iPod Stories June 28
AAPL: 145.83
It scarcely seems possible now that Apple ever considered an iPhone based on a click-wheel iPod, but we actually got to see a surviving prototype earlier this year. Steve Jobs created competing teams to work on different approaches to an iPhone, and ‘father of the iPod’ Tony Fadell has spoken about this in a new interview …
iPod Stories May 15
AAPL: 155.70
[Update: OS News reports that what Fraunhofer IIS fails to mention is that the last of the patents expired, and this is the reason that it is no longer licensing the format.]
More than 25 years after it was first developed, the mp3 format for digital music has been officially discontinued. The Fraunhofer Institute, the main organization responsible for licensing the encoders and decoders, has today announced that it ceased doing so late last month.
Apple was of course in large part responsible for popularizing the format, but also played a role in its demise …
iPod Stories January 6
AAPL: 117.91
Sonny Dickson this evening posted posted a log and video of a never before seen in public version of pre-iPhone era software that was built as an alternative OS to what eventually became iOS.
The OS, which was devised in the iPod’s heyday, was based on a virtual click-wheel that was put on the touch display. A set of menus is navigated with the touch much like one would using an iPod of the time. In the era of multi-touch the idea seems quaint but when everyone is using iPods, the UI makes a lot of sense as a small step rather than the giant leap to iPhone OS, what eventually became iOS.
Check out the video below:
iPod Stories October 24, 2016
AAPL: 117.65
I’ve always loved music, and am old enough to have lived through every generation of portable music player, from the original cassette Walkman on. The transition from cassette to CD made little difference: you still only had one album loaded at any one time, and carrying others was a pain. The same was true of the very first mp3 player, the MPMan, which I bought in 1998.
The first hard drive-based mp3 player was the Personal Jukebox in 1999. It beat the iPod to market by two years, but was large, heavy and hard to use. Even as an early adopter of technology, I was only briefly tempted.
It was the launch of the iPod fifteen years ago yesterday that changed everything for me. That tagline of ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ said it all: you could now carry a substantial proportion of your entire music library on you at all times. And that changed the way that I – and millions of others around the world – listened to music …
iPod Stories May 12, 2016
AAPL: 90.34
Check the back of your drawers – your old iPod could be worth big bucks to a collector
The discontinuation of the iPod Classic back in 2014 gave prices of used models a boost in the following holiday season, some models selling for up to four times the original price. A Guardian report says that collectors are now paying even more for some models, with special editions selling for as much as $90,000.
Terapeak, a company which tracks pricing of collectibles on eBay, […] found that classic iPods in their original packaging were priced at collectibles levels – one U2 special edition, Terapeak noted, sold in November for $90,000.
iPod Stories March 30, 2016
AAPL: 109.56
Days after the FBI announced that it had successfully unlocked the iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino gunmen last December without Apple’s help, the Associated Press now reports that the FBI has agreed to help unlock another iPhone and an iPod relating to a homicide case in Arkansas.
