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.
Sources
A graveyard tradition: leave a stone to show you came, and remembered.