Culture

The iPod Is Being Discontinued After 21 Years And Everyone’s Kind Of Emotional

"Being alive long enough to witness the birth and death of the iPod is absolutely crushing me right now."

by Reena Gupta  11 May 2022

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Rest In Peace, iPod (2001 – 2022).

Yep, you may have already heard that Apple’s iconic product, the iPod, is being discontinued after 21 years on the market. Now, if you’re like me, you thought that they had been discontinued anyway. But if you’re not, then the news may come as more of a shock.

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After all, many of us remember the time that chunky iPod Classic was unveiled, when Steve Jobs, donned in his classic turtleneck in 2001 stated: “An iBook is really portable,” he said. “But this is ultra portable!” What innocence. What sweet naïveté!

Later, came later models which included a couple of incarnations of the iPod Shuffle (spurring the weird microtrend which saw TikTokers repurpose one model as a hair clip) and the iPod Touch, which allowed broke Millennials to pretend they owned an iPhone when they absolutely did not.

Most of us have become accustomed to listening to music on our phones, and with the rise of streaming services like Spotify, it was only a matter of time before the iPod would become an artefact of times past. But there’s no doubt that the MP3 player changed the way we listened to music forever.

“iPod was a pocket-sized revolution that transformed the music industry and brought happiness to millions,” said Apple’s Senior Vice President of Marketing Greg Joswiak on Twitter this morning. “The spirit of iPod is still with us today.” That’s a bit melodramatic, Greg! But fair enough.

Here are some of our favourite reactions to the big news (best enjoyed with a pared-back, acoustic version of Feist’s ‘1234’ playing on repeat in the background).