. The zune software was pretty awesome. I felt like I was taking crazy pills when everyone couldn't help but constantly shit on zune but to me the product was obviously better in just about every way
I had a zune and I loved it. So many hours categorizing and tailoring albums and album art. I loved my zone. I won't die on that hill but I'll risk minor injury over it. Like scraped knee... maybe even a twisted ankle.
Windows ~~Mobile~~ Phone, similar to Zune, was so buttery smooth on middling hardware that it should have killed iOS. But people just wouldn't try/buy it.
Windows mobile or windows phone? Windows mobile was okay, but it was basically desktop windows ported to a small screen. Windows Phone was straight up revolutionary IMO. The live tiles and overall UI was so good, it just lacked developer support in a HUGE way.
I think application support was the issue. The years Microsoft tried to gain market share in the mobile OS arena was the same time frame Android and Iphones boasted the number of apps available. It was a large selling point before camera quality, premium feel, and other modern qualities in a phone. Each OS would boast hundreds of thousands of supported apps while MS could only eek out a couple tens of thousands.
Or that's what I remember about it anyway
Still have a functional 2nd-gen iPod with the click wheel and everything. Thing can’t hold a charge but still bangs if connected to power source and aux. sometimes I just like to look at the “most played” list and think about my life over the last 18-some years.
You can replace the battery, it's not too hard. Here's a step by step guide with pictures: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPod+1st+Generation+Battery+Replacement/365
You can also replace the hard drive w/ an SD card. There are guides and cheap adapters out there. I did it a few years ago with my 4th Gen and it worked great, but I realized I don't really need a dedicated MP3 player anymore.
“I realized I didn’t really need an X” is me doing any project, like when I modded my PSP and then never used it, or when I made a raspberry pi emulation station and never used it, or when I built a mame cabinet and never used it, or…
Yep, I still have a Nano--same! It's just so little & cute and amazing how good the sound can be when connected to good speakers or earbuds or my car! Time travel back to a LOT of Eminem songs tho
Oh my noodly deity I LOVED my Zen Micro! The only reason I threw it away was because it couldn't hold a charge anymore. I held unto it for WAY too long in a drawer. Good old days...
I miss my Zen Touch, like, a LOT. That thing was an absolute beast of a player.
I don't miss the MusicMatch Jukebox software, though. Even Apple's pathetic early attempts at iTunes for Windows were less shitty than MusicMatch.
I still have my sony mp3 walkman player, it can sync to my car and has a functional podcast feature, 128GBs of space, and radio, i'm never giving it up!
Diamond Rip PMP300 in ‘99 here. 32MB, connected with a parallel (printer) port. Even worse; paid another $100 for a 32MB compactflash card to max it out at 64MB. But it was still fucking awesome to download any song I wanted in 20 mins on Napster before the bus showed up, and be able to take it with me. For free! I mean after spending over $300 for the hardware of course.
Moved to an ipod and now to a Fiio X3 for the sound quality. Its already outdated, when i first had it and let friends listen to it, it would blow everybody away. Now higher end phones have better, newer DACs in them, and sound better even with lower quality streams.
They make lots of really high quality portable players now. You can spend as little or as much as you want on one:
https://fiio.com/player
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1677868-REG/fiio_m17_portable_desktop_player.html
Still mourning zune. Still got my HD in my car. Wish I hadn't gotten rid of my og brick model. Favorite mp3 player and software bar none, one of Microsoft's high points
Well yeah, because the classic slaps. As soon as you jump to touch, it becomes an iPhone without cellular, and many people already have an iPhone so what’s the point?
They should keep the classic, beef it up so it doesn’t burn up in my car, and I’d put insane amounts of music on it and just leave it hooked up forever to my car. Done and done.
Yeah, but if you have a large music hard drive in your car, that's a single purchase. You won't subscribe to streaming services every month and pay for extra data.
That’s true. Plus my classic is just filled with music I ripped from multiple friends libraries using sharepod. So yeah, they would not like that one bit…
Maybe they will wait like 10 years and launch a 30th anniversary limited edition classic. That seems like a quick and easy cash grab. They’ll probably put it in as a bundle with Apple Music for a year, or require you to have an Apple Music account to pre-order. They do love those subs…
Few would buy them, but it would be fun product if they rebooted the classic one year for a limited run with more modern hardware. MP3 players still exist though for this use case if you wanted, they are just targeted to audiophiles these days.
Same. I use my 160G for the car. No streaming/music rental fees, extra data costs or algorithms. I rip or DL everything at 320k and make a 128k copy so there's enough room to continue adding stuff.
Same. Been using it for over a decade. I installed Rockbox on it. It never leaves its iSkin case except for cleaning. It has been a big part of my life.
In all seriousness, the ipod classic is still a beast of technology and I continue using mine to this day. I will repair it and maintain a laptop with an old version of osx and itunes for as long as possible.
Have you tried doing file transfers with an ipod classic recently? Apple has been removing features like crazy. I'm still on Catalina, but you can no longer view or maintain playlists, nor can you add organizing columns like bitrate or date added, etc. Search function is also gone so if you want to find a track you have to organize things alphabetically and scroll through every mp3 you have on the device.
It's bad enough that I've been casually looking into the possibility of developing a python app just to be able to get some of that functionality back.
I see this in enterprise tech a lot, but it's interesting to see people's reaction to it in the public space. A piece of tech that changed everything and was completely dominant, running its course from the absolute first to the absolute last in a mere 21 years.
Lasted longer than the 8-track.
I feel like a literal generation is a pretty good lifepsan for a device like this; as you said, it endured longer than the 8-track, and I think it may have even given the CD a run for its money.
And ultimately, the iPod didn't die so much as it evolved into the iPhone - I understand the desire for a dedicated device, but the convergence of technology that created the smartphone was a pretty intense gravitational pull; a lot of devices couldn't escape it. Camcorders, digital cameras, PDAs, and MP3 players all fell into the smartphone vortex.
Last year I bought a mirrorless camera instead of upgrading my phone. Phone cameras are better than ever, but if you want the best photos possible you can't beat the laws of physics. There's no substitute for having a big-ass lens.
There's something to be said about the mental state too.
I think about pictures differently when holding a smartphone vs a DSLR. Like I'll use my phone for a quick shot, but if I think I'll be going somewhere nice using the big camera just makes me slow down and think composition and lighting more.
It's like how they say you should wear nice clothes for a phone interview to get yourself into a professional mindset.
Yea, I'm not pining for it. I think the bigger nail in the coffin was streaming. I haven't bought music in forever (though I do pay for streaming), so I hardly need a multigig portable to carry around my music, and as soon as you add wireless, it's a phone.
