Speaker 1: This amazing little device holds a thousand songs and it goes right in my pocket.
Speaker 2: After 20 years, the era of the iPod is over. Apple is discontinuing the iPod touch, thereby killing the iPod product line. The iPod didn't have to die. It shouldn't have died, but here we are trying to keep it spirit alive. Inside this
Speaker 2: It's official. SanDisk wins the [00:00:30] MP3 player wars. It outlived the iPod nice work buddy, on May 10th, 2022 apple announced it will no longer be making any iPod touches and it will sell its last units while supplies last. What many consider to be a wannabe iPhone for kids starts at $200. There are models in 32 gigs, 128 gigs and 256 gigabytes of memory. It also comes in six colors. So that's the end for [00:01:00] the iPod line of products. It's a bit disappointing to think that the gadget that changed the music industry had its final form as a non phone iPhone, or, you know, maybe you could think of it as a game console with a camera. It's just not dignified for the iPod to go out like that. She's like a Hollywood movie icon who got too much plastic surgery becoming something unrecognizable to stay relevant, but certainly no one was gonna buy the iPod touch just because they needed a [00:01:30] portable music player. Let's recap how we got here and why you should be paying your respect.
Speaker 1: Boom, that's iPod. I haven't had one right here in my pocket fact. There it is right there.
Speaker 2: The first iPod came out in October of 2001. iTunes software was new, just a baby, not even a year old yet this model of iPod featured a scroll [00:02:00] wheel that you physically turned with your finger and had five or 10 gigs of storage. And it had an actual hard drive inside of it. Don't drop it. <laugh> no seriously it was doomed if you dropped it. This was not the first portable MP3 player, but it made an incredible splash because it was easy for folks to load it up and buy songs. Its tagline was 1000 songs in your pocket. The iPod started this transformation for apple to go from a computer manufacturer to the giant company. [00:02:30] It is today and as Apley evolved and reinvented itself. So did the iPod layering more features onto each generation, different wheel controls, adding color to display for viewing photos, adding more storage coming in different sizes, like the iPod mini with all its color options.
Speaker 2: The iPod shuffle made life unpredictable by dropping the display. So you can skip around and shuffle a random song. It later came in a clip format to attach anywhere on your clothing. With earbuds connected, the shuffles [00:03:00] kept changing forms, giving people who like working out with music, different options, the iPod nano put a spin on the mini. And by 2007, the iPod classic was introduced with a whopping 160 gigs of storage and a click wheel in 2009, the nano added a camera and a microphone. And then we got the nano that basically looked like an apple watch. Heck you could attach a band and make it a watch.
Speaker 3: It's called the iPod touch
Speaker 2: [00:03:30] In September of 2007, we got the iPod touch, which looked and worked very much like the iPhone. You could browse the internet, watch YouTube and buy songs over wifi. Over the years, I got a few upgrades and colors and cameras and storage. The most recent model is the 2019 model. It maxes out at 256 gigs of storage with a FaceTime HD camera. And really these shifts show you where Apple's priorities live and getting users on devices, where [00:04:00] they can make more purchases and spend more time on their screens. Not just something you can load up with music, but rather a gadget that keeps you hooked onto subscriptions like apple music, apple TV, and apple arcade. Instead of having something that gave customers an easy option for playing music app leaned into pushing customers, to just do everything on their more expensive iPhone. And if you wanted to go for a run with your music without bringing a phone, well, that's gonna be more complicated and probably now involve you needing to buy an apple watch and Bluetooth earbuds.
Speaker 2: And if you want to sync up [00:04:30] some music to your watch offline, you have to do some tinkering in the apple watch app. By default, you can have music that you've listened to recently automatically added to your apple watch, and you don't need to be near your phone to listen to it, but you can get a little messy, a little tricky. If you want some manual control, you have to make a playlist and then add that playlist or add it by album. There's not a clear user friendly list of what is exactly stored on your watch at any given time. Uh, Spotify also let you download a playlist or album [00:05:00] to your apple watch as well. Now apple moved on from the iPod because music now lives in all of its different apple products, but the original spunky independent spirit of the iPod is arguably dead.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to take your music to a friend's party and just plug it into their stereo unless they pair their Bluetooth or you bring your own speaker. You see, everything's very personalized now adding complications. And if you have an apple watch, which starts at $200, [00:05:30] you may get a few songs on there while you're offline, but you just gotta make playlists through apple music or Spotify ahead of time to have it sync as the watch charges, as we lean more into streaming services to handle our growing playlists and libraries, we lose some control. So maybe I'm not nostalgic for the iPod itself necessarily. I'm just a little nostalgic for a time when we had a little more control of our music files without so many interfaces to juggle and buying extra accessories. But you [00:06:00] know, things are always simpler when yet pay for that wireless plan on that watch and sign up for apple music rest in piece iPod, you change music for everyone too bad streaming killed the MP3 star. Be sure to like it, subscribe to get more videos on our channel. Just like this one. And let me know what empty three player you loved. What, what got you right here? And do you still have it and how do you get your music today? In the meantime, I'm gonna throw it back. Let's go back in time a little bit. Hey, sand's the sand disc. [00:06:30] Oh yeah, it still works. Ah, take me back to this college days. You so cool back then. I'm still cool.
