Everyone is waiting for Apple’s upcoming keynote event, where it is expected that the new iPhone 5S, the cheaper iPhone 5C and also new iPads will be launched. However, no one is expecting to see a new iPod Classic.
The iPod, which was announced in 2001, was once Apple’s most popular product. Since 2008 the sales have started to steadily decrease as consumers opted for the iPhone or other smartphones, resulting in poor figures. For the first time Apple left iPod figures out of the financial results in its second-quarter announcement.
Forrester analyst Charles Golvin said “I don’t see Apple investing any more into the iPod classic, even just to upgrade the connector.”
The iPod originally fulfilled the need for mass storage, especially where music was concerned but now other products are able to offer the same storage as well as other functions so it makes more sense for Apple to produce the other products.
“Honestly, I think it’s time for [the iPod classic] to be retired,” Boundless app CEO Ariel Diaz said. “It may be serving a small space for lots of music in a compact package, but it’s already an antiquated notion as we move to a world of streaming music instead of local MP3s and AACs.”
That’s not to say that the iPod Classic doesn’t still have a following. However, because it uses different primary components to most other Apple mobile products, it no longer offers any manufacturing benefit.
With the new iWatch on the horizon, it would make more sense for Apple to phase out mobile products that are no longer in demand and instead concentrate on more popular products.
It would be sad to see the iPod slowly disappear forever seeing as it revolutionized the way we listened to and downloaded music, but with Apple’s upcoming announcements hopefully we’ll have new products with which to console ourselves.
