Why the iPod Classic remains one of the best ways to listen to digital music

I completed avoided itunes and I just use mediamonkey with my ipod classic and I am very happy with that.

Thanks For the suggestion. I did take a look at foobar 2k a few years ago. It required way too much configuration for my liking at the time. It’s nice to be configurable, but when an audio player doesn’t have a “next track” button by default, that’s more work than I had time for back then. Maybe I’ll take another look.

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What is this magical device?

Your cat seems perplexed as to why you’re trying to take its picture with an iPod.

The model I have is called the “clip zip” I guess… I keep stumbling into cheap iPods at the thrift store, it’s become an accidental collection. But nothing else seems to take the microSD.

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What was the deal with iTunes somehow deleting one track from any album I cared about? Happened repeatedly.

There’s a ton of excellent podcast apps, I personally use Podkicker Pro (bought it back in '12), and the official Google Play app is pretty good.

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(also @hotdogprincess)

I agree with @cahwyguy that the best way to keep the device you like alive is to replace its spinning hard drive with a flash memory module.

I’ve resorted to putting itunes 11 on my main computer. A secondary laptop has 12.whatever’s current on it for when I need to do something with a recent vintage IOS device. This makes synching your music library to your phone a PITA, but IMNSHO the current version of Itunes screwed the pooch as far as managing your media library on your computer is concerned.

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The one issue I’ve had with iTunes 11 relates to podcasts: As more move to secured protocols, I’m finding I’m having to download more manually and copy them over. That – and managing authorized devices – would be the only reason to move to iTunes 12. [I studiously avoid getting other IOS devices for the very reason you state – all our phones are Android]

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I haven’t landed on a decent replacement for iTunes. I care not one bit about stores, shuffle or genre, but I do like the (somewhat) flexibility of the interface (though I wish they retained cover-flow).

Because it so perfectly recreated the magic of the Creative Zen media player?

Nah, two factors at play here: 1. the cat has resting bitch face. 2. I was in the general vicinity of the feeding station.

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I can confirm that the Podcatcher podcast plugin still works like a charm.

If it helps, the plugin database has an ipod manager plugin listed, I can’t confirm if it works because I have no ipod to test it with.
http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dop

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eBay (or similar) is your friend, here. Not a single one of the clickwheel iPods in our house today (five or six) was bought new…

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The main reason both my Macbooks are still on El Capitan is that it came with the last vaguely usable version of iTunes I could bear to look at, let alone try to use. TBH earlier iTunes were better but I needed to move on from Mountain Lion for other application reasons (plus I inherited an iDevice that I needed to sync and ML’s iTunes and its version of iOS did not talk. Lord how I hate Apple sometimes).

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The video is titled " How Apple Created Music’s Best Device (And Then Ruined It)". The first part is certainly true; in 2001, it was the best device for playing music. He never can explain how they “ruined” it.

You can say “I liked the scroll wheel and only being able to access songs (and not apps and not the internet) and having a less reliable storage device.” You cannot say it is better than current choices. The video is simply (small-c) conservative nostalgia.

Love my 120GB iPod Classic. My old Plug-in Prius had a little tray in the console for it, and the USB port was inside the console too, making it all tidy. My brand new Prius Prime, however, still has the tray, but now the USB port is outside… untidy. But I’ll live. Apparently everyone uses their phone which they need access to, to play music.
I am considering dropping $50 to replace the battery in the iPod…

Agree with the Ebay sentiments. Also, if you are looking for even better sound out of one, I’ve read several places that the version 5 and 5.5 are the best because of their top notch Wolfson DAC. They are also easier to mod, if you ever want to replace the hard drive with solid state storage.

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I tried MediaMonkey several years back and it decided to renumber and rename tracks.

I’m planning to open my decade-old and beloved 120GB to replace the battery. Somehow, iTunes refused to back it up anymore and allows only the backup for my iPod Touch.
I purchased indie backup software to take a backup off a portable hard drive but it erased several playlists.

Anyone know about using Rockbox to run a Classic?

And, yes, I’ve had a problem with two tracks deleted: Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher” and Love’s “Signed DC”. This let me know that a certain family junkie ex-wife had a hacker on my wifi.