Why are Ipods so popular?

[Max320]

So recently their has been a craze for ipods (including modding) so here is the question i wanted to ask why are they so wanted. By todays standard the things are gaint almost the size of half a phone. They only have an aux port and non expandable storage unless you do some modding. Heres the thing i don't mind an mp3 player as i have one myself a sandisk clip sport with 4gb, however it at least has a sd card slot and is the size of an ipod shuffle but has a screen. It also doesnt require any propriatery apps like itunes which i hate. My model may not have bluetooth however its pro model has which you can buy on ebay for about £30. The best part about my mp3 player? I found it on the floor. A part of the screen has a big bunch of dead pixels but apart from that it is fully functional. So hear is the question. Why is the ipod so popular is it the nostalgia or is it that it is superior in some way? (Picture of my mp3 player below Mine however doesn't look this nice as been used a lot)

 

[Don Patch]

Ipods?

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

Probably the same reason why people still collects 8-16bit consoles and games. I think it’s not just about nostalgia but also owning a piece of tech history.

 

[NekketsuFighter]

Ipods?

 

[NeonKnights]

I don't really know much about this craze or so but I would guess it's a thing because nostalgia and some of the color customizations that are possible, that and content farming. Just check eliteobsolite for lots of their fairly overpriced ipods (they even force a charge for a mandatory SD card). I have both a sansa clip and my modded original black ipod video from 2006. They're both great music players but one of them plays Music, Malice Mizer music videos, Anime and weird click wheel games.

 

[Bonkers225]

Dude I have an Ipod classic 80gb I just dug up yesterday. What a coincidence. After I transfer bunch of rare songs I had on this, I may sell mine. It's beat up to hell, but still works, with original USB charger. How much do these go for?

 

[vulonkaaz's iconvulonkaaz]

they want to get away from spotify but they can't get away from their urge of buying stuff so instead of using the media player app that's already installed they spend money on ebay so that they can have parcel boxes to open they're addicted to opening parcels (also addicted to watching "minimalist" "lowtech" youtubers showing them the shiniest old tech they can buy on ebay)

 

[nathman]

I have three iPods; one iPod Mini (not the Nano), one 4th gen (monochrome) and one 5th gen (video). I think the main thing for me is user experience. The click-wheel is unmatched in my opinion and it solves so many problems when it comes to navigating through the UI on mp3 players. I do have a couple of other mp3 players, including a SanDisk Clip, but they never feel quite as easy to use (my SD Clip also stopped being able to connect to my computer at some point).

Also, the points about there being no expandable storage & them requiring iTunes to work are not necessarily true. Yes, putting in an iFlash adapter on these iPods is considered a "mod" but it really doesn't feel like it. It's very easy to do (depending on the model) and you don't need to do anything extra to make it work, it's just a swap. The only thing you need to worry about is what SD cards are compatible. This video is a very good guide on how to completely disassemble every "classic" iPod.

And about needing iTunes, you can easily install rockbox on your iPod (assuming that you have a Windows PC, otherwise it's a nightmare) which negates the need to sync your iPod to a specific computer.

 

[Tonberry]

I didn't know they were popular again.
I never really liked the click-wheel thing iPods have, but sometimes I wish I had an iPod Touch that would do all the things my phone did, without the actual phone. I don't really like the idea of being reachable all the time. Unfortunately Apple doesn't make iPod Touches anymore, and day-to-day life in Sweden pretty much requires you to have three or four apps that we use for just about everything, so I'm stuck with my iPhone for now.

 

[PrismRed]

Simple, its easy to modify, its not connected to the internet, easy to repair, it has an actually good sound card, and the price is pretty affordable.
Old LGs and Smasnug smartphones also has a good sound card, if you still have those, turn it into a dedicated music player.

 

[bjork]

I still use an ipod touch daily for work, to listen to podcasts. Good to know I've been keeping it real all along or whatever

 

[NeonKnights]

I have three iPods; one iPod Mini (not the Nano), one 4th gen (monochrome) and one 5th gen (video). I think the main thing for me is user experience. The click-wheel is unmatched in my opinion and it solves so many problems when it comes to navigating through the UI on mp3 players. I do have a couple of other mp3 players, including a SanDisk Clip, but they never feel quite as easy to use (my SD Clip also stopped being able to connect to my computer at some point).

Also, the points about there being no expandable storage & them requiring iTunes to work are not necessarily true. Yes, putting in an iFlash adapter on these iPods is considered a "mod" but it really doesn't feel like it. It's very easy to do (depending on the model) and you don't need to do anything extra to make it work, it's just a swap. The only thing you need to worry about is what SD cards are compatible. This video is a very good guide on how to completely disassemble every "classic" iPod.

