Apple Inc. The iPod helped revolutionize the music industry when it was introduced more than two decades ago. Now music fans will soon say goodbye to the portable player.
The tech giant said on Tuesday that its iPod touch would be available only when supplies last. It also highlighted other ways people can listen to music in its various products.
“Today, the spirit of the iPod is alive,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing.
Released in 2001, the first iPod helped Apple co-founder Steve Jobs remake the company, expand its reach from computers to other personal devices, and vastly expand Apple’s reach in the music industry.
“If we didn’t do the iPod, the iPhone wouldn’t come out,” said the former Apple senior vice president, who is credited with inventing the iPod. That we can do something off the map and we can continue to innovate in really new areas.”
For some consumers, the iPod—which came in various color iterations and models—was their first introduction to Apple.
The iPod helped usher in a new era for music in which songs could be downloaded for 99 cents – separated by albums by artists – and loaded onto a device about the size of a deck of cards. The iPod helped make music more portable and was a smash hit, leading the company to unveil the iPhone, which took even more important functions on a single device.
Now, as smartphones become even more sophisticated and music is largely streamed rather than accessed via paid downloads, iPod sales have plummeted. Apple hasn’t separated iPod sales over the years, but unit sales in fiscal year 2014 declined by about 24% compared to the previous fiscal year.
iPhones are now equipped with music streaming, advanced cameras, maps with GPS navigation, and many other functions, all factors that contributed to the obsolescence of the iPod.
“There was no way we were able to do the iPhone the way the iPhone was done, if it wasn’t for the iPod and that’s how the company set up for it,” Mr. Fadell said.
David Varela, a 31-year-old student majoring in music at California State University, Fullerton, remembers receiving his first iPod, a silver iPod Mini, in 2004, with his name and “Led Zeppelin Rules” engraved on the back.
Having an iPod “felt like a status symbol in a way,” he said.
“For me, when I got the first iPod Mini, I remember thinking it was the best thing,” he said, before his iPod as he played music on a CD player hanging out of his sweatshirt pocket. . Nothing was better for me than the iPod.”
He’s had three different iPods over the years but stopped using their latest version in 2007 when he got his first iPhone. Today, he streams his music on Apple Music.
The original iPod weighed 6.5 ounces and served as a replacement for items such as CD players, which often limited users to listening to a select album at a time.
Apple later introduced the iPod mini in 2004 and the iPod nano in 2006. The iPod touch was released in 2007 and the iPod nano (7th generation) came out in 2012.
Apple released the iPod Shuffle (4th generation) in 2015. Apple’s last iPod was the seventh-generation iPod touch, which it released three years ago this month.
“It was inevitable, wasn’t it?” Mr. Fadel said. “I’m surprised it took so long to tell you the truth.”