Apple has announced the discontinuation of the iPod Touch, the last remaining model in its family of portable music players. It will be on sale as long as stock lasts .

Image Source: Apple

Having finished making dedicated music players, the company said the “iPod spirit lives on” in all of its music-playing devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and HomePod Mini.

The discontinuation of the iPod Touch marks the end of an era. Apple noted that the first iPod was introduced “over 20 years ago” . The first FireWire model was just a portable music player; Apple produced models exclusively for listening to audio until 2017, when it discontinued the iPod Nano and Shuffle. While the iPod Touch was hailed by some enthusiasts as the new classic music player, it also found a following among those who wanted an iPhone-like experience but didn’t need a smartphone.

The seventh generation iPod Touch, which was discontinued on Tuesday, May 10, was introduced in 2019, along with the iPhone 7 smartphone. The previous model of the player was released in 2015.

It was already clear to everyone that the time of music players was over. Most people are not too interested in carrying a second device with them, the functions of which a smartphone can very well perform.

Tony Fadell, one of the designers of the original iPod, told The Verge that the iPod team knew that iPhones could eventually bypass music players by taking over their functions.