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▲ Picture from: The Ringer

It’s like the vinyl record has not been overwhelmed by the wave of digital music, and the MP3 player that seems to be eliminated by the times has not disappeared. For example, Apple’s iPod, which has been discontinued for many years, has been repaired by a group of people to “resurrect” the old iPod as their main listening device.

They “resurrected” the iPod, not just for nostalgia

Pichi ’s bathroom is full of iPods and related parts,Many of these iPods are not Pichi’s own, but iPod enthusiasts from all over the world.

Pichi, 50, has been out of work for several years because of multiple sclerosis. But he is not idle. He is still busy now, repairing the iPod which has been discontinued.

You may ask, how many people are still using iPod? It’s actually quite a lot. In the past six or seven years, Pichi alone has repaired hundreds of iPods. Pichi’s reputation has also spread through Internet platforms such as Reddit, and more and more users come to Pichi to repair and modify iPods.

▲ image description. Image from: medium

Actually, Pichi The iPod-modding community composed of such maintenance masters , although a niche, has not been low in popularity, and the scale is still expanding.

Today, when streaming media becomes mainstream and it becomes more and more difficult to get music files, why go to “resurrect” the iPod just because of nostalgia? Whether it’s an iPod user or an iPod user, the answer given is simple and pure: listen to songs.

Some iPod repair technicians say that after proper modification, these iPods can become the best music listening device. All they have to do is make the iPod’s outstanding audio quality better.

Community of modified devices is not uncommon, but it is different from the past when iPhone jailbreak broke iOS into Android. Modifications to iPods usually do not make much adjustment, generally they increase storage space and replace batteries.Custom user interface, or some games outside of Apple.

But for a product that has been out of production for many years, it is no longer easy to just get a damaged iPod back up and running. Apple discontinued iPod Classic in 2014, One reason given by Cook < / a> It ’s, “We ca n’t find the production parts, and the supplier will never produce them again.”

Pichi found out from the outset to repair her iPod Classic, and even if it found available parts, the cost was too high. So it took him two years to find the right parts supplier, and slowly he started selling and repairing customized iPods on eBay.

Australian 29-year-old Ben Schultz is one of Pichi’s customers. A few years ago, Pichi replaced the battery and motherboard for his iPod Classic. Pichi made Ben Schultz a “faithful fan of Wolfson chips.”

For many iPod users, the Wolfson chip is the soul of this device.

The Wolfson chip is an audio decoding chip used by the iPod. It is said to have “a sharp low-frequency texture and a high-frequency glare without being harsh.” Although Apple later replaced Wolfs with cirrus logicOn, but many users still think that the sound quality of iPod with Wolfson chip is the best.

For iPod enthusiasts like Ben Schultz, there is no medium to replace the iPod listening experience.

Anyone who says that vinyl records are better than digital music is self-deceiving and cannot find a better music player than this.

After modification, Ben Schultz’s iPod Classic can store tens of thousands of songs for 100 hours of continuous playback. And this model of equipment, the original capacity is only 30 GB-80 GB, battery life is 14-20 hours, Ben Schultz will use it to play various music or concert live recordings, whether it is genuine or pirated.

Why is it an iPod and not another music player? In addition to the sound quality of the iPod, easy modification is also an important reason, which is different from today’s highly integrated Apple devices.

An 18-year-old computer student in the UK, Ollie Devine, is also keen on retrofitting the iPod, saying that “the structure of the iPod is relatively simple, just as it is for your convenience.” But be careful not to mess up the operating system.

Latvian Max, as early as 14 years old, cracked an iPod of his own and let the iPod Nano run a variety of new games and applications. Now you can easily find many detailed tutorials for modifying iPod on the Internet, and you can also buy related parts and tools on the e-commerce platform.

In a previous article, Ai Faner points out that the life of electronic products is getting shorter and shorter because of the difficulty of maintenance And the sales strategy of merchants makes electronic products more like FMCG rather than durable goods. After discontinuing the production of iPods, there are still a large number of electronic products that are spontaneously maintained and used by users.

On foreign reddit forums , you can see a lot of iPods showing off your collection, including Many are still in service.

Some people have collected iPod family portraits from eBay on eBay, and repaired some bad iPods before selling them online.

Someone will spend a pleasant weekend afternoon using the iPod Classic 7th generation with a modified MMCX jack.

Someone asked for help from netizens, and wanted to revive the faulty collector ’s version of the Beatles iPod classic. Netizens enthusiastically gave suggestions under the post.

Recently, the iPod also enjoyed a star rating of AirPods. Earlier this year, Some media found that Cristiano Ronaldo was wearing a long-discontinued iPod Shuffle before a game. Some netizens joked that Cristiano Ronaldo’s career was longer than this product series.

In the world of these users, the iPod never seems to be outdated.

Will iPod become a “vinyl record” in a music player?

The revival of the iPod in the niche group is reminiscent of the “vinyl renaissance” in recent years. When it comes to the impact on the music industry, the iPod obviously left a more powerful and impressive impression.

