Tangara, a new portable music player that sports serious iPod Classic vibes, totally eclipsed its initial crowd-funding goal as of Monday. So the open-source iPod alternative could become a reality.
Complete with a touchwheel, the nostalgia-provoking player from startup Cool Tech Zone differs from Apple’s famous iPods in major ways. Mainly, its open hardware and open-source software make it easy to access, customize, repair and upgrade.
Grid Studio disassembles well-loved gadgets and presents their rearranged innards as framed wall art. And its nostalgic collection for Apple fans just got two new entries.
The collection now includes a fourth-generation iPod Classic and a first-generation iPad mini for your aesthetic consideration.
Editor’s note: We originally published this illustrated history of the iPod to celebrate the device’s 10th anniversary on Oct. 22, 2011 (and updated it a decade later). We republished it on May 10, 2022, when Apple finally pulled the plug on the iPod.
The iPod grew out of Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy. Life was going digital. People were plugging all kinds of devices into their computers: digital cameras, camcorders, MP3 players.
The computer was the central device, the “digital hub,” that could be used to edit photos and movies or manage a large music library. Jobs tasked Apple’s programmers with making software for editing photos, movies and managing digital music. While they were doing this, they discovered that all the early MP3 players were horrible. Jobs asked his top hardware guy, Jon Rubinstein, to see if Apple could do better.
There’s something special about old Apple gear. Maybe that’s why it comes up fairly frequently in Cult of Mac‘s Setups coverage. One of the most-beloved classics in Apple’s storied history of beloved products is the Cinema Display. Today’s featured setup sports not one but two 30-inch Cinema Displays, the big stunners Steve Jobs introduced to an absolutely dazzled Worldwide Developers Conference audience in 2004.
So, naturally, questions came up about how to best use them with a newer Mac.
An accidental collaboration with Apple saved NBC sitcom The Office from cancellation during its second season.
A fifth-generation iPod took a starring role in an episode of the comedy series. Then, the unlikely cameo spurred sales of reruns of the show on iTunes. And the rest is history.
A YouTuber hacked a 17-year-old iPod Classic to let it stream Spotify tracks, successfully bringing a relic from the MP3 days into the modern era.
To be clear, this isn’t just a software hack. Guy Dupont pretty much gutted the vintage Apple music player. He added components like a Raspberry Pi Zero W board, a new LCD color display, a haptic motor, and a 1,000 mAh rechargeable battery.
Apple has given the App Store boot to an app which transformed your iPhone into an iPod Classic, complete with virtual clickwheel.
However, the Rewound app’s developers say that they aren’t planning to go quietly into the night. Instead, they’re aiming to release a web app for their creation.
The iPod’s click wheel was once one of the most iconic UI elements in consumer electronics. Today, it’s gone to the great user interface retirement home in the sky. Or has it? A new app suggests maybe not.
An iOS developer has unveiled a nifty app concept which aims to transform your iPhone into an iPod Classic by incorporating a virtual click wheel. Check it out.
The iPod was an instant classic — killed off in an instant by the iPhone.
But the iPod has a Dr. Frankenstein in Remy Sternbach. The San Diego tech repairman is determined to bring two to life each week with shiny new bodies, solid state drives, new high-capacity batteries and a full terabyte of storage.
What Sternbach has discovered is the obsolete hardware has an enduring cool.
“I know this is a niche market, but there are people who really like the iPod and like Apple nostalgia,” Sternbach told Cult of Mac. “We also get a lot of audiophiles and people who travel a lot to places with patchy cell service. They want their music.”
iPod lovers have been waiting years for Apple to resurrect its portable music player, but a brilliant new concept case could give us the next best thing.
Designer Joyce Kang created a brilliant mockup of a case for Apple Watch that transforms it into a music player reminiscent of the original iPod. The tiny case even comes with a working click wheel — and still gives you access to Apple Watch’s best features!
Nick Wellings listens to music on his iPhone, preferring not to disturb any one of his 108 iPods.
He figures his collection would hold 231,000 songs, but only one has ever been touched or seen the light of day. They remain factory-sealed in their boxes.
The iPod’s status as an icon was brief but seismic, a sleek and at-times-colorful trigger of upheaval to the music industry in the middle of the century’s first decade. Soon the iPhone, which grew more powerful with each generation, relegated the iPod to junk drawers, closets and boxes, next to that cassette-tape-playing Sony Walkman.
Starting a collection of Apple’s past is relatively easy and often affordable. But once you get started and a pricey, rare object presents itself, will you be able to control yourself?
Here’s a list that will test whether you have the fever and an intense desire to hold personal computing history in your hands. It may also test your fiscal fitness.
