Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maursault | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. Though iPod Touch is a lotta bit of feature creep, surely the portable media player market is still profitable. I just want it to play music and fit all my music in my change pocket. Bring back the iPod Shuffle!

View on HN

Thank you for reminding me iPod Shuffle! Gosh, this was a crazy good thing. Now everything is in an (i)Phone... Shuffle was honestly the first mass-market wearable device that worked. I love not taking my phone on a longer runs/hikes, but I want my music. With 2022 Apple Shuffle I could have my Apple Music with me lightweight, but I cannot. Sure I could used Apple Watch for this, but I'm in Garmin ecosystem... sigh. Gimme my music without transferring MP3 files I can buy on Amazon or directly from the artist to my Garmin watch, so I could just run with my watch.

Or you know, Garmin, split-off your wearables division in separate company, Apple buys it, Apple takes some Garmin thingies into Apple Watch, create Apple Watch Pro based on Garmin Hardware and sports functions, add Apple software and we're golden. This is a business advice, if Garmin/Apple decide to do this, compensate me. /s

SanDisk still makes simple, small, portable music players.

So does a lot of companies selling on Aliexpress/Alibaba, but this doesn't help with my infrastructure problem - I would still need to buy and copy manually MP3 files onto the player.

Dedicated music players has become an audiophile market. That means volumes are too low for a company that sells enough Airpods for that business alone to be almost 10X the revenue of Snapchat, while being under 5% of Apple revenue. You have to use a microscope to see the iPod numbers.

It exists. See things like the recent Sony Walkmans. But my guess is it’s quite small and Apple doesn’t see it as worth spending time on.

For a company their size I don’t think they’re wrong. It’s never going to move the needle any noticeable amount for them.

Isn't that what the Apple Watch is supposed to do?

I agree that a relatively simple, relatively low-priced media player with great build quality would have a market - but Apple would be cannibalising it's 'fitness-oriented' market if they allowed both the Shuffle and the Watch to exist.

iPod Wear

Yeah, but you can't use the Watch as a standalone device (something that, as a WatchOS developer, I have always found stupid beyond reason...it should just have limited functionality on its own, including media playback) - if you could, not only would they sell millions upon millions more of them, but it could be a reasonable replacement for an iPod.

Until then, if you want to use it as an 'iPod', it's just another expense on top of the iPhone you already have that's your 'iPod'.

Apple cancelling the iPod line completely is frankly dumb. I know at least a dozen parents who use these for their kids.

Also, what's with all the people suggesting parents just buy an iPhone with no sim? Y'all realize that the cheapest iPhone is twice as much as the $199 iPod Touch? :/

The watch isn't 100% standalone but I have no issues listening to music and podcasts away from my phone and I think people using it for listening to music while exercising away from the phone is a huge selling point for many people.

> The watch isn't 100% standalone

Just to highlight this point, an iPhone is required for activation. You can't activate with any other Apple device. You can use a family member's iPhone.

What exactly are you asking for the Watch to do? I load mine with music to play while my phone is in a gym locker all the time. Do you just want to be able to get files onto it without needing an iPhone? There are "millions upon millions" of people clamoring for that feature?

To work without an iPhone. And yes, obviously that potentially creates millions more sales. :)

They’ve made it so that the Watch can be used as a child device assuming a parent uses an iPhone.

Watch + Bluetooth headphones go great together.

Especially if you're on Wi-Fi and I believe on cellular (we still don't have it here in 3rd world) you can just go hiking with the watch and stream your music on Bluetooth without phone.

Same for messaging, fitness tracking, and voice calls. I think it's enough for that device.

You can still buy new portable music players, including some Sony branded walkmans, but at least the Sony ones are just with an expensive DAC, some hardware buttons and interally run Android. Probably has too, because most people get their music through streaming.

These days you get more storage and better form factor with an Apple Watch combined with a bluetooth headset/buds.

Yeah, I still run with a 20-ish year old Shuffle, waiting for the day it falls apart.

Hey, the iPod Shuffle is 17 years old. Don't take those 3 years from me lol. I'm still smarting from the loss of the two pandemic years. :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com