After changing the way that music was consumed with one of the first major MP3 players over 20 years ago, Apple has today announced that it will officially be discontinuing its line of iPod devices. First launched all the way back in 2001, Apple has continued to iterate on the iPod with new models for the better part of the past two decades. Now, though, the company has revealed that when it runs out of stock of its iPod Touch devices, this will mark the end of the road for iPod as a whole.
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Apple announced this move today on its website where it explained that since music is more widely available on other Apple products nowadays, it no longer sees the need to continue with the iPod. In a general sense, Apple definitely isn’t wrong on this front as most people likely listen to music via their phones, computers, or other devices. Not to mention, most people likely consume music via streaming services now, which offsets the need to download MP3 files natively to a device like the iPod.
“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,” said Apple’s SVP of marketing Greg Joswiak in a statement to accompany this announcement. “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. And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio — there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music.”
As mentioned before, the iPod isn’t officially gone just yet as Apple is still selling its latest model of the iPod Touch. So if you’re someone who wants to snag one of these final iPod models for one reason or another, you can still do so via the links below, but you might have to act quickly. Once this sells out, though, the iPod will officially be gone; at least it had a good run.
How do you feel about Apple bringing about the end of the iPod line? Does this make you sad, or were you surprised to hear that this didn’t already happen previously? Let me know either down in the comments or shoot me a message on Twitter at @MooreMan12.
