Yeah well there was still a market for x-serves but it wasn't big enough so eventually they killed it.
The only way I can see them getting growth out of the classic would be to put the massive memory to work hauling HD video around instead of music. That does suggest an interesting iOS device maybe aimed at high end camcorders if they can find a tiny 1 TB drive in the pipe somewhere.
They're probably selling 20-30 times as many iPod Classics/year as they ever did xserves, even at their peak. The xserve also didn't do anything to act as a draw toward other Apple products, and required frequent revisions to keep up. I bet ongoing iPod Classic R&D budget is statistical noise.
I'm not making a close analogy and I'm not saying they should shut it down.
I'm just saying Apple will know when the classic isn't worth the time/energy/shelf space and I wouldn't be shocked if they announced this is the case in weeks rather then years.
And I guess I'm making a wild guess as to how they might keep an HDD based idevice relevant although I don't think that's particularly likely either.
The only way I can see them getting growth out of the classic would be to put the massive memory to work hauling HD video around instead of music. That does suggest an interesting iOS device maybe aimed at high end camcorders if they can find a tiny 1 TB drive in the pipe somewhere.