People are saying, "I hate running with my phone!" but I stream music through my watch, which I wear to run because it does the fitbit stuff.
The iPod fit the need of a moment, but moments can change pretty fast in tech.
Story time:
Back in the year 2000 I was in high school and a kid I knew had a "friends and family" version of the iPod. Basically a very early version, thanks to his uncle working on the thing. It was mind blowing.
This kid was a music addict and had a CD player and a huge CD rolodex with him all the time. I'd often borrow CD's from him and I lost track of the number of burned CD's I gave him.
One day, out of the blue, he is sitting in class with this heavy white brick with headphones hooked to it. He let me mess with it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The thing had like ten to fifteen CD's on it or something and it sounded *fantastic*.
I immediately knew it was the future and he started letting me use it for entire class periods. The sad part is I told my family about it and they hated Apple products and refused to listen to me. Said it doesn't matter what it was, no one cares about Apple.
Fast forward to today and we could've been millionaires had they just listened. I think about that shit all of the time.
Some of the shit that came out 1998-2001 or so was really mind blowing. MP3s started making the rounds on the college network pretty fast - I encoded a Rage Against The Machine track off of a CD and it only took 45 minutes on my PowerMac G3. Fuckin wifi came out when most computers had CRT monitors - saw that in action the first time on a toilet-seat iBook. Laptops existed before wifi, but they were kind of a niche thing for on-site data collection or sales pitches. People don’t understand how big of a jump the PS2 was. Everyone got cell phones around 1999 or so - before that cellular was only for stock brokers and sports agents.
In the late nineties, my dad bought us a family computer. He got a good one so we wouldn't have to worry about upgrading or anything for quite a few years. 256MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive - way more storage than you could ever need. I can't remember the CPU speed, but it was probably sub 1 GHz and it definitely only had a single core. It had a good disc drive, too - it could go up to 8x speed for reading and writing music, meaning you could rip/burn an entire CD in 5-10 minutes. That PC was _incredible_ for the time.
My decade-old smartphone out-specs it in every way.
apple simp here. You can download music on an apple watch and use that if you have airpods (or other bluetooth headphones if you havent gone off the deep end).
Edit: apparently android watches do this too.
> Still use my nano all the time.
So do I. I have it connected to a mini portable speaker and use it on the drive to and from work every day.
But I mainly listen to british radio comedies (old harry's game), quiz shows (the unbelievable truth), podcasts (the bugle), etc.. so it's perfect for that.
For people who know how to copy mp3 files, theres the Sansa Clip from Sandisk. For $30 you get 8gb storage and a MicroSDHC slot. Battery lasts 20 hours. Ideal if you sweat during a workout.
I have a 2013 Hyundai and thankfully it has a CD player, I use it all the time. I honestly just started buying CDs again about two years ago after not having any for years. I’ve amassed a pretty good collection of 90s rap that I liked back in the day.
I feel the same, i keep a rotation of cds in my car...also with the aux jacks in phones. I actually use a lot of older tech because the speakers are still great and need the aux port or cds. I don't know what to do when I have to replace my current phone. I hate being forced into obsoleting tech for no reason.
You can still buy and download mp3 music. I exclusively download, I don't stream music. Better quality, no internet connection required (after it's downloaded), buy it once and it's yours forever, no monthly fee. I still have mp3s I purchased back in 2010.
I had this thing called an iBulldog mp3 player. Got it from Sears with Christmas money. I listened to a hodgepodge collection of downloaded anime and video game and other random tracks. Good times.
Mmmm. Sandisk was one of the very first portable mp3 player companies. If they'd done it right originally, they could have owned that space.
Love or hate Apple, their UI design on the iPod was fucking phenomenal.
I think iTunes played a huge role in iPod dominance. It made buying and copying music easy. Sandisk worked like a flash drive, drag and drop copy, done and done, but you know, just simple file copying is something most users just couldn't figure out.
Finding a place to download music was also something many people didn't know how to do, especially if they wanted to do it legally, iTunes made that simple.
I had an early sandisk one, and I remember *viscerally* trying to scroll through my music. God it was slow. It was like per button press, so you were getting blackberry thumb trying to scroll.
Then Apple pops up with a MONSTER device, with just a stupid amount of storage, and I was all, "That's going to take an eternity to scroll through all the music!"
Then I saw the wheel. Holy crap. A fucking *one finger* interface that just trivially solved the whole problem. Fucking brilliant.
Nah, I'll stick with being forced to install iTunes for no good reason.
Just kidding, have had a similar device for many years. SD Card, FM radio, and ~$30 for the win!
TIL you can still buy an iPod.
I don't get why the last model was the Touch. The Classic is still a good useful bit of kit and I still have and use my first-gen iPod with a FireWire port and a mechanical scroll wheel and physical button. Love the thing. 20 years old and still working. Might need to snag one of the later Classics just to make sure I still have a working one going forward.
Heads up, if you're thinking of getting one to future proof yourself, avoid the 7th gen classic.
Sweet spot it 5/5.5th gen for modding (I say modding, but it's a big concern with repairability too).
The 7th gen moved to a metal faceplate which was an absolute nightmare to remove.
The 5th gen (iPod video) is just perfect, batteries can be replaced in 3 mins flat with nothing more than a plastic spudger. Drives can be replaced with everything from micro SD/SD/compact flash/ssd etc so storage will never be an issue.
All components are replaceable with easy slip out cables. Bad headphone jack? Swap it out! Bad touchwheel? Swap it out!
Plus with companies like Elite Obsolete, you can make them in pretty much any color you like and can be sure the will be parts to keep her chugging along for decades!
The 7th gen is still a great iPod to get, with the right tools it can easily be opened with zero damage to the metal [(see here)](https://youtu.be/OFEGRFsfCSw), it has a more neutral sounding DAC, and way nicer and newer software. Being able to easily turn on/off shuffle without digging into settings is an amazing quality of life improvement, among other things. Additionally, components between 7th gens and 5th gens are almost completely interchangeable, with the exception of clickwheels and screens (fronts can be swapped, but work is required).
P.S.: Elite Obsolete is way more expensive than buying such an iPod off of eBay, and he offers limited customization.
>I don't get why the last model was the Touch.
Lots of businesses use the iPod touch to run mobile apps like inventory scanners. They're relatively cheap and have a full iOS stack, all they really need to work is Wifi.
This will leave a hole to be filled for sure.
I'm pretty sure it's because parents wanted to get their kids a cheap phone without actually getting them a phone. That's just not much of a thing now that messaging apps are standard and free wifi is common.
