If you want to buy an iPod shuffle or iPod classic from Apple, you should do it sooner rather than later. We’ve heard those two iPods are getting the axe this year. (Courtesy TUAW)
Assuming this is true, is it likely that Apple is going to release a 128-gigabyte iPod touch this Christmas, so that die-hard music lovers might find something in their stockings that comes close to suiting their needs? I’m guessing not. The mp3 player market is dead. They are to this young decade what digital watches were in the ’80s: formerly sleek emblems of progress reduced in price and stature until they ended up being sold out of gumball machines.
Time was that Apple needed to offer a high-capacity iPod model to stand out from the competition. Now that race is run, and music playing is just one more function on a smart phone, or a handheld gaming and Internet device (to describe the iPod touch accurately). If the rumor is true and the shuffle is in line for the axe along with the classic, that means that the iPod nano will be the only remaining device Apple makes whose primary function is to store and play music — and i think it’s reasonable to assume that the nano will itself continue to exist only until Apple can price an iPod touch below $199. (Side bet: if the above rumor comes to pass, watch the nano drop to $99.)
So why is this a big enough deal that I keep harping on it? Because there is no smartphone or iPod touch that can do what an iPod classic does: hold a library of songs numbering in the tens of thousands, all stored locally and accessible without a network connection. And it does not offer a hardware interface optimized for playing music.
Don’t mistake this for sentimentality or Ludditism. (Ludditery?) I recently started using Rdio and was sufficiently taken with it that I thought it might obviate the need for my iPod classic. It offers a sizable library to choose from, the mobile app is pretty slick and it has some nice music discovery tools. But it doesn’t offer the granularity of iTunes: the ability to rate songs, tag songs, construct dynamic playlists or change metadata. In short, it doesn’t afford the kind of advantages that come from owning and curating your own music files. So Rdio on my iPhone is like having two different, mutually incompatible music libraries, one of which has everything by the Beatles (in mono, even) and not much else, the other of which is so ungainly it has 12 different songs called “Learning to Fly,” just because I wanted to see how many there are. (There are more than 12, but it was starting to get ridiculous.) And if I want to, say, make a playlist with “Flying” and Kate Earl’s “Learning to Fly”? Well, that ain’t happening. I can put Kate Earl on my iPod, but I can’t put the Beatles on Rdio.
If the classic is going away, then I and thousands of others like me are marooned. Our choices are to either keep our devices operating until Apple offers a new product that can serve our needs (mine is already three years old and on its second battery), or jump ship for something else. Such a change, for all I know, may not be possible, or if it’s possible, it may not be worth the trouble. Leaving the iPod will also mean leaving iTunes, and the information that app has stored about my music — my ratings, my playlists, which songs I’ve played or skipped in a given time — is, given the nerd-tastic way I listen to music, almost as valuable as the music itself.
So while I am chagrined to arrive at the end of the road with my iPod, I am hopeful that some competitor out there will finally seize the opportunity to build a music player that offers us what Apple will not. People are still buying vinyl records, for god’s sake. You mean to tell me there is really no return on catering to rabid music listeners — people who have already demonstrated their willingness to devote a lot more of their income to music than the average person?
Anyone want to sell me an mp3 player?
I appreciate this entry because I am the proud owner of a 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation shuffle. The 2nd gen went through the wash and no longer works. The 3rd is bloody awful because it can only be shuffled by the controls on the headphones. My 4th generation Shuffle is what I used last summer for running the most and is foundational to my current plan.
I do not keep music on my smartphone and having my current Galaxy-S is a position of privilege. I am attempting to eliminate it and work backwards. I simply do not have the financial wherewithal to spend money on something that will support a web, messaging and phone plan all at once. This is also why I do not keep a lot of music on it. Maybe this is also why I am a Luddite to a certain extent as you remark in your post. I would rather use a music device for music and strictly use my phone for calls and not all of the additional apps. To this extent, I let my subscription to last.fm expire simply because I don’t listen to the radio, streaming, or music on a separate device. My XM subscription is in my car or at home but that is even slightly off-point.
I suppose I remember the days of austerity when I had to change out my playlists on a 128MB music player while deployed in Bosnia and had to convert my music down from CD-quality down to FM radio in order to hold enough music for a 10-kilometer run. It ran on a AAA battery that a recharged on a European two-pronged charger that fit into a wall socket and the USB transfer cable pinned out on the same port as the headphones. That mimics the current headphone jack on the Shuffle, come to think of it. There was no room for m3u files or playlists, I had to manually label songs with numbers in front of them to make them play properly in the order of my run and that was fine by me. I often go through my local Microcenter (similar to Frye’s which I prefer) to look at the USB thumbdrives with the headphone jacks because they’re usually around $20 and easily replaceable and simple to work with. What more do you need than that?
