Production ends after 21 years
Apple finally gives up the iPod
05/10/2022 10:34 p.m
It is the iPod that gives Apple’s success story the necessary boost. After 20 years, the group has now announced that the production of the last model will no longer be continued.
Apple’s iPod players are history after more than 20 years. The last remaining model – the iPod touch – will only be available while stocks last, the group announced today. On October 23, 2001, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs presented the first iPod, of course wearing a black turtleneck sweater. The coolest thing about the iPod is that the entire music collection fits in your trouser pockets, Jobs had announced at the time. The first generation iPods still had a moveable, rotating scroll wheel and a 5 GB hard drive. 1000 songs could be stored on it. The price was US$399. Also, the device was only compatible with Mac computers.
Introduced shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the iPod was not a big seller in its first year. Only from 2004 showed up loud Statista a significant increase in sales. Within a few years, Apple managed to achieve a market share of 70 percent in digital music players with the iPod. Ultimately, with the iPod, Apple expanded its business beyond computers and gave the music market a digital boost. The success of the devices paved the way for entering the smartphone market with the iPhone.
“Music has always been a core focus of Apple. The iPod brought music to hundreds of millions of users and that has impacted more than just the music industry – it has also redefined how music is discovered, how it is heard and how it is shared,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of global marketing.
Apple had already discontinued the iPod classic, which was based on the original, in 2014 and smaller models such as the iPod nano in 2017. The iPod touch is a kind of slimmed-down iPhone without cellular technology. Apple now refers to its iPhone models as an alternative, among other things.