ALAC is open source as well.
Lossless formats are great for archiving, but I don’t think they make much sense on the device. When I put music on my phone I transcode it to a high bitrate MP3.
2 Likes
A healthy product ecosystem would have both available to them as wants 'em.
2 Likes
I’m not sure what you mean. It seems as if there are options?
I would think that Apple not making them anymore would open the field more for any other manufacturer, no?
I bought a used car a while back that has a USB port for hooking up an MP3 player to the stereo… unfortunately, it’s a 2009 model so the dang thing wasn’t compatible with my iPhone.
Then I happened to find my old first-gen Nano (and, crucially, the now-discontinued USB cable for it) in a closet bin and that works like a charm. Has a fraction of the storage modern devices do but enough for a week of commute music, and I can be free of insipid radio morning shows forever.
5 Likes
Indeed! Trust me, I am eagerly awaiting the thing that will be just as good as Apple, but with more flexibility/ability to turn off or decline certain features. Unfortunately, there is some concern that the current oligopoly of FAANG (such a Bond-villain acronym, no?) does not exactly constitute an “open field” in any sense of the term.
1 Like
Aye you fuckers are going to drive up the prices. Some things need to be kept on the DL.
6 Likes
I own several old iPods. I have modded two with new batteries and flash memory. I am in the process of modding another two to hold an absurd amount of memory (between 500GB and 1TB). There are limits to some models-- some seem to max out around 256GB and won’t recognize any space beyond that. Also some older models take exceedingly long to sync even if you’re only increasing it to 60GB (and there are other quirks, like having the devices freeze during sync-- you need to sync smaller individual playlists one by one instead of a single huge playlist.)
I just like the old iPods. The aesthetic, the ease of use for both the device and the older versions of iTunes. Luckily I have stumbled onto most of them for cheap at thrift stores. My first mods were done on iPods that already had bad drives, so installing SD cards was a logical project.
6 Likes
I have a couple of portable CD players bought used that play MP3s. An odd time when it was viable, before memory prices got so low that the storage space on a CD was too low, and a CD player became too cumbersome.
It’s right up there with my 512K Sansa MP3 player, it seemed like a good idea at the time, but soon.I found I’d rather have more space, and it couidn’t be expanded.
1 Like
Unfortunately, there is some concern that the current oligopoly of FAANG (such a Bond-villain acronym, no?) does not exactly constitute an “open field” in any sense of the term.
There’s never been an easier time to launch a new product.
I had one of those as well, around 2001-ish. It was awesome for its era, at least. My car’s stereo can also play MP3 discs, but since it has an input jack, I got a hands-free kit to connect with Bluetooth, and just fire up Foobar2000. A gigantic playlist set on shuffle is awesome for a long trip.
Shuffle doesn’t work so well for classical, though - if I’m listening to a symphony, I want to listen to all of it, not just one movement. I built up the playlist by going through genres where singles are king.
2 Likes
I have the same issue with DJ sets, but none of the players offer a way to exclude beat-mixed sets from separated-track albums in shuffle mode. First world problems!
3 Likes
The Grateful Dead live albums too, since many move into another.
I like being able to select a specific song, but would like to also easily play those sequenced songs together.
I guess it also applies to concept albums, the intent being that you listen to all the songs, in the proper sequence.
I still buy music on CDs, tye used market has changed enough that I’m now finding stuff I want for a dollar or less at used book sales. But I’m awful at getting around to digitizing them.
2 Likes
I really do miss the tactile scroll wheel interface sometimes. It was nice being able to control the thing without having to take it out of my coat pocket.
3 Likes
My electronic junk drawer is packed with outdated digital gold!
1 Like
Thanks for this… I’m currently using Rocket Player. Its developer, come to find out, uses Google, Twitter, Amazon, Smaato (new to me) and Facebook’s code/SDKs. Apparently they use this to serve up ads in their apps (I’ve never noticed any ads anyway). I’d like to get away from that as much as possible, to the degree that it is possible while being in the Android universe. How does foobar2000 compare in this regard? I can’t find anything like a privacy policy; their forum and wiki pages give a certificate error and seem to be offline in any case.
Back on topic, I’ve got an old iPod Classic in which I ruined the hard drive when it fell out of its case. I wouldn’t mind going back to it (as though I’d have time to crack it open and fix it), but I figure those cables are getting harder to come by, no?
ALAC is an open standard and it’s actually really easy to convert from FLAC to ALAC with no loss since both are lossless formats. But, yeah, it’s annoying that Apple can’t just support both. That being said I’m not convinced there’s much quality difference between lossless and a high quality MP3 created with a good encoder in most use cases.
I still have a pile of old iPods. A few Nanos, Minis, and Classics. The spinning drive in my 128GB Classic doesn’t work particularly well with the crappy in-car interface, so I use an old iPhone that syncs with Apple Music as my music player of choice in my car. I just need to tether it to my phone or go on Wi-Fi every so often to update my authentication token with the Apple Music service, and sync any new stuff to it.
If you’re referring to the 30 pin (“Universal”) cable, then nope.
For other replacement parts, iFixIt has you covererd.
If you need a new hard drive, those can be tricky to come by but not impossible.
1 Like
My daughter asked for a music player for her 13th. After way too much research, I decided that an old iPod classic was the best option. Nothing else on the market today has the ease of use, Mac compatibility and build quality. Funnily enough, her boyfriend also got her the exact same model (fully loaded with someone’s music and personal info).
1 Like
That’s the main reason that I would choose a Chevy Bolt with old-fashioned buttons and knobs over a Tesla Model 3 that uses a touchscreen for basically everything. Tactile interfaces that can be easily operated using muscle memory rather than requiring your visual attention can literally be life-saving in some contexts.
3 Likes
Nothing beats my old shuffle for walking, running, doing yoga, etc, because it’s super lightweight, clips to my collar, and I can control it without having to look at it. Plus it doesn’t light up, so it beats anything with a screen for using at night to go to sleep.
Yup. Tactile jog dial. Can operate with gloves. Don’t need to look at it. Not end of world if battery runs out or is stolen. Love my iPod Nano. Especially for travel.
