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   Eulogy for the iPod classic

   Josh Centers

   Overshadowed by the excitement of Apple's latest product announcements
   was the loss of a long-standing Apple product. On 9 September 2014,
   Apple took its Web site offline briefly to slip in a redesign, new
   iPhone models, and the Apple Watch, but when the site returned, there
   was something missing: the iPod classic, which had been unceremoniously
   scrubbed from both the site and Apple's online store. The 160 GB iPod
   classic is survived by the 2 GB iPod shuffle, the 16 GB iPod nano, and
   the iOS-based iPod touch.

   [1]Image

   It's the end of an era, one that rocketed Apple from a scrappy computer
   company fighting irrelevance to a superpower in the worlds of
   computing, music, mobile telephony, and photography. But while the iMac
   may have brought Apple back from the brink, and the iPhone made the
   company dominant, the path to Apple's glory began on 23 October 2001,
   when [2]Steve Jobs introduced the iPod.

   IFRAME: [3]http://www.youtube.com/embed/kN0SVBCJqLs

   Looking back, it was a surprisingly low-key event (for our original
   coverage, see '[4]Apple iPod Makes Music More Attractive,' 23 October
   2001). There was no cheering, no elaborate on-stage demos, and the
   slides used Marker Felt as a typeface. It was a quiet launch for what
   would be Apple's first major foray out of personal computing. Reactions
   were mixed, and not too dissimilar from initial reactions to the Apple
   Watch announcement. [5]Some even called the iPod 'lame.'

   As the humble iPod gained features ' the 30-pin dock connector, Windows
   compatibility, support for photos and videos ' and split into numerous
   variants, sales soared. Hundreds of millions were sold, and many
   households have an old iPod hanging around in a drawer.

   Alas, when Apple released the iPhone in 2007, followed a few months
   later by the iPod touch, the fate of the traditional iPod line was writ
   large. Touchscreens, not click wheels, were the future of Apple's
   portable devices.

   Well, maybe that's not quite true. As iPod sales continue to sink, the
   Apple Watch, relying as it does on the click wheel's descendent, the
   digital crown, aims to take over as the next big thing (see '[6]Apple
   Previews the New Apple Watch,' 9 September 2014).

   As for the void left by the loss of the 160 GB iPod classic, the new
   128 GB option for the iPhone 6 brings hope that a new iPod touch is
   just around the corner with the same storage capacity. So while the
   iPod classic may be gone, its legacy of putting massive amounts of
   music in your pocket lives on.

References

   1. http://tidbits.com/resources/2014-09/iPod-classic.jpg
   2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN0SVBCJqLs
   3. http://www.youtube.com/embed/kN0SVBCJqLs
   4. http://tidbits.com/article/6605
   5. http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod
   6. http://tidbits.com/article/15057

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