Very OT: i can’t realy explain how much I hate Apple right now.

[Steve Connor]

Could have been worse Herb, you could have owned a Zune!

iPod Classic death was marked across most of the tech sites last year, wasn’t big enough news to hit the mainstream media. Failing Apple e-mailing everyone on their mailing list to tell them I’m not sure what more they could have done.

The Classic had been going for almost 14 years and the Touch was clearly the replacement for it, they ran them both side by side and they kept going with the Classic much longer than everyone expected.

[John Davidson]

Hey Herb,

Just get Spotify and sync your iTunes playlists to your spotify account via the desktop app, sync what you want to your iPhone and the rest will stream when you need it.

This is one area where apple was disrupted by outside forces. The world of physical storage of music is pretty much over. It sucks to get used to at first but doing the math, 30 years of Spotify is cheaper than all the CDs I’d buy in that same amount of time.

RIP iPod.

John Davidson | President / Creative Director | Magic Feather Inc.

[Herb Sevush]

[Steve Connor] “The Classic had been going for almost 14 years and the Touch was clearly the replacement for it, they ran them both side by side and they kept going with the Classic much longer than everyone expected.”

I understand products change over time — kill the Classic and have a new high-end Touch with roughly the same storage for twice the price. Fine, I get that. But that isn’t what happened. Does the new Macbook have less memory than preceding versions, because the Touch has about half the memory of the Classic?

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[David Lawrence]

[Herb Sevush] “I’m already way too invested in Apple’s proprietary downloads to be able to use anything else, along with the fact that very little else actually exists.”

I feel for you. In this case, eBay is your best friend:

https://ebay.to/1Hk0F4k

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
https://lnkd.in/Cfz92F
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums

[Bill Davis]

Yes it’s a real mess.

Imagine a company shutting down all the alternative paths to your personally owned content except via their proprietary “cloud” (iTunes Match, in this case) With no guarantee that your personal content will be accessible off into the future unless you pay and pay and pay for the service.

Good thing as John mentioned, you have alternatives like Spotify.

Imagine if this was about something REALLY critical like all your editing files?

Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.

[Tim Wilson]

[Herb Sevush] “As Tim would say, I got what I deserved from buying products from a company that lives off devouring it’s young. “

I’m not saying you deserve it. Nobody deserves being treated the way Apple treats its customers. (Well, not nobody, but not you.)

I’m just saying it’s to be expected.

I’m sorry to hear it though. There’s nothing worse than losing music. (That’s right, I said NOTHING.) It happened to me once in the physical world in a home burglary, and again in the digital age when catastrophe stuck a backup hard drive. I’d never been one for backing up backups before (oops), but now, no need to bother.

Enter Spotify.

[John Davidson] “Just get Spotify and sync your iTunes playlists to your spotify account via the desktop app, sync what you want to your iPhone and the rest will stream when you need it.

This is one area where apple was disrupted by outside forces. “

Streaming sources have passed downloads as the #1 source of music revenue. Specifically, Spotify has passed iTunes as a source for music revenue in much of the world, and about to cross in the US — hence Apple’s $3 billion investment in Beats.

Not for headphones (although I’m sure Apple is delighted with that money), but for the streaming music infrastructure that Beats had built. The Netflix-ization of music is long underway, and Apple had been nowhere near ready.

But I can’t agree more with John that Spotify is the next right move. The Beatles are a notable exception, but really, otherwise, I have access to virtually every piece of music I’ve ever bought, which is in fact my primary use of Spotify.

Of course it’s mighty cool to listen to bajillions of things that I’ve not bought..but the immediate access to virtually everything I HAVE ever bought, including on physical disks that I never got around to iTuning or Amazoning, anywhere, anytime, is priceless.

Ya gotta get the premium subscription. One thing it means is that you can “replace” virtually everything you lost, and add vastly more, for $9.95/mo. Premium provides much higher quality (often better than CDs) than the commercial-monetized free version, and you can download music to your player, not just stream. One click to download or undownload anything, so it’s incredibly easy to manage your space, or anything else while barely touching your computer.

It’s definitely easier to build complex playlists on a computer, and I build a TON of them — but there’s nothing to sync in the iTunes sense. The playlists, plus my albums, tracks, etc. are already “on” my device when I open the app.

Apple is obviously working on this, and I’m sure it will be BETTER THAN ANYTHING EVER, because EVERYTHING Apple does is BETTER THAN ANYTHING EVER….but I’m always going to recommend less dependence on Apple. Spotify works great, including on iOS.

All kidding and recommendations aside, I really do feel for your music loss, though. There’s really nothing quite like it, and I do want to acknowledge this, one passionate music lover to another.

[Herb Sevush]

[John Davidson] “Just get Spotify and sync your iTunes playlists to your spotify account via the desktop app, sync what you want to your iPhone and the rest will stream when you need it.”

That would work for a lot of casual listeners, but Spotify probably carries about 60% of what I listen to – what do I do for the other 2500 songs?

[John Davidson] ” The world of physical storage of music is pretty much over. It sucks to get used to at first but doing the math, 30 years of Spotify is cheaper than all the CDs I’d buy in that same amount of time.”

Spotify is the equivalent of listening to pretty good FM radio. It is not adequate for listeners with broad and eclectic tastes. It is also restricted to places that are wi-fi enabled, which is way to limiting for me.

Apple supplies a physical storage solution, it’s called a 128 gig Iphone, and apparently I may have to buy the dammed thing just so I can listen to music. Oh well.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “Good thing as John mentioned, you have alternatives like Spotify.”

Spotify is not a good alternative for me, as explained elsewhere. As for Adobe, at the point at which they shut me out without options, I will be just as mad. The difference is Apple is screwing me today, with Adobe it’s still theoretical.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

Tim –

I have really eclectic taste in music – are you saying that other than the 4 lads from liverpool, they cover everythig else – Missa Luba (Mass song in congolese), Paul Horn inside the Taj Mahal, Lo and Behold (mcguiness flynt singing the basement tapes) – this type of stuff? Also what do you use to store songs when downloading? MP3 players or phones or what? This might save me a major purchase if it can work.

Thanks.

[Tim Wilson] “There’s nothing worse than losing music. (That’s right, I said NOTHING.)”

Words to live by.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Scott Witthaus]

I heard that.

My 64 gig iPhone 5 64 “died”recently and I went to get a new phone for replacement. I don’t want the iPhone 6 as it’s a bit too bulky. Went to the Apple store for a 5s and lo and behold, they don’t sell the 5s in a 64gig size since the 6 came out. Plenty of 32 an d16’s but no 64. I was told if I want 64 gig I need to go to the 6. So I went with the 5s. Almost as bad as losing music is having to choose what music you want and what you can live without: “Live at Filmore East? Gotta have it. Quadraphenia….hmmmm…Jerry Lee…see ya…” And of course no photos.

C’mon, Neil Young, get Pono out there.

Side note: my daughter said she would take the old Iphone 5 and see if she could fix it. I chuckled and handed it over (you know, the “well dear old dad knows his stuff about this dear, but you can try. It’s a good lesson for you…”). She grabbed a toothpick and compressed air and pulled about a half a pound of pocket lint out of the charging slot and it worked like a charm. Should have given her the 5s but she has more than 32 gig of music…and so it goes.