The axe may have fallen on Apple’s last surviving iPod touch, but my 6th-gen iPod classic works just fine thanks.
Two days ago, upon learning that Apple’s last surviving iPod Touch had been consigned to oblivion, I looked over at my 160GB iPod Classic battleaxe and actually said to it, out loud, „just you and me then, kid“. It’s easy to see why Apple nixed the last iPod standing; the company more or less announced that its iconic dedicated music player is no longer needed, since its iPhones (and iPads and even the Apple Watch) now have the whole portable music thing covered. Well, Tim Cook’s behemoth may have called time on a product with a 21-year heritage in standard, nano, shuffle and mini guises, but my 15-year relationship with mine is as strong and enduring as ever, thank you very much. The iPod you can see in the above photo has been around the world, to countless auditions, job interviews, castings, rehearsals and gigs. It was there when the in-flight movie didn’t work, when Apple CarPlay didn’t come with the hire car as promised, when German lyrics needed to be learned overnight, when everyone’s phone died on the last train home, and when it finally dawned on me that streaming in Hi-Res Lossless on Apple Music really does gobble up mobile data. In 2007, I saved for the bigger storage option just because 40,000 songs seemed a mind-blowing figure; it still does today – I’ve never managed to come close to filling it. Steve Jobs came good on his goal to deliver „1,000 songs in your pocket“ by 2001, but look at the scale of progress in those six short years! So why end the musical marriage now, 15 years on? After all, the file formats supported by this iPod (AAC, AIFF, ALAC and my dear old friend MP3, aka Lossy but Little) are still so very relevant. The same can hardly be said of my once-beloved Sony MiniDisc player – and although CDs remain a viable, tangible music format, come on.
