“Apple has killed off the iPod nano and the iPod shuffle, the last remaining music players in its lineup that were solely dedicated to playing music. It has gotten rid of their web pages and no longer sells them online; those feeling nostalgic have to hit up Best Buy or other retailers while supplies last,” Hayley Tsukayama writes for The Washington Post. “With them go the legacy of the iPod — a device that helped revitalize Apple — and the last vestiges of a gadget-driven tech era.”
“Devices dedicated to one thing are so every-decade-before-this-one,” Tsukayama writes. “So the writing has been on the wall for these iPods for a while. Apple hasn’t even released sales numbers for iPods since 2014, when it lumped them into its “Other Products” category after quarters of sliding interest. That same year, we bade farewell to the iPod Classic — the last design descendant of the original iPod that made mobility a key focus of the firm.”
“In terms of their impact on Apple, the nano and the shuffle weren’t nearly as groundbreaking — although the iPod nano sold very well in its day — nor as central to the Apple identity as the first iPods. They couldn’t tap the App Store, as their successor, the iPod touch, can. But they had their role to play in setting Apple’s reputation among consumers,” Tsukayama writes. “The iPod touch is now the standard bearer for the iPod name — an iPhone in every respect except for its lack of a cellular connection. In some ways, it’s poetic. The iPhone got a boost from the iPod’s name and the Apple reputation it helped build. Now it’s taken over its predecessor completely.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: R.I.P. iPod nano and iPod shuffle.
Best Buy still has new iPod nanos for sale for $149.99 here and new iPod shuffles ($49.99) here.
Get ’em while you can!
Interns, you know what to do.
SEE ALSO:
Apple discontinues iPod nano and iPod shuffle – July 27, 2017
I loved the red iPod nano 2nd gen, but you couldn’t ever upgrade its memory and updating the battery was a difficult task. Farewell iPod nano, I’ll miss you.
If it is the end of the gadget era why is there a watch, an Apple TV, and soon a networked Speaker?
The items going away were tethered gadgets and everything going forward is networked.
It’s the end of AN era (a gadget era), not of THE era. There’s a difference.
I remember a time when iPod sales were surging , quickly becoming over 40% of Apple’s earnings , staggering giants like Sony (Watchman), and then there was iTunes ! Which became the biggest music retailer in the world …
the success was so wonderful pundits (idiots) said Apple should DROP THE MAC and become a music business as didn’t Jobs himself say “The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago.” (in 1996).
INSTEAD Jobs doubled down like a madman on Mac production making dozens of models, like all the way from clunky ORANGE plastic iBooks to sleek Macbook Airs all within a few years. Jobs ran GIANT Mac advertising campaigns (Mac/PC guy had 66 different ads in 4 years .. i.e one NEW Ad a MONTH !)
Today iPod is all but dead and Macs even with years of profound Tim Cook neglect (some Macs are 5 years old. Would you buy an iPhone as new a 5 year old iPhone ? No Mac MARKETING.. like ZERO ads… ) -Macs STILL make the most hardware money after iPhone.
Macs take about 30-40% of PC world profits today. If it was separate business it would rank around 100+ on Fortunes 500 list .
(where would it be if TC and gang had paid real attention to it? like advertise during the Win 8 fiasco years ? probably billions more profit today )
(btw: Apple escaped by the skin of it’s teeth having Windows and Linux machines in its billions dollars state of the art new Campus by rushing out Kaby Lake Macs and having the eGPU WORK AROUND– which they are SELLING TO DEVELOPERS — as NO current Mac has enough GPU power for advanced AR/VR — !! or for probably for that matter advanced 3D design for new Apple hardware. Ive had designers work YEAR and HALF on DOOR HANDLES on the Campus and specially European milled tables while NEGLECTING THE MACS THAT SAT ON THEM…. ! ! )
Maybe lessons should be learnt from all this.
Just imagine how much knowledge it’s acquiring by moving into different fields related to infrastructure and architecture: Solar use, building trades, plumbing, electricity and power distribution, green power, material science, plant sciences, sustainability, and God knows what else as it pays close attention to the development of its Spaceship campus.
No one knows Apple’s next field of endeavor just as no one outside of Apple knew that it would go from desktops to phones.
Therefore, Apple’s internal, secret plan cold be devined by studying all the things that you say are diverting it from satosfying pro users and long time loyalists who focus on updating the desktop.
” plumbing, ”
but they couldn’t work on Macs as well?
(a company with $200 billion in the bank, with designers working on door handles, coffee table books, Christmas trees, fashion shows, furniture for charities etc)
Apple execs themselves already said they made mistakes with the Mac specifically for the lack of GPUs as their new big direction is AR/VR (that’s why they had that Mac Pro apology meeting, the current desperate eGPU work around for developers… )
but you say no (even Apple execs don’t get it.. ) , that learning “Plumbing” is more important that keeping Macs up to date for the development and use of AR/VR, Apple’s next big product initiative????
???
I know that people want to defend Apple but your excuses sound kinda of silly huh?
So if I want to go run or workout with a small music player, my choice is?
Apple Watch
or
?
They really should keep the Shuffle or Nano.
With more than 16G of storage. All the R&D is more than fully amortized. And sell ’em cheap (I know, antithetic to Apple). Idiots. I don’t WANT a device that tracks me all the time. Guess I shall look elsewhere. Leaving money on the table.
Agreed! This is a huge mistake. What is the purpose? A company the size of Apple should not be downsizing — EXPANDING!!!
Dumb, da da dumb …
How about you iPhone? I’ve used it for years now either in my shorts pocket or using an arm band.
The addition of the Apple Watch makes it easier to track time, distance etc and I have to worry about taking the phone out and dropping it.
The airpods have now completed to setup with the best bluetooth / earbud sound quality I have experienced to date.
How many iPods do you think Apple really sell in the past year? Most people now have phones that carry their music. It is time for the iPod (outside of the touch models) to be retired.
Parents of children should have a smaller, less expensive option than the high end touch models. Taking away customer choice in various sizes is a really bad move for consumers.
Absolutely NO RATIONAL REASON for less choice except the usual ARROGANT APPLE RESPONSE: “we decided.”
Sad …