Usually, we tell you what we think about things that come down the Mac and iOS news pipeline. But this time, we want your opinion: what do you think of this iPod Classic smart cover for iPhone that turns your handset into a vintage iPod, like the day of yore?
What do you get for the Apple nut in your life? You know the type. They live and breathe Apple — but they already have every Apple product under the sun. Plus all the accessories.
iPod? Got it. iPhone wallet case? Got it. Steve Jobs bobblehead? Got it.
Well, I’ll bet a testicle they don’t have some of this stuff.
This week: the Sony hack reveals all sorts of juicy Jobs movie tidbits; HBO uses Game of Thrones to break big cable’s iron grip; iPod Classic prices skyrocket as fans scramble to buy them; we’ll tell you how to get some fantastic iOS games absolutely free; and then we pitch our favorite tech and vote on which is best… it’s an all new Faves ’N Raves.
Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.
Click on for the show notes.
After years without updates, September 9th was a sad day for iPod fans: it marked the formal extinction of the iPod Classic, the last of Apple’s chunky, non-flash-based music players.
Three months after the last iPod Classic was sold through Apple.com, though? The iPod Classic is more in demand — and more expensive — than ever.
Tim Cook gave a rare public interview on Monday night at the Wall Street Journal’s new tech conference, WSJD. The Apple CEO touched on a range of topics, including Apple Pay’s success, a big potential partnership, why the iPod classic was discontinued, and more.
Here are the biggest takeaways from Cook’s comments:
In 2004, at the height of the original iPod’s success, Apple started asking itself internally what would eventually kill the iPod. Whatever it was, Cupertino wanted to make sure they stayed ahead of the curve.
What did Apple think would doom the iPod? According to ex-iPod-chief Tony Fadell, Cupertino called it correctly: Music streaming would eventually kill the iPod. But Apple didn’t call it streaming, or even music in the cloud. They called it the “celestial music jukebox.”
The iPod Classic is dead.
After serving faithfully in the iPod lineup since 2009, the iPod Classic and its iconic click-wheel interface have finally gotten the ax. Along with redesigning the Apple website and adding an Apple Watch page, Apple has removed the iPod Classic from the iPod section of its site.
We knew this day was coming for years, and what better way to give the old iPod the boot than right as the sexy new smartwatch is walking through the doors at Apple’s campus.
Fare thee well, oh click wheel. Fare thee well.
This time on The CultCast: rumored new EarPods take your pulse and more; updated Macbook Airs get faster and cheaper; a leaked “iPhone 6” case indicates an iPod-inspired design; Google takes on Office with new iOS apps for Drive; we ponder the state of the iPod; and we pitch our favorite tech and apps then vote on which is best… it’s an all new Faves N Raves!
Have a few chuckles while we catch you up on each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin!
And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.
Click on for the show notes.
Back in November we reported on the UK resident thrown in jail for accidentally buying what turned out to be a clay iPad from his local supermarket.
Well, jump forward another month and here’s a similarly bizarre tale: the man who set out to buy an iPod Classic for his wife’s Christmas gift — only to discover a box full of erasers and index cards instead. Twice.
Apple was hit with a Y330 million (about $3.3 million) bill by the Tokyo District Court on Thursday after the company was found guilty of patent infringement. Japanese inventor Norihiko Saito was awarded by Presiding Judge Teruhisa Takano after the court ruled that Mr. Saito’s patent, which had been filed in 1998, covered technology for the Click Wheel controller Apple added to the iPod back in 2004.
For Americans, AppleCare+ is a fantastic service that takes a lot of the background stress out of having an iPhone. For just $99 and $49 per incident, Apple will replace your iPhone up to two times for accidents or damages, due to clumsiness, accidents, or whatever. I replaced a completely watersoaked iPhone 5 through AppleCare+, and a screen-cracked iPhone 4s. It really takes a load off.
Until now, AppleCare+ was only available to Americans, and was only available for iPhones and iPads. But yesterday, Apple unveiled some big changes to AppleCare+ that makes it accessible to Europeans for the first time.
Having gone without a refresh since 2009, the iPod classic is one of the oldest products still on sale in the Apple Store. Will Apple finally update it this fall to add flash storage and a Lightning connector? Probably not. In fact, some expect the Cupertino company to finally kill it off.
Those with older iPhones and iPods are now being contacted regarding a possible payout over faulty liquid damage indicators that caused some customers to lose out on free AppleCare repairs. Apple agreed to pay $53 million in a class action lawsuit earlier this year, and those who may be eligible for damages should be receiving an email soon.