[joybhowmik]

Well it's from the horse's mouth now...

Source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/t...w/44959897.cms

NEW DELHI: Tim Cook has finally spoken up about killing the iconic iPod Classic media player after the iPhone launch event in September this year.

In an interview at the WSJ.D conference in California, Cook said that iPod Classic met its demise because Apple was unable to procure parts for the music player.

He said, "It wasn't a matter of me swinging the ax, saying 'what can I kill today'. The engineering work was massive, and the number of people who wanted it very small. I felt there were reasonable alternatives."

iPod Classic, which featured a click wheel, last got an update five years ago as iPod touch gained popularity. It was removed from Apple Store website in September this year, marking its official discontinuation.

[ampere]

I am in the same boat. Mine is a 7-8 years old Classic Ipod 80GB. (yes it still works!). And now very soon I may be in need of high a capacity player. 64 GB is good, but I dont want to pay for the Touch. I just need a good player. One can potentially switch to other guys. But the big problem is only Apple is the most widely supported player compatible to car head units. Its a big gap out there.

How I wish there was a simple open source audio standard for car HU compatibility.

[TheLizardKing]

Yeah I was very saddened by the news too. The iPod Classic is an iconic device, and there are NO alternatives in the market. I remember the joy of holding it in my hands for the first time after spending what was then a lot of money for me...

Not that I would ever think of selling it, but I foresee a time in the near future when my 160GB iPod Classic could fetch me a good amount in the used market.

My iPod has been skipping tracks lately. Sometimes it skips entire tracks, other times it skips a portion and moves to the next song. Will a reset help? And can you defrag an iPod's disk?

[ajaypjayaraj]

I have a classic iPod bought in 2005 which never had any hiccups and still works good. Was looking for getting a new 160 GB one and this news comes up... Sigh!

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by ampere

only Apple is the most widely supported player compatible to car head units. Its a big gap out there.

That is precisely the issue. When I spent a considerable % of my monthly salary on the Pioneer setup (HU+Sony screens+steering control adapter+GPS+reverse camera+special ipod cable) , at the back of my mind, the whole deal was sweeter because I had just ended up unlocking several thousand songs ,which is quite a choice to be played over the HU on a long drive. Makes the vacation more memorable for the family.
I certainly can't play the songs at home - not with the kids studying in the evening (by the time I reach back from work). Playing the HU in the morning or evening commute is not much of an option either - not while trying to dodge Delhi's unruly traffic.

Originally Posted by TheLizardKing

My iPod has been skipping tracks lately. Sometimes it skips entire tracks, other times it skips a portion and moves to the next song. Will a reset help? And can you defrag an iPod's disk?

OT: See this linky
http://kbarr.net/ipod

[Jeroen]

Love my iPod. I have had a few nano's over the years. I use them only for music in my cars.

I remember how I bought my first car radio cassette player and installed in my then car. (I think a beetle, somewhere in late 70's. Later I got car radio's with a CD player and later still one with a 6 CD Changer. That was a huge jump in the number of songs you could take with you. And then I got myself an iPod and all of a sudden I had literally thousands of songs.

Nowadays I just plug in my iPhone, but nothing can beat the 160GB iPod Classic for sheer storage space.

Jeroen

[GTO]

Originally Posted by nitrous

Wouldn't a USB pen drive be much more convenient wrt to using the Head Unit to control the music rather than a mobile phone that would distract while driving?

I guess this is subjective and it totally depends on your personal preferences. I'd prefer the smartphone because:

1. My smartphone is always with me anyway. It's one device / part less to carry around, sync with my music etc.

2. If my phone is connected via bluetooth, I can use the car's bluetooth telephony feature. Audio volume will automatically be muted during the call.

3. If my phone is connected via bluetooth, I can play a lot of internet radios (and songs 'on demand' which I might not have in my collection).

4. I live off my iTunes playlists. Don't know if it's possible for all head-units to recognise / read playlists on a usb pen drive. iSyncR, on the other hand, seamlessly syncs my HTC One with iTunes.

5. Google search rocks, and so does Android search. I can find the song / artist I want in a second on my phone. The average head-unit typically has lesser processing power than the smartphones of today.

6. My smartphone can play my apple lossless files & FLAC. Don't know if head-units would support playback of this format from a flash drive.

7. Lots of compatibility issues : related thread. I've never had a problem connecting my phone via Bluetooth to any head-unit of any media car we've had for test-drives. It just works seamlessly.

[navin]

Originally Posted by GTO

As your music collection grows, so will smartphone memories & SD card capacities

- Connect via bluetooth to your head-unit. Why do you need an antiquated iPod? Modern Bluetooth head-units indeed allow you to browse your smartphone's music collection.

