Today, Apple Debuted A Watch And Killed The iPod Classic

Image courtesy of So Cal Metro

Earlier today, Apple somehow took almost two hours to announce some slightly bigger smartphones and a pricey phone accessory, then throw a surprise U2 concert. There was something that they didn’t announce during that presentation, though: the end of the original click-wheel iPod.

Well, maybe they did announce it, but Consumerist staff missed it because we were either having trouble with the livestream or dozing off from boredom.

Probably not, though. We didn’t hear any mention of the device’s demise until people started browsing the online store this afternoon after Bono left the stage.

Apple has sold hundreds of millions of iPods, at least a dozen of which were warranty replacements belonging to me. (The iPod Photo was a terrible product.) The click wheel itself sort of lives on in the iPod Shuffle, but all portable gadgets that Apple sells with screens now have touchscreens. The iPod Classic has still been on the market, hanging out in a corner of the website for people who want to carry 160 GB of music around with them at all times in case of an emergency where they have a sudden need to play Abbey Road straight through.

Of course, on the Apple Store site, the company still uses an old-school click-wheel iPod with a screen to represent the iPod section, since the modern iPod touch would be indistinguishable from a smartphone. This is similar to computer programs that use an icon of a 3.5 inch floppy disk to represent the concept of “Save.”

Screen Shot 2014-09-09 at 5.53.46 PM

Peace out, original iPod: 13 years was a pretty good run.

Apple says a silent goodbye to iPod classic [CNET]

(Thanks to Chuck for pointing this out!)

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