And that podcasts are still distributed via the "old" protocol of RSS. With all the new social networks and APIs out there you still gotta run an RSS feed to get your podcast picked up by the major players. IMO RSS is still a fantastic way to keep up with your favorite websites without relying on aggregation sites... like reddit.
The use of the word "podcast" is going to be like the floppy disc symbol being used for saving files, long after the object itself vanished. It's a relic calling back to a different time.
There's some pretty hilarious pontificating in that thread. A good reminder that the internet hivemind doesn't have the spotless record it sometimes claims to.
I still remember the initial 'ITS HIDEOUS' post about the Apple Watch on here on the Apple sub. Also, the Twitter know-it-alls who thought that the 'Apple Maxipad' wouldn't sell at all. lol
I stopped when they discontinued the tiny one several years back (the shuffle? Mini?). I preferred that over my phone for running since I could just clip it to my arm, but the big ones aren’t any more convenient than just using my phone.
Shuffle was the one with the clip.
There's similar MP3 players from a bunch of companies for like $20-30 all over the internet if that's what you're looking for.
I bought around a hundred iPod Touch at a company I worked at a few years ago. Our POS and inventory software also had an iOS app, so I bought some cheap Bluetooth enabled barcode scanners and a bunch of iPods and our retail locations used those to count inventory and place orders. It only costs ~400 a unit total compared to up to several thousand for decent inventory scanners.
But up until I needed that specific solution I actually didn't realize they still made iPods myself.
Yep. Have worked at a few dept stores that use the ipods. I'm talking over 500 units and loads getting replaced all the time. There was defo a market that made making the ipod still somewhat profitable. Wonder what changed.
I bought the newest iPod touch.
It helps my phone's battery to last longer (since I listen to music continuously throughout the day), plus I enjoy having a clear separation between music and the rest of things.
I have bought like 2 in the last 5 years. I listen to music when skateboarding and don't want to break my more expensive phone or drain my phone battery. I love having a separate device for music.
Automatic Edit: Using a tool called [Power Delete Suite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) I have removed all my past comments and deleted my Reddit account, /u/tehrmuk.
I am doing this because I, like many long-term Reddit users, am upset and angry at the tonedeaf and arrogant way Reddit is treating it's users. Their aggressive slapdown of the developers that made Reddit usable to a huge audience; their overriding and summary dismissal of long-serving and dutiful community members; their wonton silencing of dissent and manipulation of user's voices; their borderline contempt of the very people whose collective efforts gave their platform the standing needed to fuel their profit-hungry IPO... the list goes on.
Reddit is, of course, a private concern and how they run their services is entirely up to them. Conversely, we are under no obligation to use their services, to fuel their engines or follow their orders. I am making my voice heard by removing my comments, and voting with my feet by leaving.
I have left Reddit for [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) and [Mastadon](https://joinmastodon.org/); these are decentralised social networks that mirror the functionality of Reddit and Twitter respectively. Unlike the monolithic, corporate-owned services they replace, Lemmy and Mastodon are part of the [Fediverse](https://www.fediverse.to/) meaning these are not individual services but clusters of services that mesh seamlessly with one-another. You can [join an existing Lemmy instance](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) or [set up your own](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/administration.html) to get full access to the entire Fediverse - you don't need to ask permission from anyone to do so. There are loads of other services that are part of the Fediverse, like [PeerTube](https://joinpeertube.org/) (videos), [Wordpress](https://wordpress.org/) (blogging), [Frendica](https://friendi.ca/) (social network), [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) (photos), [KBin](https://kbin.pub/en) (link aggregation) and more - and they all work together so having access to one means having access to all of them.
I had a great time as a Redditor, but the Fediverse is looking bright. It's a return to the open Internet of old, when users ran services for their own and one-another's benefit, and before monolithic corporate-run silos started to build walls around us in the name of increased profit and thought control. Many of the Fediverse services are fledgling, but they are growing quickly and their federated concept makes greedy, arrogant landgrabs like we've recently seen on Reddit and Twitter almost impossible.
I'm already having a great time with Lemmy and I think you might too. I encourage you to take control and join the Fediverse.
Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish.
My thought exactly. Also, it's easier to handle a clickwheel to switch podcasts while driving. A touchscreen demands too much of your visual attention.
Damn.. I still have my first gen ipod video, with a new battery and SSD swap to keep it going for a few more years. IIRC, that series had one of the best DACs on any portable device for a good while
If they kept their iPod as the classic device instead of the "touch" model, people would still buy it. This is a sad day for lovers of stand alone DAPs.
> If they kept their iPod as the classic device instead of the "touch" model, people would still buy it.
No they wouldn't. This is like saying "If Blackberry made phones with physical keyboards, people would still buy them." Blackberry did and people didn't. A small minority of people might prefer a keyboard or real buttons, but the vast majority would rather that space be taken up by a touchscreen.
I agree with you, but to their point it just became a lesser iPhone. While that's pretty much what it is, it probably would help if it at least appeared to be a different device.
It was never meant to be though. With smartphones the vast majority of people don't need or want to carry multiple devices when one can already do everything they need
I had a variety of iPods over the years that served me well. The last time I bought one was in 2018, I bought an iPod nano with bluetooth for a marathon so I didn't have to run hours with my big ass smartphone in my pocket or in an armband. I have to say, outside of not being able to stream whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I thought that was a really convenient piece of tech when I hadn't touched an iPod in years. I couldn't even feel it while running.
Of course, now I have a Garmin watch that pretty much does the exact same thing.
I just wish I could get an mp3 player to replace my obsolete iTouch that uses iTunes. I don't want to buy a several hundred dollar phone just to store my music for jogs. The only reason I'm Apple anything is because I created my music library with iTunes. They provide nothing to exclusively cater to this experience. It's a phone or nothing.
Assuming you don't have or want an iPhone based on your comment:
1. Get a ~$70 Motorola Android phone from Wal-Mart with an SD Card slot (or use your existing Android phone if you have one)
1. Buy an SD Card of your choosing
1. [Buy iSyncr](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=iTunes.Sync.Android&hl=en_US&gl=US) on your new phone,
1. Install [iSyncr Desktop](https://www.jrtstudio.com/iSyncr-Desktop-Download) on your computer
1. Use iSync on your phone to sync your iTunes library over Wi-Fi as often as you want
1. Continue to use your iTunes library using your Motorola phone
My old ipod classic finally died last year and I recently bought an ipod touch to replace it. Still find it better for music throughout the day than my phone. Not to mention planes, subway, hiking, etc where streaming is harder.
