Say goodbye to the iPod era

LOS ANGELES — Let’s say goodbye, finally, to the beloved Apple iPod.

Apple just quietly announced that it was killing the Shuffle and iPod Nano, leaving just iPod Touch as the remaining model, and the Touch is basically the iPhone without phone service. The others were pure music players, like the original iPod. 

This signifies the end of an era. 

Before the iPod, you’ll recall that Apple was just coming back to life. Then-CEO Steve Jobs had returned to the fold and introduced colorful all-in-one iMac computers. Sales paled compared to Windows computers, but the iMacs were well-reviewed and starting to take off.

Meanwhile, the idea of the “Mp3 player,” was starting to resonate with the public. The Diamond Rio and Creative Labs Nomad Jukebox were two of the earliest models, and for the first time, we were able to transfer songs from our computers to devices that enabled us to take portable music with us.

None of the models sold particularly well.

That all changed on Oct. 23, 2001, when Apple introduced the first iPod, It had a built in 5 gigabyte hard drive that Apple said could put “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

Originally, the iPod could only be used with Mac computers, and it wasn’t until that changed in 2004 that sales started to pick up.

This was one year after the introduction of the iTunes Store, which gave consumers an easy, and legal way to buy songs, back then for 99 cents a piece. Remember that record stores were still common and CDs were being sold prominently at Best Buy, Target and Barnes and Noble.

The iTunes Store and the iPod changed all that.

But the iPods grew. The last classic edition of the original iPod had 160 GBs of storage space for songs, people moved onto all-in-one devices.

In 2007, Jobs introduced to the world a new kind of digital play-toy that was a phone, an internet communicator and an iPod, and with that, it was goodbye iPod.

The iPhone, which can do so many things effectively, eventually killed off the interest in a stand-alone music player.

And who cares about storage when you can fit the celestial jukebox on your iPhone, thanks to a service like Spotify, which offers unlimited music streaming to every song you could ever think of.

Now granted, the little iPod is more compact to run or walk with and isn't it nice to have a pure music player in your hands? But you can’t check your e-mail while grooving to the music or find out what time sunset will be.

That, you can do with the iPod Touch, which again, is the iPhone without phone service and the only remaining iPod still for sale on the Apple website. 

Surely, Apple would still be selling the Shuffle, Nano, Mini and other iPod models if consumer interest was still there.

And hey, if you still want one, there are dozens to choose from in used and discontinued but still for sale models available on Amazon, eBay and other marketplaces.

So long, iPod. It’s been a great ride, but truthfully, I haven’t turned you on in years.

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