1. What if your music collection already exceeds 128GB or even 160GB?
2. Bluetooth 2.0 is pretty ordinary for music. APTX has been accepted by most major mobile phones (except Apple) as THE Bluetooth format for music.

If you have the old 160GB ipod classic this product will allow you to add APTx capabilities to it.
http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B008...ilpage_o01_s00

If you want to connect this ipod wirelessly to a 2 ch home audio system this product will enable that
http://www.amazon.in/gp/product/B00A...ilpage_o04_s00

Many 2014 gen AVRs (Audio Video Receivers) have APTx decoding and I can expect to see 2016 car HUs to have APTx decoders built in too.

Originally Posted by Jeroen

Nowadays I just plug in my iPhone, but nothing can beat the 160GB iPod Classic for sheer storage space.

Sometimes one needs 2 of them to carry all their music even after it's compressed at 256k VBR so we connect 2 ipods to the car stereo...LOL...read about it here (posts 10-12)
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/produc...lpine-hus.html

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by ampere

... But the big problem is only Apple is the most widely supported player compatible to car head units. Its a big gap out there. ...

There is no gap, or the gap is infinity. Apple is the only company which employed a protocol linked with UI for getting the content from the media stored in the player. This means that

* An Apple device responds to "Next Song" as opposed to "Next File" that others do by making their players masquerade as a storage device (hardware level USB protocol only)

* Only Apple needs "support" (software) on the HU, whereas all others get away with rudimentary directory read and file read primitives (storage profile) that all flash drives use

* Apple's implementation prevents the user from bypassing DRM constraints (it is a perfectly rational design philosophy at Apple, and they will never fall foul with the powers that be in the media field)

* Software on the Apple device can have the Repeat and Shuffle functionality when it responds to "Next Song"; others can't. This ensures uniform behavior out of the device whether you are listening with headphones or through HU

[Playlists on the Apple devices are not recognized by most HUs, unfortunately, as the HUs implement their own playlist scheme on the HU]

Originally Posted by ampere

... How I wish there was a simple open source audio standard for car HU compatibility.

Yeah, right! There is no standard needed. And Open Source of this kind will never work with the commercial HU manufacturers, since their silicon implementations don't get redone very often. HU hardware architecture is not like a PC - one can't simply load device drivers at will.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

[Playlists on the Apple devices are not recognized by most HUs, unfortunately, as the HUs implement their own playlist scheme on the HU]

Thanks for the post - it explains why the demise of the classic is causing me personal angst.
Having said that to your point that Playlists on the Apple device are not recognized by most HUs... how is it that my Pioneer 8490BT is able to offer up all the playlists which are on the iPod?
Does it mean that HU brands such as Pioneer have embraced the Apple protocol more than others?

[DerAlte]

The main issue is missing the higher capacity iPods at a relatively lower cost. The iPod Touch is not VFM if limited only to player duty.

But then a conscious decision to support multifunction 'smartphone' like functionality demanded by the buyers cannot be wrong. Since none of that functionality is made with hard-disk storage in mind, going for semiconductor memory models is the obvious choice. It makes life easier when making software that is compatible across devices - from iPod Touch to iPhones and iPads. This saves a lot of cost, so why not? There were never any user replaceable / upgradeable parts in the old iPods, but they tend to last a long time till they reach an 'irrepairable' state.

The "Now what?" part is simple:
* Buy the iPod Touch if one wants an Apple device

* Keep using the old iPod, even if it means changing the battery to keep it alive (if the battery doesn't charge any more; if it doesn't hold charge for long you can still use it, since both while loading songs and while playing through dock connector, the device is powered). The only problem to be afraid of is the dinky hard-disk dying, but that is a rare phenomenon

Originally Posted by joybhowmik

... how is it that my Pioneer 8490BT is able to offer up all the playlists which are on the iPod?
Does it mean that HU brands such as Pioneer have embraced the Apple protocol more than others?

No, this is not about Pio or Kenwood embracing Apple protocol more. 4-5 years back, their implementations didn't have Playlist support. HUs with older design ("facelifted" models ) still don't. Those with more modern design do that, including many of the 2DIN ones.

[Baddychat]

Joy da,

I was about the write a few of the points that DerAlte made which probably makes Apple users stay Apple users. The UI based interface to transfer media is not something that most people prefer doing.

Alternately with the new 5th generation Ipod touch, you could get 64 GB of storage(IM0 acceptable) and better still if you could get it from the US as it is currently retailing for $299 which is not a bad pricing India. There is a considerable price difference if you buy in India though.

And you use the BT capability with the ipod touch.

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Baddychat

Alternately with the new 5th generation Ipod touch, you could get 64 GB of storage(IM0 acceptable) and better still if you could get it from the US as it is currently retailing for $299 which is not a bad pricing India.

