Apple Quietly Says Goodbye to the iPod Classic

The iPod Classic (via Amazon)

Amidst a slew of new product announcements the other day, Apple unceremoniously killed off the one that is perhaps most responsible for putting the company in the place it is right now: the iPod Classic. After over twelve years and several incarnations, the company quietly and unsurreptitiously removed the audio device from its online store, announcing to the world that a giant was gone.


While the world is abuzz with new iPhones and how the iWatch is surely going to revolutionize everything (is it really?), very few are looking back at the product that helped bring Apple into it's current place in the world economy, one where every new product is anticipated like none other and met with unmatched excitement.


The iPod was not the first MP3 player on the market, but it was the only one from that time period that's still around today (or, was).


Now, don't be too glum, this isn't the end of iPods as we know it. The various versions of iPod Shuffle, Nano, and Touch are still available, and it's likely some of them will stick around for a little while. This week didn't mark the end of the quintessential handheld, but rather the beginning of the end. As more and more people move their audio collections-entire lives really-onto their phones, and now other mobile devices, a separate piece of technology seems less and less practical.


The iPod is directly responsible for changing Apple as a company, and helping it surge ahead of all competition a decade or so ago. When the first edition was released back in October of 2001, it was expensive (almost $400), but worth it. While it wasn't the first to market, Apple had fixed two of the major problems that all MP# makers were facing: user experience and storage. Before the iPod, the players available could only store a handful of songs, and they were typically hard to use. Apple put it's magic touch and sleek design on a product that was already out there and redefined the vertical almost overnight. The genius of the iPod isn't that it was an MP3 player, it's that it was one that worked well enough for everyone to use.


When the product was first launched, there was still something important missing. There was no iTunes. To get music onto the device, people had to rip CDs and manually feed them onto the Pods via a cable. The iTunes Store wouldn't appear until 2003, at which point Apple cemented its role as the greatest disruptor the music world had ever known.


From there, Apple's market share soared and sales of CDs tanked. Digital music grew rapidly for a decade, and while last year was the first when they dipped, it it still the primary way most people access their music. Now, when a new single is released, many are only sold in digital stores, and a record label mentioning a CD is available in a chain like Target or Walmart (let alone an independent retailer) is an afterthought at best.


The products that followed were probably somewhat influenced by the iPod, but it served a bigger role in Apple's success. With all the money the company earned from massive sales, they were able to invest more in everything from research to production and design, helping make the iPhone a winner from the beginning. The iPod also brought a lot of people back to the company, and put the ideas in their minds that everything Apple was sleek, modern, easy to use from the beginning, and would work well. From there, it became easier for the tech behemoth to enter new spaces confidently.


So, while everybody was busy worrying about unbelievably minute details about a watch, the product that helped kickstart began to disappear from our world. Sure, sales had probably been extremely low for years now and it clearly wasn't a priority (the company hasn't updated the iPod Classic in over four years), but it is fun to think where the tech and music industries would be without the iPod. Rest in peace, clickwheel.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

5 Reasons iPhone 6 Won't Be Popular

Eset nod32 ativirus 6 free usernames and passwords

Apple's self