And about needing iTunes, you can easily install rockbox on your iPod (assuming that you have a Windows PC, otherwise it's a nightmare) which negates the need to sync your iPod to a specific computer.

I tried rockbox on my slim ipod video and it lowered the battery efficiency somewhat. I found the only benefit to it being able to play flac and change themes. Both being somewhat useless to me, as I had software to batch convert flac to apple lossless. Unless there's some kind of linux distro for the ipod I'll hold off on soft modding. Has anyone here tried the DIYmod?

 

[RanmyakuIchi's icon RanmyakuIchi RanmyakuIchi]

I had no idea they were popular again. I guess it's been long enough that nostalgia has begun to set in.

 

[nathman]

I tried rockbox on my slim ipod video and it lowered the battery efficiency somewhat. I found the only benefit to it being able to play flac and change themes. Both being somewhat useless to me, as I had software to batch convert flac to apple lossless. Unless there's some kind of linux distro for the ipod I'll hold off on soft modding. Has anyone here tried the DIYmod?

I didn't notice a decrease in overall battery life, but I did put a fresh battery in it. I feel like playing flac files themselves would hurt the battery efficiency because of the extra resources to load them over mp3. I know if you try to load over (approx) 30,000 songs on an iPod, it'll just crash because it has only a tiny amount of RAM. And that amount of songs would be less with flac files.

For me, a definite benefit was being able to just plug in my iPod to any computer without syncing it to a specific one was massive. It means if I ever change my main computer, I don't need to go to the bother of resyncing & organising my library if I want to add any more songs and I can easily just access my library from my iPod itself.

 

[Sumea]

So, speaking from angle, why were iPods popular originally, rather than again today:
Back in the day, the line up of iPods from Nanos to the big ones and later even the touch are all for their slice of time best portable media experiences you could have. "Non expandable storage" is more than the norm for the time, but iPods had resilient small hard drives instead of 512-2048mb flash storage that was the norm in most cheap and cheap-ish MP3 players.
The other strength was things iTunes promoted with modernized music library using metadata of your music to enable organization and navigation of your music in any way you want; By Album, by artist, by tracks, by year, create a playlist easily on iTunes, on iPod itself, and synchronize them between the two.
Apple even invested heavily in making their own version of AAC encoding that even today is considered the best quality to compression encoders for AAC, as well as having their own lossless codec that their portable players support that was not the norm at the time. You'd have to fast forward some years into Android age before FLAC was more supported in portable devices.

So, the navigation being a breeze, a large music library being easily navigated and listened to, in very high quality compressed or even lossless formats. Seamless playback so albums that were not to have gaps in playback would not have them. This is not a norm with Android phones and player apps today, a regression that makes no sense with the gigabytes of RAM these phones have. Apple also, as far as I know, had pretty good portable DAC/AMP in their iPod lineup. With all this, and some nostalgia, the modern modding scene is no wonder if you you account for people's dislike of streaming culture and being into more obscure music they need to source or even rip themselves. It is not like apple has made iPods in years, so restoring old ones is the best and only choice if you want to go back to dedicated, great quality stand-alone portable music experience with tons of space for tons of music to go.

 

[Antilocal123]

Prolly cuz they’re aesthetic man idk

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

I might be alone on this, but I was very addicted to the way the circle pad felt

 

[Another Iori]

Very soon "Metal Gear Solid 4" will break out of its PS3-exclusive pen, so, many people all over the world are mentally preparing to get back into the spirit of that particular historical period.

 

[Sfjeov]

they want to get away from spotify but they can't get away from their urge of buying stuff so instead of using the media player app that's already installed they spend money on ebay so that they can have parcel boxes to open they're addicted to opening parcels (also addicted to watching "minimalist" "lowtech" youtubers showing them the shiniest old tech they can buy on ebay)

Tru I just stick to the media player on my phone. Ipod seems to only make sense if you already have one imo.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

The iPod as a device revolutionised the way you consumed music and the way music is now produced.

 

[GardeniaSky's icon GardeniaSky GardeniaSky]

I miss my Zune

 

[Sumea]

I miss my Zune

I dunno did microsoft even pay for the placement, but Zune is still so in spirit with the "Cassette player in far space in year 20XX." vibe. My friend who is otherwise an apple appreciator with their laptops, desktops and phones actually likes his Zune too which is the weirdest thing I never noticed before I put it down as a forum post.