http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25927366

I bought a 1st gen one (my dad thought I was mad) and an iPod Photo when I needed the extra capacity. The Photo is still running, and unless it suffers a catastrophic failure, I intend to keep it going for a while yet.

I imagine they've only really lasted this long cos of people who won't have a smartphone near them, presents etc. Anybody else would need to be mad if they're into Apple. Or a really bad decision maker.... It's different if you already have existing kit of course.

There's presumably still a market for small, cheap MP3 players, so maybe the iPod shuffle has a future. The problem may be Apple don't do 'cheap'.

Now there's a 128GB iPhone, the justification for the iPod Classic is looking increasingly marginal. Plus it hasn't changed at all in a good few years and they presumably want to rid themselves of 30-pin devices as soon as possible.

I can see the iPod brand continuing for a few years yet. The iconic 'iPod' with the circular control and screen, maybe not so much.

Not necessarily. There are still needs for an iPod without phone features. You can give it to kids no need to worry about additional call charges etc. If they want to get rid of the old docks then a new device is necessary unless they drop the line completely.

The IPod touch is the same price as the classic, for a more limited but still reasonable capacity. Evidence suggests the Classic isn't selling in big enough numbers to justify further development. I suspect it's not far from that to 'no longer enough to justify selling them'.

Apple also make less money after selling an iPod Classic than they do after selling an iPod Touch. The Classic is really for music, and to buy music for it, you need to be sitting near your base computer to load content onto it. With an iOS device, you can be anywhere and buy stuff - and not just music, but games, videos, etc.. So the after sales money trail for Apple is better. It’s instant gratification.

It wasn't that long ago I bought a Shuffle. It clips onto me for gym use, has more than enough space for an hours "running" tunes and the battery lasts forever.

I don't put any music on my iPhone.
I use an iPod video (I think it's a fifth gen iPod) for listening to music in the car.

Mark

I have some music on my phone. I can Bluetooth it to my wife’s car stereo. My car’s stereo is painfully primitive. It has a CD player, and no way to plug in an iPod. Ho hum.

I am the same. I have too much music to get on a phone anyway.