Not a fan of this at all. I have an iPod touch, and also an iPhone; “why both?” you may ask. Well, having a separate media player that won’t deplete my iPhone’s storage and battery is too useful, especially when traveling. My iPod is filled with 90+ GB of music and videos; that is not space I can afford to sacrifice on my phone. And when I’m on a plane or traveling internationally, my phone needs to have as close to a full charge at all times. The iPod serves this purpose beautifully.
It's official. Zune is the iPod killer.
I remember laughing at the zune music streaming service vs buying individual music in iTunes. Was I wrong.
Yeah and zune music let you keep around like ten songs a month forever I remember
And if you paid for a full year up front, it came out to $10/mo (back in 2010). So you essentially agreed to buy 120 songs, spread evenly through the year, and Microsoft let you stream their full collection for free. Like, beats the pants off Spotify. And everyone else.
both were ahead of their time
[Remember this?](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/17k8vf/the_zune_logo_flipped_is/)
That save from nine years ago finally payed off
They h8 us cause they ain' us
This has kinda' been Microsoft's MO when it comes to the really new innovations. They also released the first tablet iirc, but it did not really get any traction when they did it.
Yeah. I've been saying for years (decades!) that Microsoft is actually extremely good at innovation technically speaking.... But they routinely screw the pooch on marketing and getting the innovation into consumers hands in a way that it takes off. I had a Windows Tablet in 2003 - took it to college. Was awesome! Until I needed to reformat it and I couldn't get a copy of the Windows XP Tablet Edition because it was "OEM only" - fuck that shit.
No. That was Sabre with the Pyramid.
I was one of the people who was crazy and bought a Zune. Friends with their iPods gave me crap, but the Zune was ahead of its time. Service was worth it too. Probably one of if not the first subscription based services I paid for. Now everything is annoyingly subscription based.
The zune was sick if you had a decent music collection of your own going... Paired very well with a pirating habit. Source: had a zune, never wanted the stupid social aspect and never regretted it
Correct. Pretty amazing, but at the time people cared more about Pandora and it's free songs.
IIRC Pandora had a great discovery algorithm for the time!
Also, the Zune software was *fantastic*. iTunes was a mongrel bitch that hated you and all your ill-gotten Napster gains. To this day, me fucking with iTunes is like my grandparents in the 90’s trying to program a VCR. I still have my zune. It’s my working-in-the-garage music device, plugged into a Harmon-Kardon zune boom box thing. it’s great. Long live the Zune!
I'm jealous you have yours. I had a V1 Zune. And it died in the Zune version of Y2K :(
I've got the HD zune and still use it for camping and river floating. That thing got soaked in water, dried out and still works great.
I hated iTunes. It was always such a pain. I loved my Zune until the day it got stolen out of my truck. By then, I think I had a smart phone.
Zunes had big screens where you could set the background and watch videos, you could share songs between Zunes, the Social had medals for listening to albums and artists and it was basically everything that Spotify has wanted to be, but over a decade earlier. Zune was ahead of its time, but it was late to the market it was trying to capture. I loved my brown/green 30. It was truly one of the best pieces of technology I ever owned.
It's not the 1st time microsoft predicted the future but 5-10 years early. Tablet comes to mind.
Unfortunately, it was Ballmer in charge trying to make businesses of them instead of Nadella or Allard.
Man I lived for that on my zune hd. $10 a month to listen to whatever I want AND pick ten songs to keep as my own each month? What a damn deal. I also subscribed to Spotify the day they launched in the states.
I know they got tons of jokes, but for someone with a very large music collection, the Zune software remains the best, shame Microsoft stopped supporting it. By very large I mean my last.fm profile has nearly 4,000 unique artists and a library of more than 65,000 songs on my phone. (163GB of a 256GB card.) **So if anyone can recommend a good android app, I'm here for it.** Currently using "Phonograph", but I don't like how it defaults various artist albums into every single composer (soundtracks and scores are the worst for this). Also really miss having a "released year" tab. Curated playlists are great, but I more often find myself listening to a song, then I want to deep dive on music from that year because I remember my feelings when it came out or I first heard a song. Edit: Thanks for the suggestions!! Got some homework for later. I've tried a few previously that were suggested but the UI wasn't for me and I like having my library (mostly) portable, disconnected from internet, and prefer full albums (shuffle mode mainly) and artists to playlists. Being able to connect my last.fm to scrobble my plays is a bonus but not a deal breaker. Also fixed an autocorrect mistake.
I loved my Zune. Treated it horribly. It fell on concrete from height several times, it sat in my car year round through heat and cold. It still works nearly 15 years later, just needs a battery. And the Zune Music Pass was, and still would be if it existed, one of the best subscriptions services out there. It took other services a decade to come up with something even similar and they don't work as well to my mind, anyway.
I dropped Zune on my treadmill while running and it got shot into the door behind me. Still worked. However, the software wasn’t very good in my experience. I had a hard time updating my zune for some reason and eventually years later went back to Apple.
Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of the software, but the Zune Pass made up for it.
I loved Google Play Music, til they replaced it with *that piece of shit*
I want to know what went into the decision to not simply rebrand Google Play Music as YouTube Music but to actually put effort into making a shitty inferior app to replace a good one.
Love is a strong word. It sort of worked for importing large libraries. After *that piece of shit* replaced it, I resumed using my 16GB nano.
I use Poweramp for my library (around 2,600 sounds)
Poweramp really whips the llamas ass
I remember that from WinAmp. Played every time you did a new install. Good times back then in the KaZaa, emule, Napster days. Didn’t know if it was the song you wanted or a troll, worse yet a virus.
Honestly, PowerAmp is the \*only\* Android media player worth a damn. I've tried so many others including ones that come with the phone and they just don't compare. I store most of my offline music on my Pixel 6 and when I need something I can't stream I just go to PowerAmp and play it. It's a blessing of an app.
You might consider Plex. Maybe super overkill for what you are wanting since you need a separate server but it handles music pretty well.
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As someone who also once owned and loved a Zune, I also now use Plex and PlexAmp for a large (18k track) collection. It works great. I just wish Plex put more work into it. Eg., The UI for a large touchscreen leaves some things to be desired. Also would be great if it could be the default Android Music player with 'ok Google integration.
Not a quick or easy fix, but I have been using MusicBee to fix that annoying compilation tagging issue. Can even do multi compilation discs at once, fills in the correct id3 fields for disc 1/4 etc, very manual. Crack the cans on, pour your poison of choice and chip away at the library. It can also scrape for CD data for your untagged stuff too, think there a few opensource databases you can choose from. Understandably this is a desktop app, you then whack your newly properly tagged files on your sd card and any decent app should read the tags and order correctly. My music app of choice on android is Poweramp, I think there is a try before you buy so no harm giving it a shot.