Pricing seems reasonable. Though I also suspect that Apple may very soon even do away with touch. Its now a device with an identity crisis. How many would buy when every thing it does is done by a phone. I would actually have preferred Apple re-incarnating the ipod classic with a 64/128 GB flash and removing touch altogether. Because I still feel as a stand alone music player iPod still has a value proposition as against the touch.

And you use the BT capability with the ipod touch.

BT would be a bad choice for a music interface. The regular USB is a much better option.

[joybhowmik]

Originally Posted by Baddychat

The UI based interface to transfer media is not something that most people prefer doing.

Having grown used to itunes over the years, and since it has become the one UI that I and wifey have to manage all the music in our home network , shifting away from it would need something that least disrupts the taxonomy and practices that we've set up over the years.

GTO has mentioned iSyncR as one of the softwares which provides a way forward. I am yet to try that to port songs over to my S3 phone (need to look at what happens as the phone has less space than the classic).

iTunes has grown to become more of a music management software for me. Our music resides mostly in the iomega media center, some music on our laptops, and still some more on the desktop , and on a networked HDD - and iTunes manages all of that quite transparently. It's easier to use iTunes to say rip a CD, tag the songs and add it to the media library than say the Windows alternative of Media player. Moreover, it exchanges statistics about the songs played with the ipod. A feature I find particularly useful on medium to long drives is to play numbers that are played most often, or to play 80s music (based on the year tag). Very few music management software (if any) provide this kind of insight into the music collection.

It's function of transferring songs/videos to the ipod is there, and is used, but what's more important for me now is the management capability it provides over and beyond it - rather than the transfer function alone. Difficult to replace that.

Originally Posted by Baddychat

And you use the BT capability with the ipod touch.

Originally Posted by ampere

BT would be a bad choice for a music interface. The regular USB is a much better option.

I would agree. BT is like putting a choke in front. But BT has its uses too. Example I bought one of these to interface my collection on my ipod to this. I find the combination really useful on picnics or other gatherings where one can't drag a boom-box along.

[Baddychat]

Originally Posted by ampere

Pricing seems reasonable. Though I also suspect that Apple may very soon even do away with touch. Its now a device with an identity crisis. How many would buy when every thing it does is done by a phone. I would actually have preferred Apple re-incarnating the ipod classic with a 64/128 GB flash and removing touch altogether. Because I still feel as a stand alone music player iPod still has a value proposition as against the touch.

Since the iPhone 6 now comes with a 128 GB of storage, there is no reason IMO that they did not provide it in the 5th gen ipod touch. Over the last couple of years, various mac forums over the inter web have pointed out the touch is a design and form factor pre-cursor to the next iphone. So I doubt that they would be shelving this. Also the other argument that Apple could actually decide to stop production as IMO this is one of their lower margin products.
Also whatever Tim Cook says about parts availability, it has more to do with economies of scale. We old time classic fans are far outnumbered by 1st time
iPod buyers.

Originally Posted by joybhowmik;356
8058

Having grown used to itunes over the years, and since it has become the one UI that I and wifey have to manage all the music in our home network , shifting away from it would need something that least disrupts the taxonomy and practices that we've set up over the years.

GTO has mentioned iSyncR as one of the softwares which provides a way forward. I am yet to try that to port songs over to my S3 phone (need to look at what happens as the phone has less space than the classic).

iTunes has grown to become more of a music management software for me. Our music resides mostly in the iomega media center, some music on our laptops, and still some more on the desktop , and one on a networked HDD - and iTunes manages all of that quite transparently. It's easier to use iTunes to say rip a CD, tag the songs and add it to the media library than say the Windows alternative of Media player. Moreover, it exchanges statistics about the songs played with the ipod. A feature I find particularly useful on medium to long drives is to play numbers that are played most often, or to play 80s music (based on the year tag). Very few music management software (if any) provide this kind of insight into the music collection.

It's function of transferring songs/videos to the ipod is there, and is used, but what's more important for me now is the management capability it provides over and beyond it - rather than the transfer function alone. Difficult to replace that.
I would agree. BT is like putting a choke in front. But BT has its uses too. Example I bought one of these to interface my collection on my ipod to I find the combination really useful on picnics or other gatherings where one can't drag a boom-box along.

BT ain't a great option Joyda, I meant an additional connnectivity option. iTunes is something I have gotten used to. My regular devices are all Apple and other than the Windows laptop from work, the itunes gives me an excellent interface.
I also totally agree with you that the indexing/organization on itunes is phenomenal. So in my opinion, stick with Apple as they will probably come with a 128GB version of the touch soon.
I need to figure out a head to head battery life comparison of the classic and touch when playing the same song/video in loop.