Apple announced today that it has now discontinued the iPod touch, marking the end of an era for the company. Customers can still purchase the latest iPod touch released back in 2019 on the Apple Store and other retailers while supplies last, but Apple is now done manufacturing the iOS-based mobile devices.
“Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry — it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing.
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The original iPod touch was released back in September 2007, and Apple released seven generations of this product over 12 years. The iPod touch was the only iPod to come with iOS, the App Store, and a camera, and the 7th generation iPod touch came with the same A10 processor including in the iPhone 7.
“Today, the spirit of iPod lives on. We’ve integrated an incredible music experience across all of our products, from the iPhone to the Apple Watch to HomePod mini, and across Mac, iPad, and Apple TV. And Apple Music delivers industry-leading sound quality with support for spatial audio — there’s no better way to enjoy, discover, and experience music,” Joswiak said today.
If you want to purchase an iPod Touch before it becomes a collector item, they’re still available at $199 on the Apple Store.
dftf
<p>I still have an <em>iPod Mini (2nd Generation</em>), which has had a number of battery-changes over-the-years, has a 32GB CompactFlash card, and which has the <em>Rockbox</em> open-source OS now running on it. Still works great, and good for when I just want music, but not to be on my phone to do so.</p><p><br></p><p>While other players didn’t appeal as-much to me, I can’t deny with things like the <em>Creative Zen</em>, it sure was nice to just be able to copy music files over using "My Computer" directly and not have to use something like <em>iTunes!</em></p>
dftf
<p>You can likely expect at-least a few more years, given the <em>iPhone 7 and 7+ </em>used the same SoC, and the current <em>iOS</em> <em>15</em> supports both the <em>iPhone</em> <em>6S </em>and<em> 6S+ </em>and the original <em>iPhone SE</em> (2016), both of which are older. (Though some sites suggest that <em>iOS 16 </em>may finally be the one to drop-support for the <em>6S </em>and <em>6S+</em>, so… who-knows?)</p>
dftf
<p>Can’t say I’m surprised… if you ever visited the <em>Apple</em> website in the last few years, the <em>iPod Touch</em> was nowhere to be found at the top of the site, and if you clicked "Store" it didn’t appear there either — the only place is <em>does </em>appear is all-the-way at the bottom of the page, near the bottom of the "Shop and Learn" column!</p><p><br></p><p>Price-wise the <em>iPod Touch</em> goes-for £199 for the 32GB storage model; £299 for 128GB; or £399 for the 256GB one. The cheapest <em>iPhone SE</em> (2022), which shares a similar design, is £419 for 64GB, then £469 for 128GB, or £569 for 256GB. Now the <em>Touch</em> won’t be a-thing in-future, I wonder if there will be a storage-bump in the next <em>iPhone SE</em>, as that will then be the cheapest entry-point device into iOS?</p>