In a stealthy move, Apple has brought to an end the iPod Classic which is considered to be the most durable MP3 player to have stayed in sales stands. The inference is evident from yesterday’s launch of the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 plus and the wearable Apple Watch.
As usual before any new Apple product launch, the company’s official web store went offline ahead of the iPhone 6 launch and reappeared without the Classic at its usual place at its iPod product page.
Apple’s iPod Classic, after 7 long years from its debut, will now vanish from Apple’s authorised stores, which means anyone aspiring to own one will now have to depend on third-party vendors or resellers, and that again only till stocks last.
With this, it’s just the iPod touch, iPod Nano and iPod shuffle left in dedicated MP3 player market from Cupertino.
The last update for the iPod Classic came with a memory upgrade to 160GB. However, the most capacious iPod model available in the line-up packs just 64GB of storage. But still, even with a price tag of $249 for the 160GB, the iPod Classic has reportedly accounted for around 54.83 million unit shipments back in 2009.
The availability of streaming music is said to be another reason why Apple may want to do away with this MP3 player. Streaming music makes high memory capacities redundant with Spotify and Apple’s iTunes taking its place.
