iPod dominated the MP3 player market for years. It began with the first iPod with a circular trackpad and more variants came after. But just when iPhone 6/6 Plus was launched, Apple pulled the iPod Classic from the store. Why?
There have been multiple speculations about the slow death of the loved iPod until September 9, 2014 but Apple is mum about it. For 5 years, it has stayed the same with no slight change in design or anything. There is just one reason behind it, parts.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, explained during WSJDLive conference on Monday that Apple mowed down the iPod Classic because it was unable to acquire parts for the device. Simple, huh? How come a gigantic company can’t simply order parts or create an updated iPod Classic with flash storage? We don’t know exactly if that is the real deal but one thing’s for sure, iPod Classic will be missed.
Via: Technobuffalo
Source: Daisuke Wakabayashi
This is a step to minimize copyright infringement and piracy. Since most people prefer subscribing to iTunes Radio, Spotify, etc., I think they decided to KILL iPod. This is another form of Apple brainwashing, forcing people to buy a different iDevice rather than stick to what they love.
Kung ako lang si Tim Cook, apalitan ko ung 30 pin connector gawin kong lightning connector
Sayang ma miss ko yan actually hinihintay ko ipod classic na may fm radio, mas lolo na kung may am din, may ipod 5th gen pa rin ako d ko binebenta naka tago lang
Kelan ulit ang sale ng zte? mag ready na ako?
because it was unable to acquire parts for the device.
“The hard drive”
-Toshiba, seagate, WD, etc
“Flash Memory”
-Toshiba, Sandisk, “Samsung”
Guess what!
Seems like most of the commenters here are the ones doing the job of thinking, which the writer should have done in the first place!
Simple answer: Sales
Who else is buying? Would you still save up for one of these? Or go for a full screen MP3 player with other features?
“How come a gigantic company can’t simply order parts or create an updated iPod Classic with flash storage?”
Simple. Demand is not enough to reach economies of scale. In other words, as much as they want to keep the iconic device around, not enough people care for it to justify all the design, supply chain, marketing costs involved. It’s not a ploy to sell you to more expensive devices.
The smartphone market is growing, at the expense of the market for feature phones and regular dumbphones — and those phone users are the *typical* profile of people who would have a need for a separate audio player, given they’re not on highly media capable smartphones.
Couple of problems with this article.
1: The assumption that component parts are available from suppliers for every. Components such as chips reach there end of life all the time as supply and demand takes pace. Chip makers also retool for newer generation chips and stop making old parts.
2: Large component purchases like Apple know well in advance when this is going to happen and plan around it. In the case of a successful product they will create a new version of the PCB and source the next generation components to replace the end of life ones. This costs real money in R&D and Engineering costs.
Now what Tim Cook actually said if you read the other articles is that the components are no longer available AND there is not enough sales of the IPOD Classic to justify the engineering expense of creating a newer version.
This is another case of product obsolescence amid consumer preference. With the advent of online music streaming apps such as Spotify, Pandora etc, the direction for portable music players shift into on-demand music streaming rather than content download/purchases. That’s the reason why Apple bought Beats Music streaming unit because they see it coming.
The title:
The culprit behind iPod Classic’s death
The conclusion:
‘We don’t know exactly if that is the real deal…’
The Appropriate Title:
The Speculation behind iPod’s Classic’s death.
My verdict:
Writer wants to get views from inessential useless irrelevant write up.
“Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, explained during WSJDLive conference on Monday that Apple mowed down the iPod Classic because it was unable to acquire parts for the device.”
Actually this one made the title appropriate.
Your quoted “conclusion” is just the writer’s afterthought/comment.
With a smartphone which is capable of many functions, including playing multimedia, who would need an iPod in this day and age? iPod was great but the same can hardly be said at the present.
I dont think it’s parts.
Any one in the semicon industry knows that apple can dictate demands.
good thing i was able to buy one last year as my old ipod died on me
Can’t get parts? Yeah right. He can just be honest that they want to push their phones and ipod touch’ sales.
Useless article. Why post a very incomplete article?
And what part of the article made it fucking incomplete? Binasa mo ba ang buong write up? Konting brain power naman diyan.