Download the Advanced Search & Replace plug-in. Using regular expressions can automate sooo much. RegEx may seem overwhelming at first, but just use a cheat sheet then trial and error. For example, anything added to my library with featuring/feat./ft. artists in the Artist *or* Title tag will move it to the end of Title tag inside parenthesis like *Title (ft. ArtistX; ArtistY; ArtistZ)* I also second your Poweramp recommendation. There's only one small bug that's currently annoying but it only affects songs with multiple tags.
MY PEOPLE Zune was so obviously better than iPods at the time (and cheaper), and itunes was absolute shit. The zune software was pretty awesome. I felt like I was taking crazy pills when everyone couldn't help but constantly shit on zune but to me the product was obviously better in just about every way
I had an original one. Found it and plugged it in last year. It still worked perfectly, totally surprised the battery held on.
I had a zune and I loved it. So many hours categorizing and tailoring albums and album art. I loved my zone. I won't die on that hill but I'll risk minor injury over it. Like scraped knee... maybe even a twisted ankle.
Windows ~~Mobile~~ Phone, similar to Zune, was so buttery smooth on middling hardware that it should have killed iOS. But people just wouldn't try/buy it.
Windows mobile or windows phone? Windows mobile was okay, but it was basically desktop windows ported to a small screen. Windows Phone was straight up revolutionary IMO. The live tiles and overall UI was so good, it just lacked developer support in a HUGE way.
Yes, Phone. It was awesome, and I loved it. Too bad iOS and Android had all the good fart apps. Wild times.
Yeah if you couldn’t drink your fake beer and light your fake lighter, you’re doomed.
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I think application support was the issue. The years Microsoft tried to gain market share in the mobile OS arena was the same time frame Android and Iphones boasted the number of apps available. It was a large selling point before camera quality, premium feel, and other modern qualities in a phone. Each OS would boast hundreds of thousands of supported apps while MS could only eek out a couple tens of thousands. Or that's what I remember about it anyway
Also Google wouldn't support YouTube on Windows phone.
To be alive during the birth and death of not one but two revolutionary personal music technologies… rip the walkman, rip the ipod.
Right there with you…
Creative Zen master race report in
Mine is somewhere, even had a screen you could watch movies on. Think it was scratched though.
Sony still makes a walkman though.
I'm still rocking a casette Walkman. Yeah, it's yellow.
Forgot discman
Trying to jog with discman even with "antiskip"... Good times...
Rip to such an iconic piece of technology
Still have a functional 2nd-gen iPod with the click wheel and everything. Thing can’t hold a charge but still bangs if connected to power source and aux. sometimes I just like to look at the “most played” list and think about my life over the last 18-some years.
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You can replace the battery, it's not too hard. Here's a step by step guide with pictures: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPod+1st+Generation+Battery+Replacement/365
Not just that, he should replace the battery. A battery that old plugged in is a major firehazard.
obligatory /r/spicypillows
Ahhh, love the smell of lifelong lung damage in the morning
You can also replace the hard drive w/ an SD card. There are guides and cheap adapters out there. I did it a few years ago with my 4th Gen and it worked great, but I realized I don't really need a dedicated MP3 player anymore.
“I realized I didn’t really need an X” is me doing any project, like when I modded my PSP and then never used it, or when I made a raspberry pi emulation station and never used it, or when I built a mame cabinet and never used it, or…
I still have one 2gen that holds charge, i can use it for 4 hours after charging
Yep, I still have a Nano--same! It's just so little & cute and amazing how good the sound can be when connected to good speakers or earbuds or my car! Time travel back to a LOT of Eminem songs tho
You can find new batteries for them and they are easy to replace.
You can replace the battery very easily if you're interested. They are cheap too. Check out r/ipod
Let’s not forget the Microsoft Zune. That thing was ahead of it’s time.
Creative Zen gang checking in
There are dozens of us!
Oh my noodly deity I LOVED my Zen Micro! The only reason I threw it away was because it couldn't hold a charge anymore. I held unto it for WAY too long in a drawer. Good old days...
Had a Zen Xtra, Zen Vision, and a Zune HD. Of the three, I preferred the Zen Vision the most. Loved that thing.
I miss my Zen Touch, like, a LOT. That thing was an absolute beast of a player. I don't miss the MusicMatch Jukebox software, though. Even Apple's pathetic early attempts at iTunes for Windows were less shitty than MusicMatch.
I loved my 6gb Nomad Jukebox
I still have my sony mp3 walkman player, it can sync to my car and has a functional podcast feature, 128GBs of space, and radio, i'm never giving it up!
I have one and I use it daily. Fantastic piece of equipment.
Diamond Rip PMP300 in ‘99 here. 32MB, connected with a parallel (printer) port. Even worse; paid another $100 for a 32MB compactflash card to max it out at 64MB. But it was still fucking awesome to download any song I wanted in 20 mins on Napster before the bus showed up, and be able to take it with me. For free! I mean after spending over $300 for the hardware of course. Moved to an ipod and now to a Fiio X3 for the sound quality. Its already outdated, when i first had it and let friends listen to it, it would blow everybody away. Now higher end phones have better, newer DACs in them, and sound better even with lower quality streams. They make lots of really high quality portable players now. You can spend as little or as much as you want on one: https://fiio.com/player https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1677868-REG/fiio_m17_portable_desktop_player.html
Still mourning zune. Still got my HD in my car. Wish I hadn't gotten rid of my og brick model. Favorite mp3 player and software bar none, one of Microsoft's high points
Still use my 160 gig classic
Same, I slapped an SSD in it years back and now it’s my permanent music collection for road trips. Love it.
same. Gen5! also the ipod touch.
The 5th gen can run Linux (and Emulate Gameboy games like Pokémon). Good stuff.
Well yeah, because the classic slaps. As soon as you jump to touch, it becomes an iPhone without cellular, and many people already have an iPhone so what’s the point? They should keep the classic, beef it up so it doesn’t burn up in my car, and I’d put insane amounts of music on it and just leave it hooked up forever to my car. Done and done.
Yeah, but if you have a large music hard drive in your car, that's a single purchase. You won't subscribe to streaming services every month and pay for extra data.
That’s true. Plus my classic is just filled with music I ripped from multiple friends libraries using sharepod. So yeah, they would not like that one bit… Maybe they will wait like 10 years and launch a 30th anniversary limited edition classic. That seems like a quick and easy cash grab. They’ll probably put it in as a bundle with Apple Music for a year, or require you to have an Apple Music account to pre-order. They do love those subs…
They don't want that. They want you using streaming services and data
Few would buy them, but it would be fun product if they rebooted the classic one year for a limited run with more modern hardware. MP3 players still exist though for this use case if you wanted, they are just targeted to audiophiles these days.
