Apple’s iPod Classic quietly passed away Tuesday, at the tender age of 13.
The sixth-generation of the groundbreaking music player was removed from Apple’s online store after Tuesday’s unveiling of the Apple Watch and iPhone 6 without a word from Apple, leaving only the sleeker-looking iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle in its lineup.
The reasons are numerous and from a business perspective, understandable. The iPhone and iPad cut into its sales, especially in recent years as music-listening moved from MP3s to streaming.
But dammit, I’ll miss the Classic. Everyone talks about how Apple products have changed the world. But the only one to actually change my world was the iPod. (OK, and the Mac, but that’s for another time.) I’m a bit of a music nerd, and it fit my needs — the needs I didn’t even know I needed at the time — perfectly. I never needed a big screen, or a touchscreen, or Wi-Fi or a camera. I just wanted my music, anywhere I went.
Since a teenager, I’ve been a ravenous collector of music, and made countless mixtapes and, later, mix CDs, from albums I had uploaded and singles I had downloaded to iTunes. Then the iPod came, and my music-listening world opened up.
I got my first one in 2002, the second-generation, 20GB version with the first touch-sensitive wheel and raised directional buttons. And it was glorious. My playlists went from 20 songs to 200. On my commute to work, I plugged in my iPod and stopped listening to the radio entirely. My iPod was my constant companion, hooked up in my car, or home to my stereo, or with headphones on planes. It was liberating. No longer did I have to carry around a Walkman CD player and a small suitcase full of CDs: The amazing little thing had six shelves’ worth of music, and could fit in my pocket. This is the greatest thing ever made, I told my friends. And for me, at that time, it was.
Around that time, I caught the travel bug and my iPod became the provider of the soundtrack to my life. The memories stay with me: Listening to Crowded House on headphones while staring out the window of a backpackers bus across the South Island of New Zealand; cranking up Outkast on portable speakers in a hotel room in Iceland as I dried out after a summer rainstorm drenched my hike; a road trip mix keeping my head bouncing to speed metal on a lonely drive across the Utah desert.
Newer versions of the iPod came out, but the only feature I ever cared about was storage. I needed more. Always more. My original 20GB filled up fast, and I spent a good couple of years having to first purge old songs before adding new ones, forcing me to weed out what I wasn’t listening to enough. Goodbye, The Cure, those days were fun, but we have to make room for the new Drive-By Truckers.
In 2006, I upgraded to the 80GB, fifth-generation version. It played video, but with a 2.5-inch screen I never bothered; what was the point? By this time, the days before the cloud, I was also using my iPod as backup storage for all my photos, giving me a little peace of mind, along with something to look at as my music played on and on. In time, I filled that one to capacity as well.
My last iPod upgrade was in 2011, and by then the writing was on the wall: The Classic was on the way out. I bought a 160GB version, and a couple of months later, bought another as a backup for when the model would inevitably be discontinued. (It did manage to last longer than I thought.) Last summer I replaced my Classic, which had started acting wonky, with the backup that had patiently sat in its box for two years.
I still load it up with my latest music every week. I still take it with me for the commute to work, or long trips in the car or plane rides. When I work from home, I click “Shuffle” and it plays all day. Sure, I have a smartphone (cough cough, an Android), I have an iPad, I’m on Spotify . . . but for me, my iPod is where my music is. My music. Not whatever music a particular record company decide to license to stream on a particular service. The music I own. That I can play and share anytime, anywhere.
Realistically, I figure my current iPod has another year or two left in it. I don’t know what I’ll do at that point. The current iPod Touch doesn’t have nearly the storage I require, and I don’t need any of the bells and whistles it offers. When driving, I far prefer the clicking wheel of the Classic and not having to take my eyes off the road, to running my finger over a vast touchscreen. There’s the cloud, but what about when I’m out of Wi-Fi reach? (Yes, it happens.)
I know it’s crazy to miss a gadget. It’s just a block of electronics. But when my iPod finally breaks down, I’m really going to miss it. It’s been a good run.
UPDATE: I just checked Amazon and they’re sold out, at the normal price at least. Speculators are already jacking up prices. Should have bought one last week, I guess.
