Apple discretely removed their complete line of iPod products, surprisingly, without any public announcement. They did not even bother to mention the demise of the iPod when the iPhone 6 and the Apple Watch was introduced in the event.
The bottom-line is, Apple no longer offers an iPod (or iPod Touch) with a storage capacity greater than 64GB, whereas the iPod Classic could store up to 160GB.
What made the iPod so different?
The keynote delivered by Jobs in 2001 revealing the iPod, which started a new revolution in the music industry, received an extraordinary standing ovation like never seen before. At that time, the general public was used to CD Players and heavy portable hard drives. Before digital music players, people had to carry CDs or cassettes in bulky cases. Listening to a favorite song required the user to change the CD/Cassette just for a single song.
The iPod held much more music than a typical MP3 player, and the use of FireWire meant transfer speeds were much faster than the much slower USB.
But, what killed the iPod?
When the iPod Classic was introduced – and given its new, elegant design – the iPod Touch was also born. It had the advantages of an iPhone bar & cellular connectivity, along with a price matching the rest of the iPod line. This is one of the reasons the iPod was taken off Apple's shelves. However, Apple CEO Tim Cook, during an interview at the WSJD Live Conference, revealed that the decision to ax the click wheel iPod was due to parts."We couldn't get the parts anymore. They don't make them anymore," said Cook, according to Engadget. "We would have to make a whole new product … the engineering work to do that would be massive … The number of people who wanted it (the iPod) is very small."
In Apple's annual report, the company has been claiming that sales of digital downloads are falling rapidly due to the increase in online streaming services. Futuresource Consulting claimed that revenues from music streaming services like Spotify are already generating $3 billion annually from U.S. and European consumers. Forecasts reveal that by the end of this year, there will be 20 million paying subscribers in the Western world, implying that in the past 2 years, the demand for online streaming music has more than doubled. The RIAA stated that over the first six months of 2014, revenues from music streaming services were up by 28 percent.
Thus, due to Apple's incapability to produce parts, along with the rise of online music streaming services, eventually caused the demise of the iPod.
Apple chucked out their entire line of ipods in a bid to sell more iphones and macbooks
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