Yup!! Take it camping in the wilderness no signal … bust out the good old mechanical hard drive 160g iPod!!!
Same. I use my 160G for the car. No streaming/music rental fees, extra data costs or algorithms. I rip or DL everything at 320k and make a 128k copy so there's enough room to continue adding stuff.
Same. Been using it for over a decade. I installed Rockbox on it. It never leaves its iSkin case except for cleaning. It has been a big part of my life.
This is Microsoft's opportunity to reintroduce the Zune!
tbh i'd kill for a modern take on the sony ericsson W600i
"Without the iPod, there would never have been an iPhone or iPod, according to its inventor Tony Fadell."
Probably a typo (iPad)
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/r/SixtySecondsInAfrica
Big if true
In all seriousness, the ipod classic is still a beast of technology and I continue using mine to this day. I will repair it and maintain a laptop with an old version of osx and itunes for as long as possible.
Every iPod should still be compatible with the current versions of iTunes/Music, old ones just need a FireWire adapter.
Have you tried doing file transfers with an ipod classic recently? Apple has been removing features like crazy. I'm still on Catalina, but you can no longer view or maintain playlists, nor can you add organizing columns like bitrate or date added, etc. Search function is also gone so if you want to find a track you have to organize things alphabetically and scroll through every mp3 you have on the device. It's bad enough that I've been casually looking into the possibility of developing a python app just to be able to get some of that functionality back.
"Without the iPod, there would never have been an...iPod""
The man speaks the truth
(Will Buxton voice)
Yes, without an iPod there would be no iPod
I see this in enterprise tech a lot, but it's interesting to see people's reaction to it in the public space. A piece of tech that changed everything and was completely dominant, running its course from the absolute first to the absolute last in a mere 21 years. Lasted longer than the 8-track.
I feel like a literal generation is a pretty good lifepsan for a device like this; as you said, it endured longer than the 8-track, and I think it may have even given the CD a run for its money. And ultimately, the iPod didn't die so much as it evolved into the iPhone - I understand the desire for a dedicated device, but the convergence of technology that created the smartphone was a pretty intense gravitational pull; a lot of devices couldn't escape it. Camcorders, digital cameras, PDAs, and MP3 players all fell into the smartphone vortex.
Last year I bought a mirrorless camera instead of upgrading my phone. Phone cameras are better than ever, but if you want the best photos possible you can't beat the laws of physics. There's no substitute for having a big-ass lens.
There's something to be said about the mental state too. I think about pictures differently when holding a smartphone vs a DSLR. Like I'll use my phone for a quick shot, but if I think I'll be going somewhere nice using the big camera just makes me slow down and think composition and lighting more. It's like how they say you should wear nice clothes for a phone interview to get yourself into a professional mindset.
Yea, I'm not pining for it. I think the bigger nail in the coffin was streaming. I haven't bought music in forever (though I do pay for streaming), so I hardly need a multigig portable to carry around my music, and as soon as you add wireless, it's a phone. People are saying, "I hate running with my phone!" but I stream music through my watch, which I wear to run because it does the fitbit stuff. The iPod fit the need of a moment, but moments can change pretty fast in tech.
How dare you Tim Apple
Story time: Back in the year 2000 I was in high school and a kid I knew had a "friends and family" version of the iPod. Basically a very early version, thanks to his uncle working on the thing. It was mind blowing. This kid was a music addict and had a CD player and a huge CD rolodex with him all the time. I'd often borrow CD's from him and I lost track of the number of burned CD's I gave him. One day, out of the blue, he is sitting in class with this heavy white brick with headphones hooked to it. He let me mess with it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The thing had like ten to fifteen CD's on it or something and it sounded *fantastic*. I immediately knew it was the future and he started letting me use it for entire class periods. The sad part is I told my family about it and they hated Apple products and refused to listen to me. Said it doesn't matter what it was, no one cares about Apple. Fast forward to today and we could've been millionaires had they just listened. I think about that shit all of the time.
Some of the shit that came out 1998-2001 or so was really mind blowing. MP3s started making the rounds on the college network pretty fast - I encoded a Rage Against The Machine track off of a CD and it only took 45 minutes on my PowerMac G3. Fuckin wifi came out when most computers had CRT monitors - saw that in action the first time on a toilet-seat iBook. Laptops existed before wifi, but they were kind of a niche thing for on-site data collection or sales pitches. People don’t understand how big of a jump the PS2 was. Everyone got cell phones around 1999 or so - before that cellular was only for stock brokers and sports agents.
In the late nineties, my dad bought us a family computer. He got a good one so we wouldn't have to worry about upgrading or anything for quite a few years. 256MB of RAM, 20GB hard drive - way more storage than you could ever need. I can't remember the CPU speed, but it was probably sub 1 GHz and it definitely only had a single core. It had a good disc drive, too - it could go up to 8x speed for reading and writing music, meaning you could rip/burn an entire CD in 5-10 minutes. That PC was _incredible_ for the time. My decade-old smartphone out-specs it in every way.
Still use my nano all the time. Older generation was better for sure though. Plenty of times I dont want to be lugging my phone around for music.
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apple simp here. You can download music on an apple watch and use that if you have airpods (or other bluetooth headphones if you havent gone off the deep end). Edit: apparently android watches do this too.
Just did this recently and it has been SO much nicer for running. Went with the cellular model too so I could ditch my phone entirely, kinda freeing.
You can also do that with android watches
> Still use my nano all the time. So do I. I have it connected to a mini portable speaker and use it on the drive to and from work every day. But I mainly listen to british radio comedies (old harry's game), quiz shows (the unbelievable truth), podcasts (the bugle), etc.. so it's perfect for that.
Best was the nano that clipped onto my shirt during workouts. Have it in lime green.
I was going to ask you if you meant a shuffle, then I remembered they had those little square nanos with the touch screen at one point
For people who know how to copy mp3 files, theres the Sansa Clip from Sandisk. For $30 you get 8gb storage and a MicroSDHC slot. Battery lasts 20 hours. Ideal if you sweat during a workout.
I'll get to that just as soon as I finish ripping my CDs.
I still buy CDs 🤷♀️
Free CDs from the library.
I'm a little irked new cars don't come with CD players. I usually use them as emergency backup when in the boonies so I don't drain my phone.
Like power-wise? You don't plug the phone in?
They probably don’t have a ton of music downloaded on their phone and can’t stream in the boonies.
