10 Years and 320M Units Later, the iPod is Slowing Down

[nikkidpartypooper]

About time these apple users stopped buying these iPods, now since they are starting run out of money, because of the economic downturn.

 

[cats_Paw]

High capacity media players are basicly HDDs. They are too heavy for the avarege user, and there is still some cost related to its production.
Personally i had my mp3 player (LG-JM53) since the day the fisrt 30/60 GB Ipods, and only not long ago i HAD to get a new one becouse i lost my cable to conect it to the pc (the device itself works still like a charm).

I think "good expensive devices" many times make up for it in longevity. Now im using a Cowon iAudio S9, adn so far im quite impressed with it (thou id still rather use my LG as it had enought punch to run my sennheisers 380 Pro.

I dont think Apple produces the best devices at all, iits just that their default econding quality is higer than the regular mp3 song.
i normally use 320kbps or even 1411kbps for my music and it sounds quite better than ipods (and i dont have to play with that retarded itunes crap).

Btw, anyone knows where i could find a cable for my LG model? (Spain).

 

[KelvinTy]

Had a free ipod mini, yet, the sound quality sucks... and you have get itune... and that itune sucks as well, and the battery... NOT impressed with it... The only good is that it is free when I had a computer course...
It's bad, comparing to the creative mp3... The only problem is that, creative didn't use aluminium... or else they could have got bigger than apple...
my friend had one as external storage... yet it is slower than his other external...
I don't see why you would purchase one since a lot of phones have mp3 function now-a-day and besides, you can stop listening for a while..

 

[CPU666d1]

Ah! To be sure, to be sure! The iPod is full of S**t.

 

[jdwii]

This is the best news ever.

Google FTW

 

[Cazalan]

[citation][nom]species8472[/nom]Not so fast dude. I am quite happy with my net10 pay-as-you-go phone but it does not serve my musical needs. That's where an iPod Touch comes in plus, it is so much more than just an mp3 player.[/citation]

There are better pay-as-you-go phones in the $80-$120 range that play music just great. I just keep my mp3 on a microSD and have moved it from phone to phone.

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

There are other android based products that are like the iPod & you can be sure of that! That is the reason why they are not selling so many now & I'm glad of that.

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

I second "CPU666d1" in his or her opion & that sticks.

 

[alidan]

[citation][nom]de5_roy[/nom]"Since its original introduction in 2011,..." wasn't it launched in 2001?(i never liked apple, still don't) imo ipod touch may be the highest selling non-phone handheld gaming device. if ipod touch makes up 1% of that 250 mil., that's 2.5 mil. i think. i wonder how many psps, nds sold....if apple splits the speaker on both side of the display, may be add 4 buttons or 6, use the corners of the screen like analog sticks, ipod will make a decent gaming device(overpriced as usual) and compete with n3ds and psvita. ;P[/citation]

psp - 71.4 million, as of 14 September 2011
nds - 147.86 million, as of 30 June 2011

[citation][nom]bobbobato[/nom]@jacobdrj The storage space probably isn't expanding because most people don't have music collections larger than about 50GB, so there's much of a market for such large devices. Eventually as the price per GB goes down we certainly will see mp3s with huge storage, but not yet.Another thing to consider is that if somebody has a music collection in the 100s of GBs it probably means that most of their music was gotten illegally, because most people simply don't have the money for it - c'mon, think about it. Lets say that 100 GB is about 20,000 songs. On iTunes, that would cost 15,000-20,000$! A mp3 device with 200+ GBs would seem to enable this kind of 'criminality'.[/citation]

let me see here, when i rip a cd its the highest possible setting 320kbit for mp3, and flac if its supported. flack can be about 3-500mb a cd, mp3 can be about 70-130mb. lets go highest numbers here as a hypothetical.

i have a collection of cd's from back when they first hit cds, either given to me by friends, parents, or bought. its about 200 discs strong, and that not including the music i got off the internet and radio (legally, free or pay). now 200discs come to about 1tb on flac, and about 26gb on mp3 if my numbers are right, i can easily quadruple that with what i got online.

i would prefer flac, but will take high bitrate mp3 if i must, but nothing can hold everything of mine.

