The classic iPod is dead

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod in 2001, a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the timing was inauspicious and the product given little chance of success. Of course, the iPod did succeed — wildly so — paving the way for iTunes, lots of smaller iPods, the iPhone, the iPad, and Apple's bulging (offshore) bank account. This week, the heir of the original iPod — a rectangular box with a click-wheel on the front, hard drive inside, and no touchscreen, now dubbed iPod Classic — died a quiet death.

Iframe Code

Michael Hiltzik at the Los Angeles Times, one of the people who noticed the iPod Classic disappearing from Apple's online store, notes that few "will lament its passing, even though it marked a revolution in portable music." At this point, all the original iPod had going for it was storage — 160 gigabytes — which is something, but obviously not enough. I'm not as old as Hiltzik, but I still have my first iPod, from early 2002, somewhere, still working, little used. And I understand where he's coming from:

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But hey, at least we'll soon be able to spend lots of money on a groovy watch.