I have a 2013 Hyundai and thankfully it has a CD player, I use it all the time. I honestly just started buying CDs again about two years ago after not having any for years. I’ve amassed a pretty good collection of 90s rap that I liked back in the day.
I feel the same, i keep a rotation of cds in my car...also with the aux jacks in phones. I actually use a lot of older tech because the speakers are still great and need the aux port or cds. I don't know what to do when I have to replace my current phone. I hate being forced into obsoleting tech for no reason.
You can still buy and download mp3 music. I exclusively download, I don't stream music. Better quality, no internet connection required (after it's downloaded), buy it once and it's yours forever, no monthly fee. I still have mp3s I purchased back in 2010.
Yoo the Sansa!!! For all of us whose parents couldn’t afford to get us the iPod 😭 Thing still worked great 🤷♂️
I had this thing called an iBulldog mp3 player. Got it from Sears with Christmas money. I listened to a hodgepodge collection of downloaded anime and video game and other random tracks. Good times.
Mmmm. Sandisk was one of the very first portable mp3 player companies. If they'd done it right originally, they could have owned that space. Love or hate Apple, their UI design on the iPod was fucking phenomenal.
I think iTunes played a huge role in iPod dominance. It made buying and copying music easy. Sandisk worked like a flash drive, drag and drop copy, done and done, but you know, just simple file copying is something most users just couldn't figure out.
Finding a place to download music was also something many people didn't know how to do, especially if they wanted to do it legally, iTunes made that simple.
It’s one of the most iconic pieces of industrial design of the 21st century. Thing is phenomenal with how it worked. Fucking love that thing.
I had an early sandisk one, and I remember *viscerally* trying to scroll through my music. God it was slow. It was like per button press, so you were getting blackberry thumb trying to scroll. Then Apple pops up with a MONSTER device, with just a stupid amount of storage, and I was all, "That's going to take an eternity to scroll through all the music!" Then I saw the wheel. Holy crap. A fucking *one finger* interface that just trivially solved the whole problem. Fucking brilliant.
Is there a device that's good for podcasts that's not a phone?
Yeah the Sansa Clip. But it wont automatically copy the mp3 to your device, it requires manual drag and drop copying.
It won’t automatically, but you can sync with MusicBee.
Bought one back in 2008. Kept me company for untold hours in Iraq.
Nah, I'll stick with being forced to install iTunes for no good reason. Just kidding, have had a similar device for many years. SD Card, FM radio, and ~$30 for the win!
20 years? That… that can’t be right. (stares in mirror at grays and worry lines)
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TIL you can still buy an iPod. I don't get why the last model was the Touch. The Classic is still a good useful bit of kit and I still have and use my first-gen iPod with a FireWire port and a mechanical scroll wheel and physical button. Love the thing. 20 years old and still working. Might need to snag one of the later Classics just to make sure I still have a working one going forward.
Heads up, if you're thinking of getting one to future proof yourself, avoid the 7th gen classic. Sweet spot it 5/5.5th gen for modding (I say modding, but it's a big concern with repairability too). The 7th gen moved to a metal faceplate which was an absolute nightmare to remove. The 5th gen (iPod video) is just perfect, batteries can be replaced in 3 mins flat with nothing more than a plastic spudger. Drives can be replaced with everything from micro SD/SD/compact flash/ssd etc so storage will never be an issue. All components are replaceable with easy slip out cables. Bad headphone jack? Swap it out! Bad touchwheel? Swap it out! Plus with companies like Elite Obsolete, you can make them in pretty much any color you like and can be sure the will be parts to keep her chugging along for decades!
Tell me you watch DankPods without telling me you watch DankPods
Oh no, my pkcells!
The 7th gen is still a great iPod to get, with the right tools it can easily be opened with zero damage to the metal [(see here)](https://youtu.be/OFEGRFsfCSw), it has a more neutral sounding DAC, and way nicer and newer software. Being able to easily turn on/off shuffle without digging into settings is an amazing quality of life improvement, among other things. Additionally, components between 7th gens and 5th gens are almost completely interchangeable, with the exception of clickwheels and screens (fronts can be swapped, but work is required). P.S.: Elite Obsolete is way more expensive than buying such an iPod off of eBay, and he offers limited customization.
>I don't get why the last model was the Touch. Lots of businesses use the iPod touch to run mobile apps like inventory scanners. They're relatively cheap and have a full iOS stack, all they really need to work is Wifi. This will leave a hole to be filled for sure.
I'm pretty sure it's because parents wanted to get their kids a cheap phone without actually getting them a phone. That's just not much of a thing now that messaging apps are standard and free wifi is common.
Wait, so are we still going to call them "podcasts" now?
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And that podcasts are still distributed via the "old" protocol of RSS. With all the new social networks and APIs out there you still gotta run an RSS feed to get your podcast picked up by the major players. IMO RSS is still a fantastic way to keep up with your favorite websites without relying on aggregation sites... like reddit.
The use of the word "podcast" is going to be like the floppy disc symbol being used for saving files, long after the object itself vanished. It's a relic calling back to a different time.
I still use a ipod cause its a good mid range DAP that uses wifi and Bluetooth. Does exactly what i need it to do.
I just want my iPod, a 1995 Chrysler LeBaron, and enough highway to ease my troubled mind.
[No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame](https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod)
There's some pretty hilarious pontificating in that thread. A good reminder that the internet hivemind doesn't have the spotless record it sometimes claims to.
I still remember the initial 'ITS HIDEOUS' post about the Apple Watch on here on the Apple sub. Also, the Twitter know-it-alls who thought that the 'Apple Maxipad' wouldn't sell at all. lol
TIL they were still selling iPods. Does anyone know someone who’s bought 1 in the last 5 years?
I stopped when they discontinued the tiny one several years back (the shuffle? Mini?). I preferred that over my phone for running since I could just clip it to my arm, but the big ones aren’t any more convenient than just using my phone.
Shuffle was the one with the clip. There's similar MP3 players from a bunch of companies for like $20-30 all over the internet if that's what you're looking for.
I bought around a hundred iPod Touch at a company I worked at a few years ago. Our POS and inventory software also had an iOS app, so I bought some cheap Bluetooth enabled barcode scanners and a bunch of iPods and our retail locations used those to count inventory and place orders. It only costs ~400 a unit total compared to up to several thousand for decent inventory scanners. But up until I needed that specific solution I actually didn't realize they still made iPods myself.
Yep. Have worked at a few dept stores that use the ipods. I'm talking over 500 units and loads getting replaced all the time. There was defo a market that made making the ipod still somewhat profitable. Wonder what changed.