[citation][nom]Cazalan[/nom]There are better pay-as-you-go phones in the $80-$120 range that play music just great. I just keep my mp3 on a microSD and have moved it from phone to phone.[/citation]

i believe they mean battery life, and the fact that if that runs out you are without a phone.

 

[tacoslave]

man im still rocking a creative zen sound quality is still damn great i use it in my car 32gb plus a 16gb card is enough to hold most of my music. Never got an ipod because of shitty itunes but mostly because i hate apple.

 

[Vladislaus]

[citation][nom]bobbobato[/nom]@jacobdrj The storage space probably isn't expanding because most people don't have music collections larger than about 50GB, so there's much of a market for such large devices. Eventually as the price per GB goes down we certainly will see mp3s with huge storage, but not yet.Another thing to consider is that if somebody has a music collection in the 100s of GBs it probably means that most of their music was gotten illegally, because most people simply don't have the money for it - c'mon, think about it. Lets say that 100 GB is about 20,000 songs. On iTunes, that would cost 15,000-20,000$! A mp3 device with 200+ GBs would seem to enable this kind of 'criminality'.[/citation]
did it ever occurred to you that some people use lossless compression for its music?

 

[gm0n3y]

Still have my 20GB 2nd gen. If the battery still worked I'd be using it today (replaced it 3 times before just using my phone instead).

 

[rosen380]

"flack can be about 3-500mb a cd ... its about 200 discs strong"

200 x 500MB = 100GB, not 1TB

"i can easily quadruple that with what i got online. " Are you saying you've bought about 600 CDs worth of music on top of your CD collection, or borrowed it?

If the latter, then it is back to a previous point, that larger capacities are really for people's 'stolen' music. If the former, then you have something like $6000-10000 in online purchased music plus a couple thousand dollars worth of music purchased on CDs.

If you really need it in higher than standard MP3 quality and have tons of it, then you are probably looking at the kind of person who also has a very large budget for other audio hardware [receivers, amps, speakers, wire, cables, etc] and at that point you might as well invest in a NAS for your home with many terabytes of storage and some audio equipment that can connect to it.

A general purpose device is hardly ever going to be a device that the top 0.01% considers adequate for their needs.
If you are investing that much in music

 

[zybch]

[citation][nom]icepick314[/nom]now if MS would bring back Zune HD back...[/citation]
Well it was a far better player than any apple devices, a much nicer and intuitive interface, and way way way better audio quality.

 

[eddieroolz]

320 million units is a lot if you look at it that way. Still have a 15GB 3rd Gen iPod. Loved the touch sensitive controls.

 

[jonathan_rg]

Who needs a player with 1TB of storage?
My library does not exceed 15GB, and of course, Ares & 4shared FTW!
In terms of quality, I am content with 128Kbps MP3.

 

[kalidasa]

[citation][nom]jonathan_rg[/nom]Who needs a player with 1TB of storage?My library does not exceed 15GB, and of course, Ares & 4shared FTW!In terms of quality, I am content with 128Kbps MP3.[/citation]

Did you know that perception of other's needs extends only as far as what you need yourself? True story! Just ask a politician.

 

[DSpider]

Of course they'll sell less iPods in Q3! No, duh! People expected the "5G" to come out in September. People had big hopes that Apple will do something special for the iPod's 10th year birthday (came out in 2001). Did they? Nope. Just a colour change. Whoohoo! (Or better yet, "Boooooh! Huoo!")

Expect them to sell even less because of millions of people using iPod "3G's" who didn't see a reason to upgrade, and people already on 4G's who would effectively buy the same thing for the same amount of money (well, $30 less for the 8GB model. Yeah, woot.).

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]cats_paw[/nom]I dont think Apple produces the best devices at all, iits just that their default econding quality is higer than the regular mp3 song.i normally use 320kbps~~[/citation]
Not the best... but in general - the better made MP3/Media players on the market. Seriously, look at what else is out there. For the most part, nobody is trying to compete with Apple - they just make a few devices to keep their brand value. SONY makes a pretty nice player... thats about it. Most what I see is cheap $10~20 junk.

I did buy a Sandisk Sansa Clip, works fine.

 

[halcyon]

I wonder if the market is slowing down because, after 10 years, eveyone that wanted an iPod has one by now? ...and as alluded to, why have a separate music player and phone if you don't have to...I'm sure a lot of people preferred to consolidate.