“Get ready to kiss the click wheel goodbye,” Christina Bonnington writes for Wired. “This is the year the iPod classic will die.”
“‘I don’t see Apple investing any more into the iPod classic, even just to upgrade the connector,’ Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told Wired. Anthony Scarsella, chief gadget officer of Gazelle.com, shares a similar sentiment,” Bonnington writes. “‘It’s been a couple of years since the iPod classic has been updated. We can assume it will be phased out, unless we see it updated on September 10th,’ Scarsella said… ‘Honestly, I think it’s time for [the iPod classic] to be retired,’ Boundless app CEO Ariel Diaz said. ‘It may be serving a small space for lots of music in a compact package, but it’s already an antiquated notion as we move to a world of streaming music instead of local MP3s and AACs.'”
Bonnington writes, “The iPod and iTunes transformed the world of music, setting the stage for the iPhone and the mobile revolution. But when the iPhone takes the stage on Tuesday, we may see that same iPod quietly disappear for good.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If true, it will be the end of a very important era for Apple. We’re charging up our old 40GB third-gen. iPod 40GB (US$499 in September 2003!!!) right now for old times’ sake (backlit buttons off the click wheel, no less). Of course, even after sitting in a drawer for years, it still works perfectly.
