So the iPod has come and gone

whippet

Seems inevitable but 20 years and one of the most game changing products of recent times.

I remember the launch - I was at the official Apple Ireland launch and it was met with a fair mix of scepticism and excitement in equal doses.

It was 5gb, using a spinning disk, Firewire only and tied in to MacOS. It monstered battery life and took an age (in todays terms) to sync after spending hours upon hours ripping your CD collection to your Mac. I remember showing it to mates of mine and it took some amount of explaining. The white earbuds were a talking point !

I did have the original and then upgraded to the 3rd Gen with click wheel (128gb was massive then) and I managed to get a Griffin iTrip FM transceiver to play music in the car (it was desperate to use).

since then I've had shuffles, nanos and minis but as soon as I got the iPhone I never used them again.

galwayguy85

Sell your iPod mini (2. Gen) to me then!! Not difficult to upgrade to256 GB of flash storage (and maybe fit new battery as well).

Damien360

I have an original first gen nano that was still working perfectly 2 years ago last time I charged it out of curiosity. Grey, no colours, rectangular thing. Think it was 2Gb. My song choices haven’t changed as much as I had thought as I aged. A lot of the same albums oddly enough. The older stuff was made to last.

Former owner of iPod Nano 5th Generation with video camera. Lost in River Dodder. Present owner of iPod Touch 7th Gen. Has iOS 15 installed.

Apple was'nt getting sufficient revenue in 'Apple Tax' from sales of iPod so it was fair to call time.l

Sleeper12

The Mini Disc was to be the next massive technology. A great piece of kit. Like a tape recorder & CD player all in one. Just as it was gathering momentum Apple launched the ipod and blew it out of the water.

Funny how the Mini Disc has outlived the ipod 😁

galwayguy85

Ironically, the iPod is perhaps more popular than ever on eBay. Some pretty beat-up iPods are selling for more than one would expect. Circa €60 for second gen iPod mini riddled with scratches! Btw that’s the model easiest to open and upgrade. The ‘offline’ music player will never leave us. A good thing!

Royale with Cheese

I had a Creative Zen brick back in about 2003 which showed up as a hard drive when you plugged it into a Windows pc. Copy and paste your files on, done. A friend of mine bought an iPod and didn't know how to set it up so I said bring it round. I plugged it into the PC and it started telling me I needed to install iTunes, then I install that and it wants me to create a library and then sync it to the iPod. I couldn't get over how utterly shít this was. iTunes was a horrendous piece of software and was forced on anyone who wanted to have an iPod. I was young and this was my first taste of Apple's anti consumer practices, I own a few of their products now but never had an iPod or an iPhone.

galwayguy85

A link to 'DankPods' a YouTube channel devoted to music tech. Creative etc get a mention as well. The dude is pretty matter of fact when he's tearing the guts out of an mp3 player, be it Apple, Microsoft, Creative and any of the various 'bootleg' copies of each. Well worth checking it out if only for the aussie accent. Expect to hear the word 'janky" a lot!

https://www.youtube.com/c/DankPods

mrcheez

I still have 2 iPod Classic 160GB boxed and in their wrapping... was gonna sell them some day, maybe keep one. Assuming that if they get rid of the software for ipods that I'll still be able to set these up?

Gregor Samsa

I had the original firewire iPod with the physical scroll wheel. Absolute gamechanger at the time. Before that, I had a Sony CD Walkman that could play MP3s off a CD-R, which was cool, but the iPod put my entire CD collection into my pocket (ripped at relatively low quality). I remember thinking at the time that I was going to keep it forever, as it would one day be an industrial design icon.

A few years later I was on the train to Limerick and it stopped working. I took it out to inspect it, and the back cover flew off across the carriage, much to the alarm of some of the other passengers. The battery had swollen up like a pillow, and crushed the hard disk. So I had to dispose of it.

Replaced it with an iPod Touch, so I didn't have my full music collection with me at all times any more. Well, it was all in iTunes, but I needed to be on WiFi to access anything I didn't have downloaded. Until I got an iPhone and cellular access gave me access to the entire collection again via iTunes. Now, of course with Apple Music, even the idea of a "music collection" is antiquated, because pretty much everything is just there to stream. Although I do still have all my ripped MP3s/AACs and I've a number of CDs uploaded that aren't available to stream from the regular Apple Music library.

cnocbui

Still alive and kicking, but no longer used.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119048779#Comment_119048779

And he's got a new subscriber.

pnott

I had the iPod Mini first generation in green. That click wheel is something else. Beautiful piece of kit. Sadly I don't know where it has gone. Got the iPod Nano 2nd generation in blue then after I dropped my first iPod and the bottom came off. Got the iPod Touch 5th generation then which I still have. I moved on to the iPhone then with the 6 and have been with iPhone since.

Greg from Apple Explained aptly hits the point for me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuRoWqBcj_0

Flinty997

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119048578#Comment_119048578

MiniDisc was a replacement for Cassette Tape Since the iPod doesn't record it was a different market. Though Sony did try to make MiniDisc a player only format, that never took off outside Japan. it was very expensive format new. I got into MiniDisc when it was dying and you could pick up players cheap. I had a few of them and even had a 1GB HiMD at one point. I loved them. For the gadget fan they were awesome. SQ was very good. For a while ATRAC was much better SQ then MP3.

I don't think it was the just the iPod MP3 that killed the MiniDisc. There was a bunch of other MP3 players from Diamond, Creative, iRiver etc. Also the DRM on MiniDisc was very restrictive and the interface woeful.

Sound Quality of early iPods wasn't great. The 1st Shuffle was an exception that was amazing. I never liked iTunes though. Though I messed around with iPods over the years I never used them much. Still have a 4th Gen shuffle or two around. In the last few weeks I've found a 7th Gen Nano and only yesterday set it up with some of my old MP3s.

There still a market for MP3 players if you want large capacity and better SQ. But its niche. Apple has in the past had problems with having too many product lines. Apple chases profit not market share. if they can sell someone a €1000 phone. There is no reason to sell an iPod cheaper.

iPod was one of those iconic products and designs, that changed everything that came after. Amazing.

GIMP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119048610#Comment_119048610

Ya the Zen (sleek) was so easy to put music on, great sound, screen was crap and touch controls were flaky at times, battery was good initially but went to **** after a year or so. Still loved it though.

thunderdog

My first MP3 player was an iriver H120 series-big brick of a thing. Bought it in 03/04. 20GB of storage. Great functionality though-easy to use. Had a couple of I/O ports and also a built in microphone and a very basic colour screen. The device could play nearly all file formats available at the time so it was very useful for the limewire downloads!

Too bulky for trouser pockets though so had to always have it in a coat pocket (not great for Summer!)

Doodah7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119088066#Comment_119088066

I had the exact same device and thought it was brilliant. Built like a brick sh!thouse also!

OrangeLavender

Ok I sound like a total caveperson but I am really sad about the iPod's demise. Maybe I just don't like change! I listen to podcasts and audio books a lot; doing housework, going for a walk etc. and I hate having my phone on me all the time, it's too big and bulky and also listening to podcasts and audiobooks all day wastes the battery so I use my iPod for that type of media 90% of the time.

I started with iPod nano and had a couple of them down through the years. Currently have an iPod touch.

So now I'm worried about what I'll get to replace my current iPod touch when it goes belly up eventually. Would a refurbished iPhone be a good alternative and which model would be cheapest but still have the same function for Audible and podcasts? I've only ever had android phones so I'm not sure.