If Apple resumes offering iPod Classic, will it be profitable?
 

Yes iPhone can do exactly what an iPod can, and a lot more,

but there are lots of Apple fans who just like owning Apple products

I did have iPod Classic and yes I did enjoy it very much

I did enjoy it because I loved the appearance of the physical hardware

As a person who has written an MP3 player (MPD client) and a podcast client, I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. The current trend is streaming media, and having a hoard of digital music files is something that only a few enthusiasts still do. And those enthusiasts like to put them on media servers instead of playing them directly.

The Pono (which was the last digital player to look interesting to me) died half a decade ago.

I tend to agree with Dugan. There are so many devices, particularly "smart" phones, capable of playing streaming and non-streaming audio that I doubt a revived iPod could gain adequate market share to be profitable.

Though I'm not an Apple fan and have used iStuff only infrequently, I used to use a portable MP3 player to listen to podcasts (an iRiver, to be precise). I still have it and it still works, but I haven't used it for years. Instead, I use my cell phone.

Just my two cents.

As one of those so called enthusiasts I also won't be buying one any time soon. Pretty much the only reason I have a server full of dvd movie rips and mp3 stuff is because my internet was extremely spotty for a long time. I only recently got something worth a damn. Starlink is proving to be truly amazing to me out here in the sticks. But the downside? (is it really?) is that my local media is pretty much only used when the internet is down. Thus far I can count on one hand the times it's been down and 2 of them were when the power dropped during a storm so that doesn't count.

I won't be dumping my collection any time soon but there is no real reason to keep it either at this point save a few older movies that I haven't seen on any streaming services so far.

Koff, koff ... I carefully held on to my LP and then CD music collection. (No, I cared nothing for "cassettes" or – God help us all – "8-track tapes.") :)

My faith was proven when a 250GB hard-drive "chock-full of music" one day simply died. Fortunately, all of the source material was still there.

While I fully appreciate the value of "streaming," I still also place important value upon "the physical." I have maintained a number of "subscriptions" for a number of years, but I still purchase physical copies of the things that I like best. (Sometimes, these days, "custom on-demand compilations.")

i just bought record player and i am going to start collecting hip hop records.
i have a Tidal subscription but i want also physical music collection.

Speaking of physical collections: I've said this before. I don't want to back to spending my life ripping CDs.

Yep. CDs, DVDs, and books at home are a huge waste of resources and space. Digital medium all the way (miss me with that DMR and "do u even own it" and "wat if electricity go out" shit, I'm a normal person and I don't care).

People who depend on streaming services are increasingly finding that things they want to access (and have accessed in the past) are mysteriously no longer available or have had large chunks chopped out of them. Is that another thing a normal person doesn't care about? I wouldn't know because I've never been a normal person.;)

Well, since discussion has shifted to another topic - yea, movies/TV show streaming is pretty bad now that everyone wants to have their own and that annoys normal people.;) Music streaming, like Apple Music - sometimes licensing deals shift and I notice that I have to re-download 5 songs every few months, as they become unavailable out of ten thousand, and then become available again, so not that annoying. For now. Book streaming - no idea, never used it, I just buy epub and be done with it.