RIP iPod Classic

ipod classic
The end of a click wheel era: 2009 – 2014

This week, Apple silently discontinued the iPod Classic, the last of the iPods to be sold with the click wheel. It was silent as there was no press release. Just a removal of the music player from the Apple Store – both retail and online. The news was overshadowed by the new iPhone 6 and Apple Watch announcement.

ipod classic
Also in silver

This swan song model has been around since 2009, when the 5th gen iPod video was discontinued for the 6th gen, adding the word “Classic” to the familiar iPod name. The original click wheel iPod showed up with the iPod mini line, then onto the 4th gen iPod [which was available in a variety of mono and color screen models] up until the 6th gen model [which itself had 3 revisions of various storage sizes] So this is the end of the click wheel iPod, as the nano, Shuffle and touch all have different interfaces.

The Final Classic

ipod classic
my daughter’s previous iPod Classic

I never owned a 6th gen iPod Classic. My last hard drive click wheel iPod was a 5th gen. I still have a 5th gen iPod nano with the click wheel that I use almost daily.

But the news of the iPod Classic being discontinued started a buying frenzy. So my daughter found one at Target this last weekend and donated her older one to me, which has been dropped and has battery issues as well as it locks up every so often while playing a song. I will have to experiment with it these next few weeks to see how much more life I can get out of it.

ipod classic
the interface of the iPod Classic

The interface of the 6th gen Classic is a good deal different than previous hard drive iPods. I like the addition of Cover Flow as well as many other display changes. Some things are the same like when playing a song, you can scroll through the album art, song title and rate the tracks.

In light of this discontinued status and the completed purchase my daughter made, I now have a 6th gen iPod Classic. I know friends KevinAZ and KevinIL both praise their iPod Classics [and mourn the fact that there won’t be another update].

I put mine on shuffle today and let it play the over 7,000 songs I have in my iTunes library. It was nice to hear songs I don’t normally have on the playlists I keep on my nanos and iPhone.

Long live the iPod Classic. Cause replacing one now is more difficult and expensive than it was a week ago.

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