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Apple announced on Tuesday that it will no longer produce iPods, the ground-breaking MP3 players that revolutionized music consumption and gave rise to the iPhone. With his legendary showmanship flair, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the devices nearly 21 years ago. The small, easy-to-use players helped the company revolutionize how music was sold.
It contained “a mind-blowing 1,000 songs,” according to the company, and established a new distribution system for the music industry alongside Apple’s iTunes store.
Purchasing entire albums on vinyl began to give way to paying 99 cents per song for selected digital songs.
Industry analysts and California-based firms Apple have long acknowledged that the all-in-one iPhone would eat into sales of one-trick devices like iPod MP3 players.
The trend toward music streaming services, including one from Apple, has made devices designed solely for transporting digital music less appealing to consumers.
In a blog post, Apple stated that the current era of iPods will only be available for as long as current supplies last.
“Music has always been at the heart of our company, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way that iPod did impact more than just the music industry,” said Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak.
“It also changed the way people discover, listen to, and share music.”
According to Joswiak, the “spirit of the iPod” lives on in Apple’s product lineup, which includes the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and its HomePod smart speaker.
“IPod has enthralled users all over the world who love the capacity to take their music with them on the go since its introduction over 20 years ago,” Apple said in a blog post.
“Today, the expertise of taking one’s music library out into the world is built into every Apple product, from the iPhone and Apple Watch to the iPad and Mac.”
Furthermore, the Apple Music service provides streaming access to more than 90 million songs, according to the Silicon Valley behemoth.
Despite analysts fears that the release of the iPhone in 2007 would decimate demand, the iPod survived because the smartphones offered much more than just digital music.
The end of the iPod line sparked a flurry of sad, nostalgic tweets.
