Posted on 14 January 2015

Hazel Cills:

“Beyond just people moving towards streaming rather than buying music (old news), the discontinuation of the iPod Classic and future mp3 devices presents a whole other problem: a lack of devices and applications that are for music listening only. There is no right or wrong way to listen to music, but there is admittedly a stark contrast between listening to music on your iPhone and listening to music on an iPod that does not connect to the Internet. The benefits of an iPod are the ability to literally contain your entire music library and just a lack of notifications in general, to enjoy it without the temptation to blindly scroll through Instagram or tweets while you do so. “

Ever since everything on my iPod had to be deleted, I’ve moved to listening to almost all my music via streaming services. Mostly Rdio, but also Soundcloud, Bandcamp, Hype Machine and CBC Music. It works, for the most part, but I do sometimes miss the act of scrolling through my library, my music that I’ve selected, as opposed to the global music archive. Also, there are some situations – a long road trip, for example – where it was far easier to just grab my 160 GB library with all the music I could want rather than having to choose which few albums I want to sync to my phone ahead of time.
I think there is some reason for concern, but then again if the minidisc can come back, maybe the iPod classic will be the stuff of revival, too.

Filed under: links, music