I Miss Apple’s Best iPod

Of all of the moveable music gamers Apple has launched over the previous 20 years, the unique iPod shuffle stays my favourite. It wasn’t my first iPod, and 16 years after its debut I’ve owned numerous iterations of the iPhone, however I beloved the shuffle for its primary design and performance, not despite them.

The iPod additionally wasn’t the primary moveable media participant I owned, however when it debuted in 2001 with the promise of placing 1,000 songs in your pocket, it wasn’t a tough promote. At the time, moveable MP3 gamers had been laughably restricted as a consequence of the price of flash reminiscence, able to storing extra tracks than a CD may (barely), however at decrease high quality. CD gamers that might play MP3 information burned to a CD-ROM had been a greater choice, however even they maxed out at round 150 tracks, and relied on a medium that was nonetheless comparatively fragile. With the iPod I wasn’t restricted to simply holding a couple of of my favourite Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers tracks, I may carry their total discographies.

However, each the first-generation iPod with the bodily scroll wheel and its touchscreen successor had been, disappointingly, restricted to computer systems operating macOS. At the time I used to be on a PC. I needed to wait till what’s now generally known as the iPod (Dock Connector) was launched in 2003, which additionally arrived with the Windows model of iTunes that allowed an iPod to be synced to a PC with out leaping by means of hoops. I wouldn’t go as far as to say the native Windows model of iTunes made syncing simpler, as a result of iTunes has at all times been an terrible, bloated, resource-sucking piece of software program—much more so on the PC. It was the antithesis of user-friendly, and why Apple was by no means ready or prepared to repair it stays a thriller to me. But I digress.

The web within the early aughts was the wild west of file-sharing. Finding MP3 copies of just about any music was trivial. Filling an iPod together with your total music assortment was simple. Jumping between albums didn’t require swapping plastic discs. The iPod was genuinely life-changing.

What was much less endearing in regards to the iPod was that it was heavy—at the moment there was a bodily spinning arduous drive inside it—and it was fragile. To say I’m somebody who infants their devices is an understatement. There was no scarcity of how to guard the iPod, however mine nonetheless ended up gathering nicks and scratches regardless of my finest efforts, significantly on the display screen’s plastic cowl. I couldn’t not see them once I regarded down on the machine, and I bear in mind shopping for and often utilizing a display screen sharpening equipment, with completely different abrasive lotions you’d buff on and off, one after the opposite, to make my iPod’s display screen shine once more. (These days I received’t even take a brand new iPhone out of the field except I’ve obtained a display screen protector prepared to use.)

Financially, I wasn’t in a spot to constantly improve to the most recent iPod fashions both. They by no means actually dropped in worth due to added options like the colour display screen on the iPod Photo (which may solely be used to have a look at images, not take them). Apparently I wasn’t the one iPod fan on a finances. During Apple’s keynote deal with on the Macworld expo in San Francisco in January of 2005, Steve Jobs introduced the iPod shuffle. Starting at $99, it was the most affordable model of the iPod but.

It lacked a display screen and will solely maintain about 120 songs (except you sprang for the $149 model with double the reminiscence) however I used to be instantly enamored with the iPod shuffle and ordered one straight away for 2 very particular causes. The first was that its extremely easy design additionally meant it was the primary iPod that was almost indestructible. Dropping it on the bottom, which I did many occasions, solely left it with tiny nicks and scratches that had been all however invisible on its shiny white plastic housing. But extra importantly, an unintended drop additionally didn’t destroy a fragile arduous drive and wipe out a thousand songs as a result of the iPod shuffle used sturdy flash reminiscence as an alternative. The machine did precisely what my bigger iPod did, however with none of the stresses of worrying about what may occur to my dear funding once I left my condo with it in hand.

The different cause I instantly embraced the iPod shuffle was the identical cause Apple created it within the first place. Carrying a whole bunch of songs on a single machine not solely meant you weren’t swapping tapes or discs, it additionally meant you possibly can randomly bounce by means of tracks in an enormous assortment, as an alternative of simply sticking together with your favorites. The iPod’s shuffle characteristic grew to become an effective way to find new music you already owned, like a radio station freed from advertisements and DJ banter. With the iPod shuffle, I used to be in a position to take that concept one step additional. Instead of letting iTunes randomly fill it with tracks, I might add 120 of my favorites in order that once I caught my headphones in it was like I used to be tuning right into a radio station that catered to my precise tastes in music. It was all killer, no filler, as outlined by me. We now take such performance as a right, as a result of algorithms enable streaming providers like Spotify to make tailor-made suggestions based mostly on what we most frequently take heed to, however in 2005 the comparatively dumb iPod shuffle gave me an analogous expertise.

Even the shortage of display screen was a welcome characteristic as a result of I by no means knew what music was coming subsequent, and as a rule it appeared just like the iPod shuffle knew precisely what I wished to listen to, making me marvel if there was extra occurring behind the scenes. In Steven Levy’s ‘Requiem for a Shuffle’ that appeared in Wired again in 2017, he talked about having introduced up the query of the shuffle characteristic’s randomness to Steve Jobs himself, who not solely insisted it actually was random, however went as far as to place Levy in contact with an Apple engineer who additionally vowed it wasn’t intentionally serving up particular tracks. Despite Apple’s claims, many people had been satisfied the shuffle characteristic was secretly studying our likes and dislikes, even when deep down we knew such capabilities didn’t exist but.

The authentic iPod shuffle, which regarded like a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, was finally changed by a smaller model that lacked a built-in USB port (all of them got here with cost and sync docks from that time on), which was adopted by a model that regarded like a tie tack with none buttons of its personal (customers relied on the inline distant on their headphones), after which lastly a model that returned to the design of the second-generation iPod shuffle however as small as Apple may probably make it. That final model debuted in 2010, 5 years after the unique iPod shuffle arrived, and caught round till 2017, when Apple lastly killed off the iPod shuffle and nano strains altogether.

Why Apple despatched the iPod shuffle packing isn’t a very arduous query to reply. Like the iPod generally, and numerous different moveable units, the iPod shuffle fell sufferer to the iPhone. As a lot as I beloved the iPod shuffle, not even I may justify carrying it round when there was at all times an iPhone in my pocket. I finally handed it on to my father, my polar reverse when it got here to babying electronics. His means to destroy cellular units in document time is unparalleled, however he loved the iPod shuffle for a number of years after I handed it over, having fun with Christmas carols, classical music, and John Williams’ soundtracks on his every day bike journey. It nonetheless stays in his iPod assortment right this moment, and whereas it’s lengthy misplaced its means to carry a cost, the truth that it survived his full and utter lack of TLC is but another excuse why I nonetheless suppose the shuffle was one of the best iPod Apple ever made.