Apple has quietly dropped the iPod Classic, bringing an end to the genre-defining form factor.
The iPod Classic was ushered out of the Apple line-up after yesterday’s product refresh, which saw the arrival of two new iPhones and the Apple Watch.
The Apple Store now only lists the iPhone-like iPod touch, the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle.
Although the iPod Classic obviously went through several design iterations since the 2001 launch of the original iPod, it was the only model to retain the original clickwheel design and offer huge storage capacity.
The highest capacity iPod now available is the 64GB version of the touch, which costs £249 inc VAT, whereas the £180 iPod Classic offered 160GB of storage. Stores such as Tesco and Argos do still have some stock remaining of the discontinued Classic.
The concept of a dedicated music player has fallen by the wayside in an era when most people now use their smartphones for that purpose, often relying on cloud music services such as Spotify or Apple’s own iCloud. iPod sales have decreased quarter-on-quarter since 2009, and 2013 was the first year that Apple didn’t introduce a new model of the player.
The iPod Classic does live on in one small way, however – it remains the icon for the iPod on the Apple Store. RIP.
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