Smart dumbphones and classic iPods

I was bad and didn’t get to blog yesterday so I’m going to cheat and give this post yesterday’s date. Don’t tell anyone.

What I wish I’d written yesterday was this farewell to the iPod Classic, which Apple quietly dropped from its store this week (although you can still buy the Nano, which does the same job albeit with a lot less storage – how long that has, who knows).

The iPod classic: your music in your pocket. Image from jurko.net.

No one needs a phone that plays music, or a watch that connects to your phone – having Twitter, Facebook, music, phone calls and email all in one place creates notification noise, and a constant, twitchy switching between apps.

The corollary of the iPod Classic would be a touchscreen dumb phone that just did calls and SMS really well. No apps, not even a visible OS. It wouldn’t be tied to a particular network or software manufacturer.

I always thought this would be a solid idea, and I’d be first in the queue for one (although no camping out beforehand). But obviously I’m in a minority of nearly one: most of you seem to want everything, all the time.