(CNN Business) — Apple said Tuesday it would discontinue production of the last iPod model it still sells, ending the iconic product line that helped usher in a new era for the music industry and tech giant.
Apple said customers can continue to buy an iPod Touch device “while supplies last.” The company also noted that customers can now listen to their favorite songs from a variety of other Apple devices, including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch.
The original iPod, introduced on October 23, 2001, was the first MP3 player with capacity for as many as 1,000 songs and 10 hours of battery life in a design weighing just 185 grams. Source: Apple
“Apple has always had music in its genes. Putting it in the hands of hundreds of millions of users with iPod completely changed the industry and the way we discover, listen to and share music,” said Greg Joswiak, senior vice president Apple’s worldwide marketing, in a statement.
“The legacy of the iPod is still very much with us,” added Joswiak, noting how the music experience introduced by the iPod has been integrated into “all of our products.”
First introduced by the co-founder and then CEO of Apple, Steve JobsBack in 2001, the iPod helped fuel Apple’s tremendous success with portable devices. The iPod attracted customers with its signature scroll wheel and early promise of storing “up to 1,000 CD-quality songs” in a device that fits in your pocket. By mid-2007, more than 100 million iPod devices had been sold.
That same year, Apple introduced the iPhone, which in many ways was the spiritual heir to the iPod Touch. The smartphone and other Apple devices that followed eventually made the iPod feel like a relic of the past, long before it was officially discontinued.