In the fall of 2001, Apple introduced the iPod that “put 1,000 songs into your pocket.” Prior to this, Jobs had officially released iTunes at the Macworld conference. Jobs’s vision of “the computer will become a digital hub” is to iPod started.

At the same time, the iPod is revolutionizing the music market. After Apple launched the iTunes Store in 2003, it sold it to users for $ 0.99 per song, sold 1 million songs in 6 days, and exceeded 100 million songs in the next year. Jobs said, “This will serve as the music industry. A turning point in the history book. “

For Apple users at the time, to download music downloaded from the Internet to iPod, iTunes had to be adopted. This strategy of software and hardware integration made iPod and iTunes once the biggest revenue pillar of Apple.

The iPod once occupied more than 70% of the music player market. By 2007, iPod sales had accounted for half of Apple’s total revenue. By the time the production was stopped, the cumulative sales had exceeded 400 million units.

iPod has changed the way people consume music, from physical records to digital downloads, from buying albums to buying singles, and iPod Shuffle brings the concept of “shuffle” to the hearts of the people.

Computer magazine Macworld once wrote an article entitled “How the iPod changed the world of music” wrote:

Thirty years ago, when we were in a concert, who would have thought that every Bob Dylan’s album, Haydn’s Symphony No. 104, Beethoven’s string quartet and All music including piano concertos, audio versions of all Shakespeare scripts can be put into one device, and we can have all the music anytime, anywhere.

But whether the iPod replaced physical records such as CDs, tapes, or streaming media to kill the Walkman, it’s because the new music media is more convenient, more durable, and cheaper while maintaining a certain level of sound quality.

Therefore, the revival of vinyl records in the era of streaming media is particularly special. Last year, the sales of vinyl records have become the largest source of physical sales revenue in the music industry. The reasons for the revival of vinyl are divergent. But in related media reports, “memory” and “feeling” are high-frequency words mentioned.

ICM UK polls The survey shows that 48% of buyers of vinyl records do not listen to those records, and 7% of them do not even have a record player that plays vinyl records, just for collection.

Many buyers buy vinyl records just for collection purposes. They want to preserve the artwork in a tangible way, which is related to their memories or other emotional factors. They believe that this is a support for idols and a symbol of the pursuit of music. And this symbol has nothing to do with the actual utility of the record on his hands. Even if the purchaser does not have a vinyl player, he does not have the habit of listening to vinyl, which will not affect his purchase decision.

On the other hand, streaming media has also promoted the revival of vinyl in a certain sense. According to AudienceNet statistics, 66% of music buyers will find favorite music and singers on streaming media such as Spotify and Apple Music, and then buy physical records to collect.

The same “outdated” music medium has revived in the niche, but the iPodThe “resurrection” is not the same as the vinyl revival. People who still use iPods just use it as a daily listening device. This is considered “retro”, but it is not entirely driven by feelings.

In addition, vinyl still has a stable upstream and downstream supply chain, although the niche is a perfect ecology. The iPod, as a discontinued electronic device, has lost its official support. Only relying on the spontaneous maintenance of the people, it can only continue to consume the stock, and it will eventually become electronic waste.

But whether it is the vinyl revival or the iPod’s “resurrection” in the folk, it reflects that many users still have physical consumption needs for music

In the age of streaming, do we still need to “own” a song?

When the era of streaming media is rolling in, the subscription system has gradually become the mainstream consumption model of media such as music, books, movies and games. We subscribe to the service on a monthly / yearly basis, let alone purchase records, and even the act of downloading songs is gradually disappearing.

The subscription system for music streaming, as Jobs said, is “renting music.” Although some music apps support downloading music, once a member expires, downloaded songs cannot be played offline. We can listen to a large number of songs without spending money, but we cannot “own” a song.

As Ai Faner said in a previous post . The convenience of digital content comes from the transfer of ownership. But not everyone is willing to replace entities with numbers, just like many people still prefer to read paper books rather than e-books.

The available music in streaming media has worn away the ritual sense of the musical experience, and the physical existence of the physical music medium has become a new selling point. Placing a vinyl record on a record player, setting a stylus, or downloading music to an iPod fits this need.

In the past two years, a form of digital music product called Digital Reality Album , as the name suggests, It is a combination of digital music and physical records.

How do you combine them? Although users still buy digital music, they are all bought out once and the ownership is owned by the users. This is the same as the previous iTunes Store mode, nothing special.

The “entity” in digital physical records is reflected in the elaborate design of theme scenes, interior page design, text introduction, production team information, music MV, etc. for digital albums, just like physical albums. Because the digital form is used, album interaction The presentation is more diverse. It not only meets the needs of fast music acquisition, but also retains the sense of ritual when experiencing traditional records.

In this era of streaming media, whether we really need to “own” a song, everyone’s answer may be different. It is undeniable that streaming media is the general trend, but this does not hinder the harmonious coexistence of new and old media, which is more conducive to the development of the industry than streaming media.

After all, are n’t the revolutionary innovations in history born in the constant collision of old and new?

Picture from: WallpaperBetter