SAN FRANCISCO: Apple on Tuesday put out word it is no longer making iPods, the trend-setting MP3 players that transformed how people get music and gave rise to the iPhone.

Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs introduced the devices nearly 21 years ago with his legendary showmanship flare, and the small, easy to operate players helped the company revolutionise how music was sold.

It packed “a mind-blowing 1,000 songs” the company said at the time, and together with Apple’s iTunes shop established a new distribution model for the music industry.

Apple said in a blog post that the current generation of iPods will only be available as long as current supplies last.

“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,” said Apple senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Greg Joswiak.

In addition, the Apple Music subscription service provides streaming access to more than 90 million songs, the Silicon Valley giant said. The iPod endured despite analyst worries that the release of the iPhone in 2007 would destroy demand, since the smartphones provided much more than just digital music.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2022