Crunch Down: iPod Classic Second Generation

It was many a year ago that Steve Jobs held the soon to iconic music player, the iPod in his hand announcing its then spacious 5GB Hard Drive and easy to use interface for browsing songs. Over half a decade later the family has grown a bit and Apple is starting to retire the now revolutionary media player rectangle under a new moniker; the iPod Classic. As Flash based storage becomes dominant along side larger touch screens and slimmer profiles, the iPod design of old is starting to show its age but is still kept around for serious media pack rats and the obsessive need of having an entire iTunes library at hand. Today’s update signifies then end of an era and the beginning of a new path for iPods.

Introduced or rather renamed at Apple’s “The Beat Goes On” event last year, the iPod Classic has been kept around as the older sibling to boss around the family constantly reminding them that he’s still the one with the bigger disk and instead of telling war stories it’s replaced with market share battles with some of those other no name companies. Anyways, the specs remain largely unchanged from last year’s incarnation. To be frank the whole event was slightly underwhelming but of course you run into the argument of “How do you make something perfect even better?” to “Great, Apple is just modifying the look and calling it revolutionary.”

Familiar to the iPod Classic of course is the split screen interface that was cramped onto the Nano’s screen but looks that much better on that larger display. What seems to have changed though is the removal of both storage options. The overly spacious 160GB model has been axed in favor or a half way point from the smaller 80GB model. 120 GBs is the new “One size fits all” for iPod owners looking to bring with them a large library while retaining the same form factor as the smaller sized 80GB version. Theoretically we should have seen a $300 price but that’s been cut down to $250.

Just the fact that the high end 160GB model was killed dead could signify a trend in portable media players, that yes you can have too much of something. Now that Apple has hit this glass ceiling of storage of with consumers, it’s only a matter of time before a 128GB iPod Touch is the new, dominant player in Apple’s lineup.