Many people have talked on various talks on about entitlement, worth and privilege when it comes to owning Apple products or cell phones in general. I may not be able to sell you on an mp3 player directly but I might be able to point you in the direction of some very spartan models that I might end up using because gadgetry for a Buddhist no practices non-attachment and impermanence is of great importance.
I think we’re in the exact same boat re: the iPod Classic and Rdio. I find myself listening more to Rdio than the Classic mostly because my Classic has been commandeered by my son who needs it right now to play his “night night music.” The gigs upon gigs of Springsteen boots are not that music, but it does the trick.
I’m tempted to want one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/Archos-501598-500-Internet-Tablet/dp/B004LLQ47M/ref=sr_1_2?s=mp3&ie=UTF8&qid=1317311141&sr=1-2
It’s another gadget but it’s big as hell and it would play my music direct. It might also replace the little portable external 320 GB drive I use to carry around my iTunes library. And being a supernerd, I’d probably maintain that iTunes library as well, for the sake of my iPad and my anal-retentive tendencies.
In response to Matt, I would be looking for something with a form factor for running or being active. Sure, if I wanted to get back to my ascetic lifestyle and retire from the “market” and return to the “desert” with a camelbak and run six miles, sure I would put an Archos and listen to music in my backpack.
My next replacement for the Shuffle if it falls in the wash would be something else from Archos. Probably their and an SDHC memory card which is pretty cheap by now. I get my music in mp3 format from iTunes and I can copy and paste onto the mp3. It automatically gets copies onto an WDTVLive Hub downstairs so I can listen while studying or painting or while in meditation.
That’s a nice Archos player, Rich. I could see replacing my iPod Shuffle with one of those when it dies. Or using one to play my kid’s night-night music so that my $250 Apple gadget isn’t tied up playing the same 13 songs twice a day.
I find I like to have access to everything sometimes, but if I’m doing something where I am okay with just playlists or whatever’s on hand, then I use my phone or my shuffle. I’ll miss the Classic because it’s the only player that can hold almost every song I own.
I guess I got used to austerity. I like that word. It probably came from watching this:
Keynes vs. Kayek Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc
I do own a lot of music and it is because I go through phrases and my vocational aspirations require me to have music for ritual and ceremony whereas there is music that I listen for purely entertainment reasons. Some merges in a spot between the two which is where truth meets enlightenment (Dan) or spirituality (Me) or some transcendent place (Cece) which is what usually gets loaded for running, ruck marches, or other functions. Once again, I digress.
My previous vocation, current aspiration and ongoing ethic usually means that things must be small and my social location makes me understand that I am a white guy with a bit of privilege and in a position of wealth and some power. I should be spending my money on debt reduction rather than lifestyle accessories. I become a little more aware each passing month and do my best to be accountable which is why this hit me the way it did today.
Thanks to both of you for contributing to this. (I feel like I should introduce you two to each other. Rich, Matt; Matt, Rich.) I think the main reason I get in a tizzy about this stuff (apart from strictly rhetorical purposes) is that music is more like a hobby to me than just something I have on while driving to work or cleaning the house. Having an iPod that could hold all my songs (though it doesn’t any more, but leave that aside) tripped some kind of switch in my head. I realized that music was information as well as emotional and artistic nourishment, and as such, I could control it and manipulate it and organize it to serve my exact needs. Having all my music on one device means I can program it to suit my day, my hour, my mood at that exact moment — it’s really very liberating. Having to settle for a product not designed to meet those needs is disappointing. I can live it, of course; I have my health and my wife and a home and a job and nothing else matters as much. But the iPod is one of those little things that make a surprisingly big impact on your life, or it is for me.
I suppose that is where where music is as universal as you want to make it. “Glee” is the only show I watch on television and it’s primarily because of the music and I have changed my masters program away from Divinity to an Arts-based foundation. It is not music-centered but there is a component of it that has some music in it. That’s neither here or there but I’m finding some greater transcendence in arts like I did decades ago.
I guess I can manipulate the tags on the music files to arbitrarily say what I want them to say. I could treat music as information and separate it somehow or reorganize it to do something else with it. I suppose if I set out with a thousand songs and maybe forty playlists and I can shuffle those out once a month or every sixty days, I’m content. I have no need to have more than that at my whim. I’m willing to bet I could fit that on a 16GB SD card model that I already selected without a fancy screen and it weighs some miniscule amount. I could probably scale it under 1GB if I mixed the sound down because I can still run with an FM radio and be content. Part of my reasoning comes from my social location and understanding that I have love in my life, a roof over my head and I could make music if I had to in my own mind because property is impermanent as I have given away thousands of dollars of it already. I have challenged others to do the same.