Apple Inc. founded in the 70s is now a trillion dollar company. However, it suffered badly in the late 80s and during the 90s. It was the iPod, released in 2001, that helped bring back the profitability of the company.
Prior to the iPod, there were barely any digital or pocket music players. The only options were the portable cassette players or CD players. The iTunes brought the system of purchasing system online and helped improve sales of song tracks as the piracy of music online was rising rapidly (thanks to Napster).
Toshiba gets a lot of credit for making possible the creation of the iPod. Toshiba is reported to have been working on a mini hard drive and Apple was looking for the same; it was love at first sight for both the companies.
The iPod has had a great run, if the product line continues to stay then it would be 20 years old in 2021. Apple has discontinued most of the iPod lines and now only sells the iPod Touch which is basically an iPhone without SIM support or it can even be called a “mini iPad” (except that it does not support iPadOS).
The current (sixth) generation iPod Touch is powered by Apple’s A10 Fusion Chip which was released alongside the iPhone 7 in 2016. It’s not a bad processor by any means but it still uses just 1GB of RAM which is pretty low in 2019. But it sells for just $199, so it’s agreeable.
The iPod Touch is a great device to buy for kids who are still not ready to have phones. A parental controls will make it a great kids device. However, if the discontinuation of other iPod models is any hint, we expect Apple to kill the iPod brand altogether in 2020 or 2021.
