It is the end of an era. Apple recently announced that they were discontinuing the legendary iPod, which is now in its 7th generation of production.
When first released more than fifteen years ago, the iPod was an instant smash hit that almost singlehandedly created the digital music industry, moving it from the shadowy frontier of P2P file sharing services to mainstream respectability.
That’s not bad for a device that costs just under two hundred bucks.
If you don’t yet have an iPod but you feel like you want one, the time to act is now before they’re gone. Although the company has stopped manufacturing new iPods, you can still buy one while supplies last. In case you weren’t aware, the latest version of the iPod is more than just a simple music player – it’s also a surprisingly good digital camera and can even be used as a handheld gaming device.
The 7th generation iPod was released in May of 2019. It sports a fairly powerful A10 Fusion chip paired with a four-inch Retina display and boasts up to 256 GP of storage space.
Apple seldom provides details about why they’ve decided to cancel a given product and they’ve kept with that tradition here, but the reasons are easy enough to guess. Apple was hit particularly hard by the supply chain issues the pandemic caused and given the increase in the capabilities of today’s smartphones, the iPod was increasingly relegated to niche product status.
Even so, it’s a good product and surprisingly versatile. About the only thing you can’t do on it is make phone calls. If that sounds like something you’d be interested in owning, you still have a small window of opportunity to pick one up before they’re gone for good.
Farewell, iPod. You were ahead of your time, and you will be missed.