Apple Ends Production of iPods After Nearly 22 Years

The iPod was born with a simple goal: To create a music product that encourages people to buy more Macintosh computers. It would revolutionize consumer electronics and the music business within a few years and make Apple the most valuable company on the planet.

The first arrived in October 2001. It was a small rectangle of pocket-size with a polished steel frame and white face. It weighed 6.5 ounces. It was packaged with white earbuds and 1,000 songs in a custom-colored, moon grey, and came with a set of headphones.

The iPod became a household name in the years following. People walked the streets with their headphones on, for much of the 2000s. The iPod was everywhere.

Apple officially ended all of that on Tuesday. Apple announced that it would end production of its iPod touch product line, ending a nearly two-decade-long run of this product line, which inspired the creation and revolutionized global capitalism in Silicon Valley.

Loup Ventures, a venture capital company that specializes in tech research, estimates that Apple has sold approximately 450 million iPods since 2001 when it introduced the device. It sold only a fraction of the 250 million iPhones last year, with an estimated 3 million iPods.

Apple promised customers that music would continue to live, largely through its iPhone introduced in 2007, and Apple Music, a seven-year-old service that reflects customers’ current preferences. Monthly subscriptions offer access to a wider range of music than the days when 99-cent songs could be purchased and owned on an iPod.