Apple: Apple retires the last iPod after 15 years in the iPhone shadow

“Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry,” Jowsiak said, arguing the device “redefined” how people discover, listen to and share music. Apple first introduced the iPod on Oct. 23, 2001, touting the handheld device’s ability to play as many as 1,000 songs and releasing a video-capable unit four years later. When then-Apple CEO Steve Jobs first announced the iPhone in San Francisco in 2007, he called it “the best iPod we’ve ever made.”

The Apple iPod is set to be discontinued less than six months before its 21st birthday. The Cupertino-based technology giant stated on Tuesday that Apple will retire the last of its iPod devices, the iPod touch, and will only sell it “while supplies last.” After Apple discontinued sales of the iPod classic in 2014 and the shuffle and nano three years later, the iPod touch was the final one standing. Via a statement issued on Tuesday, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, Greg Joswiak, stated that “the spirit of the iPod lives on” in the company’s other portable hardware devices, all of which can play music, as well as its Apple Music subscription service.

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Although the iPod touch was introduced months after the iPhone, the latter quickly surpassed its predecessor in ubiquity, leading to the widespread use of all-in-one smartphones. Apple’s iPhone revenue surpassed those of the iPod in 2009, and the company announced five years later that it would no longer list iPod sales at all on its quarterly earnings. That same year, Apple discontinued the iPod classic, which was the last model to use the company’s “click wheel.” On the same day Apple announced it would discontinue the iPod touch, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted the company a patent that highlights how its priorities have evolved since the iPod’s introduction.

Apple’s patent for an electric vehicle charging station that operates autonomously was approved on Monday, according to patent and trademark office records. Patently Apple, which first reported the patent, said it’s Apple’s second for the technology.

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