Apple has announced that the iPod Touch will soon be no more. This was the last remaining model in its lineup of portable music players. In a news post on Tuesday, the company says that it will sell the available Touch “while supplies last.”
While Apple may be done with making dedicated music players, the company says that “the spirit of iPod lives on” in all of its devices that play music, such as the iPhone, iPad, and HomePod Mini.
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The end of the iPod Touch marks the end of an era indeed, The first iPod was introduced “over 20 years ago.” The original FireWire-equipped model acted as just a portable music player, and Apple made models that were pretty much exclusively for listening to audio up until 2017 when it discontinued the Nano and Shuffle. While the iPod Touch has been embraced by some enthusiasts as the new classic music player, it also found a following for those who wanted an iPhone-like experience but didn’t actually need a phone.
The writing has always been on the wall for owners of this now gone music player for a while. The seventh-gen iPod Touch Apple discontinued Tuesday was introduced in 2019 via a press release. While the iPhone 11 would be released later that year, the 2019 touch had the same A10 processor as the iPhone 7. The sixth-gen iPod Touch was launched in 2015, the time between releases and older hardware made it clear that Apple wasn’t looking to spend much time on the a dedicated music player.
The way we listen to music has evolved and no one can blame the company for that. Most people aren’t particularly interested in carrying a second device that is dedicated to music only. We are also sure that the music player team knew the iPhone could end up overtaking music players.
While the iPod may soon be no more, it’s hard to completely do away with something so iconic. We’ll likely continue to see modification projects from enthusiasts or web experiences designed to evoke nostalgia for the age of dedicated music players.
