With a loving tribute to the iPod touch, Apple gives their handheld music player line of products a well-deserved send off. In the Update posted to the Apple Newsroom page, Greg Joswiak is quoted as saying:
“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 — it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “Today, the spirit of iPod lives on. We’ve integrated an incredible music experience across all of our products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch to HomePod mini, and across Mac, iPad, and Apple TV. And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio — there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music.”
Apple’s iPod line ran from October 2001 until May 2022. In the fall of 2007, Apple released an all screen iPod touch based on the iPhone that was released just three months earlier.
When the original iPod was released, I was using a Diamond Rio PMP300. Back then, I was still using a Mac part time, but the focus of my work was moving quickly toward Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 Server. Having an MP3 player that could plug into a parallel port seemed like an advantage. The Rio may have been cheap, but the 2001 Mac-only iPod was a much more elegant product.
Over the years, I had purchased several iPods, starting with 2003’s third-generation white iPod. I loved that thing. I took it everywhere with me. A couple of years later, my fifth generation (2005) white iPod with color screen and H.264 video play back, took over riding shotgun with my Palm Treo.
It was 2007’s iPod touch – released just a few months after the original iPhone – that was a game changer. The first iPod touch brought the paradigm shifting awesomeness of iPhone to those of us who were not on AT&T/Cingular or simply wanted the iPhone without the phone. That fall, I packed my young family into the car, drove an hour away to the nearest Apple Store at the time, and bought one. As a consolation prize, my wife and I took the kids to the Rainforest Cafe that was in the same mall.
The iPod touch and a 2006 while MacBook running an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, were the two devices that switched me back to being a Mac first home user. (I still have to use a Windows PC at work.)
I loved and used my iPod touch all the way up to the fall of 2011 when I was able to finally purchase an iPhone 4S on Sprint (now merged with T-Mobile).
My girls, now iPhone Pro users themselves, both received various iPods over the years, but it was their iPod touch models that were used the most.
For me, these was something exciting about being always able to have your favorite music, movies, TV shows, and games with you all the time. If I could find a free Wi-Fi hotspot, being able to jump on the “real” Internet with Safari and check email with Apple Mail was just so much nicer that using Palm’s Blazer web browser and email client on my Treo.
I’m glad that the iPod touch line ran for as long as it did. Today, in my opinion, the base iPad model takes over for the iPod touch with a much larger screen and a rich feature set. On hearing yesterday’s news that iPod touch was being discontinued, I almost insta-bought one of the 32GB blue and white iPod touch models. I wanted to add it to my iOS museum right next to my original first generation iPod touch. I still might.
While it is nice to take this moment and think about iPod touch, and what the iPod line meant to me, I love my iPhone 13 Pro Max. It can do everything that the iPod touch could so and so much more. I will always have fond memories of the iPods that I used – just like I do for my Apple //e and Macintosh SE, but in the world of personal gadgets, we are always looking forward to the next great thing that will put a dent in the universe.
The iPod touch seventh generation will be the final product in the iPod line. You can still buy one, starting at 32GB for $199, from Apple and authorized resellers while supplies last.