Really is heartbreaking that the click wheel is such an incredible and satisfying user interface but technology has evolved such that we have no need for it anymore.
extremely ironic comment considering there has been a Renaissance of personal music players lately, including ones with click wheels. look on Amazon for all the Chinese made ones. there is absolutely still a desire, perhaps a growing one, for dedicated devices, as everyone grows wearier of phones
Also as phone bans start up in various schools there are often carveouts for mp3 players. A lot of summer camps too that have no-device policies allow non-internet-connected music players as well. The market both on the super low end and the high end is looking pretty strong. Hardest aspect, from my perspective, is gaining access to downloadable music when most consumption has moved to streaming.
Its spiritual successor is the crown on the Apple Watch. I never swipe to scroll on the watch. It's way more fluid (and you get neat haptics) to twist the crown.
There appears to be different URLs for different territories. For anyone curious, I've fed a few of them into an agent and they are largely consistent.
It's really cute. I wonder if we'll see a significant market for plain MP3 players with the whole digital detox fad lining up with the nostalgia. There's already a lot of people buying refurb and bluetooth-modded modded ipod classics.
There's a bunch of options from Chinese companies as well as from more traditional companies (like Sony), but the majority run Android (some skinned to be "simple", some basically like the Android counterpart to an iPod Touch) and are built with super overspecced hardware which kinda defeats the point in my opinion.
Part of the appeal of the iPod is that it only had just as much hardware and software as it needed and was simple, which lends to its extreme mod potential that's fueling its continuing popularity today. A good modern iPod analogue needs to deliver on those fronts, too.
Also for the troops. Have some friends that cannot bring devices that emit RF / BT on base or ships during certain operations and exercises.
It's extremely hard to find a new production MP3/FLAC player with upgradable storage that don't suck for one reason or another. Plenty of perfect new ones, but they will have onboard BT or Wifi still.
My friend's grade-school kid gets exuberantly excited by CRTs and VCRs, and I know a few Gen-Z's with record collections. Maybe there's truth to the Dennis Duffy joke on 30 Rock: "technology is cyclical" :)
I think I asked in HN last year if anything was happening in this space now that the click wheel patent expired. I ended up buying a $50 Chinese knockoff for one of my kids. It...feels like a $50 knockoff, haha.
Very disappointing that the Music app on iOS doesn’t render the page. Would have been super cool to scroll in the app with some haptic feedback along with the click sound. I can understand why it won’t be there as you can’t directly navigate to a pre-determined page, but instead they force you to portal through their search button.
Even still, I’m a little sad knowing what could have been! :(
There's not a way to give evidence for this kind of stuff but that's feeling it gave me too. I suspect a lot of superfluous stuff implemented in recent software is implemented by an agent. I haven't formed a concrete opinion on how I feel about it though.
Somehow, with all the world's music a tap away I listen to far fewer albums now. I loved preparing my mp3 players, like packing a bag for a trip.
https://music.apple.com/includes/ipod/data/us/en-US.json
US 1,029 Songs 682 Artists 39 Unique tracks
GB 1,156 Songs 727 Artists 12 Unique tracks
FR 1,217 Songs 797 Artists 132 Unique tracks
DE 1,062 Songs 709 Artists 62 Unique tracks
ES 1,155 Songs 724 Artists 7 Unique tracks
Part of the appeal of the iPod is that it only had just as much hardware and software as it needed and was simple, which lends to its extreme mod potential that's fueling its continuing popularity today. A good modern iPod analogue needs to deliver on those fronts, too.
It's extremely hard to find a new production MP3/FLAC player with upgradable storage that don't suck for one reason or another. Plenty of perfect new ones, but they will have onboard BT or Wifi still.
https://certainthings.studio/sprout
Sad!
Even still, I’m a little sad knowing what could have been! :(
Ipod seems pretty cool. I never owned one, kind of want to get a modded one or a newer knock off