An era comes to an end as Apple announced it’s finally killing one of its most iconic products—the iPod.
Last week, the world’s largest technology company announced that manufacturing of the ever-trusty device, which revolutionized music accessibility all over the world, has effectively ceased; noting that customers can still purchase the latest version of the iPod Touch, the 7th gen, “while supplies last.”
“Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impact more than just the music industry—it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, said on the Apple website’s newsroom.
Once supplies run out, the iPod will be nothing more than a relic of the company’s prestigious history. However, the technology giant did not forget to remind everyone that even with the circumstance, the spirit of the iPod lives on in every Apple device. In fact, it considerably paved the way for Apple’s upward trajectory, specifically in Apple Music. (Read: Leak hints that Apple is working on a foldable iPhone)
“Today, the spirit of iPod lives on,” added Joswiak, who is also one of the portable players’ primary developers. “We’ve integrated an incredible music experience across all of our products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch to HomePod mini, and across Mac, iPad, and Apple TV. And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio—there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music.”
First brought out to the public in October 2001 by Apple co-founder and then-CEO Steve Jobs, it immediately became a global hit with its revolutionary design and spacious system capable of housing over a thousand songs on the go. Two decades later, it is estimated to have been sold 450 million times.
Now, with the handful of generations of the iPhone casually hitting the world by a storm, it can not be denied that the iPod played a vital role in Apple’s ongoing dominance; and as long as the current models bring convenience as much as the iPod did in its heydays, the memory of it will continually live on.
“Today, the experience of taking one’s music library out into the world has been integrated across Apple’s product line—from iPhone and Apple Watch to iPad and Mac—along with access to more than 90 million songs and over 30,000 playlists available via Apple Music,” the statement said.
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