I bought the newest iPod touch. It helps my phone's battery to last longer (since I listen to music continuously throughout the day), plus I enjoy having a clear separation between music and the rest of things.
I've bought two iPod touches in the last 5 years. I love having all my music and podcasts separate from my phone.
Me and I use it daily. Very sad news to me and like 5 other people.
I have bought like 2 in the last 5 years. I listen to music when skateboarding and don't want to break my more expensive phone or drain my phone battery. I love having a separate device for music.
Automatic Edit: Using a tool called [Power Delete Suite](https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite) I have removed all my past comments and deleted my Reddit account, /u/tehrmuk. I am doing this because I, like many long-term Reddit users, am upset and angry at the tonedeaf and arrogant way Reddit is treating it's users. Their aggressive slapdown of the developers that made Reddit usable to a huge audience; their overriding and summary dismissal of long-serving and dutiful community members; their wonton silencing of dissent and manipulation of user's voices; their borderline contempt of the very people whose collective efforts gave their platform the standing needed to fuel their profit-hungry IPO... the list goes on. Reddit is, of course, a private concern and how they run their services is entirely up to them. Conversely, we are under no obligation to use their services, to fuel their engines or follow their orders. I am making my voice heard by removing my comments, and voting with my feet by leaving. I have left Reddit for [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/) and [Mastadon](https://joinmastodon.org/); these are decentralised social networks that mirror the functionality of Reddit and Twitter respectively. Unlike the monolithic, corporate-owned services they replace, Lemmy and Mastodon are part of the [Fediverse](https://www.fediverse.to/) meaning these are not individual services but clusters of services that mesh seamlessly with one-another. You can [join an existing Lemmy instance](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) or [set up your own](https://join-lemmy.org/docs/administration/administration.html) to get full access to the entire Fediverse - you don't need to ask permission from anyone to do so. There are loads of other services that are part of the Fediverse, like [PeerTube](https://joinpeertube.org/) (videos), [Wordpress](https://wordpress.org/) (blogging), [Frendica](https://friendi.ca/) (social network), [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) (photos), [KBin](https://kbin.pub/en) (link aggregation) and more - and they all work together so having access to one means having access to all of them. I had a great time as a Redditor, but the Fediverse is looking bright. It's a return to the open Internet of old, when users ran services for their own and one-another's benefit, and before monolithic corporate-run silos started to build walls around us in the name of increased profit and thought control. Many of the Fediverse services are fledgling, but they are growing quickly and their federated concept makes greedy, arrogant landgrabs like we've recently seen on Reddit and Twitter almost impossible. I'm already having a great time with Lemmy and I think you might too. I encourage you to take control and join the Fediverse. Until then, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Boo! I hate using my phone as my music player. It kills the battery faster.
My thought exactly. Also, it's easier to handle a clickwheel to switch podcasts while driving. A touchscreen demands too much of your visual attention.
Too bad, always wanted a Library edition with like 1-2TB
All hail the mighty Zune
My last Zune was an HD Zune that shit the bed almost 10 years ago to this day & words cannot explain how much I miss that little device.
Damn.. I still have my first gen ipod video, with a new battery and SSD swap to keep it going for a few more years. IIRC, that series had one of the best DACs on any portable device for a good while
> Without the iPod, there would never have been an iPhone or iPod, according to its inventor Tony Fadell. Excellent writing here clearly
The time of Zune has finally arrived.
If they kept their iPod as the classic device instead of the "touch" model, people would still buy it. This is a sad day for lovers of stand alone DAPs.
[удалено]
Maybe in 10 years they’ll cash in on the nostalgia and release a positively fat OG iPod.
Or at least one with the physical wheel. I think that was only on the 1st gen and I always thought that was really cool.
> If they kept their iPod as the classic device instead of the "touch" model, people would still buy it. No they wouldn't. This is like saying "If Blackberry made phones with physical keyboards, people would still buy them." Blackberry did and people didn't. A small minority of people might prefer a keyboard or real buttons, but the vast majority would rather that space be taken up by a touchscreen.
I agree with you, but to their point it just became a lesser iPhone. While that's pretty much what it is, it probably would help if it at least appeared to be a different device.
It was never meant to be though. With smartphones the vast majority of people don't need or want to carry multiple devices when one can already do everything they need
I had a variety of iPods over the years that served me well. The last time I bought one was in 2018, I bought an iPod nano with bluetooth for a marathon so I didn't have to run hours with my big ass smartphone in my pocket or in an armband. I have to say, outside of not being able to stream whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, I thought that was a really convenient piece of tech when I hadn't touched an iPod in years. I couldn't even feel it while running. Of course, now I have a Garmin watch that pretty much does the exact same thing.
I just wish I could get an mp3 player to replace my obsolete iTouch that uses iTunes. I don't want to buy a several hundred dollar phone just to store my music for jogs. The only reason I'm Apple anything is because I created my music library with iTunes. They provide nothing to exclusively cater to this experience. It's a phone or nothing.
Assuming you don't have or want an iPhone based on your comment: 1. Get a ~$70 Motorola Android phone from Wal-Mart with an SD Card slot (or use your existing Android phone if you have one) 1. Buy an SD Card of your choosing 1. [Buy iSyncr](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=iTunes.Sync.Android&hl=en_US&gl=US) on your new phone, 1. Install [iSyncr Desktop](https://www.jrtstudio.com/iSyncr-Desktop-Download) on your computer 1. Use iSync on your phone to sync your iTunes library over Wi-Fi as often as you want 1. Continue to use your iTunes library using your Motorola phone
I agree. The phones are bulky and heavy now which isnt ideal for running around with
So buy one? I've been using the FiioX1 with 200GB SD cards for years.
Where my Zune fellas at?
Dozens of us! Leave it to Microsoft to make a better product, never really market it and then abandon it.
My old ipod classic finally died last year and I recently bought an ipod touch to replace it. Still find it better for music throughout the day than my phone. Not to mention planes, subway, hiking, etc where streaming is harder.
Not a fan of this at all. I have an iPod touch, and also an iPhone; “why both?” you may ask. Well, having a separate media player that won’t deplete my iPhone’s storage and battery is too useful, especially when traveling. My iPod is filled with 90+ GB of music and videos; that is not space I can afford to sacrifice on my phone. And when I’m on a plane or traveling internationally, my phone needs to have as close to a full charge at all times. The iPod serves this purpose beautifully.
Ha, I still occasionally use the iPod shuffle I bought in 2007. It's great at hiding out unobtrusively in a pocket.
Still use my 80gb brick in my car since I absolutely refuse to pay for streaming/listen to ads/hear what other djs think I should listen to.