A thousand songs in your pocket, scrolled by a click wheel, until the iPhone swallowed it whole.
Born
2001 CE
Died
2022 CE
Lived
21 years
Dead for
4 yrs
At its peak
Over 400 million iPods sold across the line
Cause of death
Replaced
Replaced by
The iPhone and music streaming
The Obituary
Apple’s iPod, launched in 2001 with the promise of “1,000 songs in your pocket,” made portable digital music a mass habit. The mechanical scroll wheel evolved into the touch-sensitive click wheel, and paired with the iTunes Store from 2003 it reshaped how people bought music. Apple sold more than 400 million units. The irony was internal: the 2007 iPhone, which Apple built, made a separate music player redundant, and streaming finished the job. Apple discontinued the final model, the iPod touch, in May 2022.
Worth remembering
The scroll wheel, and later the touch-sensitive click wheel, let you spin through thousands of tracks with a thumb.
Apple's silhouette dancers against bright colours made the white earbuds a status symbol.
Gallery
Original first-generation 2001 Apple iPod with mechanical scroll wheelPhotographer · CC BY 2.5Apple iPod nano, 3rd generationJayden Montes · CC BY-SA 4.0
Sources
Apple released the first iPod in 2001 with a 5 GB hard drive holding ~1,000 songs Wikipedia
Apple discontinued the last iPod, the iPod touch, in May 2022 Wikipedia
Apple discontinued the iPod touch on 10 May 2022, retiring the iPod brand after 21 years. 9to5Mac
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.
Buried nearby — by shared fate or a neighbouring lifespan.
