End of an era after 21 years for the Apple iPod

Apple has announced that it is discontinuing production of the iPod Touch, a portable music player released in 2001, 21 years ago, that revolutionized the way people find, listen to and share digital music.

The iPod was not the first MP3 player (the first digital music players appeared in the late 1990s), but it did make a difference. At the time the iPod was released, it could only store 1.000 music tracks, and today has over 90 million songs. The iPod Touch was designed by the same team that later invented the iPhone, which quickly overshadowed the iPod, a kind of "cannibalism" between products of the same company.

Over the years, several iPod models have been released, such as the Nano and Shuffle, which have been discontinued since 2017. The iPod Touch - which was last upgraded by Apple in 2019 - is the latest model to stop production. The latest versions have smartphone features, such as the ability to take photos, send email and video call.

As of 2011, Apple had a 70% share of the global MP3 market and to date has sold about 450 million iPods worldwide (last year it sold 3 million against 250 million iPhones). The company has announced that the iPod will remain available for purchase until stocks run out.

The iPod, unveiled in its well-known 'fantasy' way by Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001, initially had a less ambitious goal: to create a music product that would make consumers want to buy more of its Macintosh computers. Apple. But within a few years, according to the BBC, The Guardian and The New York Times, the device had created a new "generation of iPods" with headphones in their ears wherever they went, changing the music itself. industry and put Apple on the road to becoming - thanks to the iPhone that followed - the company with the highest market value in the world.

Source: RES - EIA