Apple is finally pulling the plug on the iPod Touch, the final iteration in its line of portable music players. This was the last product offered before the manufacturer’s decision to permanently stop production. The end of the iPod was somehow predictable, because during the last 20 years, the company integrated music services on its other devices—which was a more efficient and popular way to stream music.
iPod Touch Will Remain Available While Supplies Last
Apple has discontinued the iPod more than 20 years after it was first launched. The company said it would continue to sell the Touch—the only generation of the iPod still on sale, “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 impacted more than just the music industry—it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared. Today, the spirit of iPod lives on. 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,” Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, said in a statement announcing the decision.
A Look Back at Every iPod Ever Made
The original iPod revolutionized the music industry when it was first introduced. But, as the years passed, iPods gradually lost its relevance after people began carrying their music on their smartphones. According to a Statista chart, the first iPod is synonymous with the rise of digital music. The first-generation iPod quickly became Apple’s hit product. Moreover, iPod accounted for as much as 40% of the company’s revenue in 2006—the year before the first iPhone was released. “In 2014, the last year Apple broke down iPod sales as a separate category, the company sold 14.4 million iPods, down from nearly 55 million units in 2008. That year (2014), the iPod accounted for just 1.25 percent of Apple’s revenue”, according to Statista data.
The original iPod was introduced on October 23, 2001. Although it wasn’t the first MP3 player on the market, it packed just the right features in a relatively small package. It came with a 5GB storage that could hold 1,000 songs, a monochrome LCD display, and a 10-hour battery. Users could navigate the songs with a mechanical scroll wheel. It was an instant success.
In July 2002, the second-generation iPod featured a solid-state Touch Wheel and it was released in both 10GB and 20GB models.
In 2003, Apple introduced the third generation of the iPod, with the addition of four buttons that glowed red and a new connector. That same year, Apple introduced iTunes Store on the device—letting users easily purchase and download songs.
At the beginning of 2004, the iPod Mini debuted at Macworld in San Francisco. This model was closer in size to a business card than a card deck. Later that year, Apple launched the fourth-generation “classic” iPod. It featured a touch-sensitive click wheel (like the iPad mini), a color display, and a shuffle feature to randomize all the songs.
The fifth generation, released in October 2005, came with video playback and a larger screen. In the same year, Apple launched the first-generation iPod Shuffle and introduced the iPod Photo as well as the first-generation iPod Nano.
The second generation models of the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle were launched in 2006.
Apple introduced the sixth generation of the original iPod, now dubbed the iPod Classic, in 2007 as the first-generation iPod Touch hit the market.
In 2008, Apple released a thinner 120GB version of the iPod Classic. The company also launched the fourth-generation iPod Nano and second-generation iPod Touch.
The following year didn’t bring significant changes. iPod Shuffle’s fourth-generation added five colors and the third-generation of the iPod Touch arrived with minimal changes. Apple also released the second-generation iPod Touch.
In 2010, the fourth-gen iPod Touch got FaceTime capability, while the iPod Nano and the iPod Shuffle got redesigned.
The fourth-generation iPod touch was introduced in 2011, with no major changes.
In 2012, both the fifth-generation iPod Touch and the seventh-generation iPod Nano got larger screens. The fourth-generation iPod Shuffle came back with new color options.
In the following year, Apple launched a budget version of the iPod Touch and in 2014 dropped the price of the basic device.
After two and a half years, in 2015, Apple released the sixth-generation iPod Touch. The company also launched new versions of the fourth-generation iPod Shuffle.
In 2017, both iPod Nano and Shuffle were discontinued, making the iPod Touch the only iPod left available for sale.
The seventh-generation iPod Touch was the final iPod release, launched in 2019. The device came with an A10 processor, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, and a new 256GB storage option.
This year, 2022, will be marked as the end of one of the most important product lines in Apple’s history. For iPod fans, this is certainly a sad moment.
