94 MACWORLD DECEMBER 2021
PLAYLIST HOW THE i POD PAVED THE WAY FOR APPLE’S SUCCESSToday, the iPod lives on only in the iPod touch.The full-size iPod was discontinued in
2014 after it had spent five years without
an update. The nano and shuffle lasted
until 2017. Today, the iPod lives on only in
the iPod touch, which, to be fair, bears far
more resemblance to the iPhone than to
any other iPod. (The iPod itself was at one
point essentially reduced to an app on
the iPhone, which bore an icon of the
little music player, but even that is long
gone now.)
In 2008, at the peak popularity of the
device, Apple sold 54.8 million iPods.
While Apple no longer reports unit sales
of its products, in the latter half of
the 2010s it was on average
selling that many iPhones
every quarter. The
difference from this
vantage point is clear:
Fundamentally, the iPod
was always a device built
for entertainment, and thus
it was a luxury.
Smartphones have by
comparison become an
actual necessity for many
people’s lives.
Twenty years on from
the iPod’s introduction, it’s
odd to think of a time
when Apple’s biggest
product was mostly for
listening to music. But
though that era may be behind us now,
its legacy survives in the form of Apple
itself. The iPod paved the way for the
tremendous and unprecedented success
Apple has seen.
Without the iPod raising Apple’s profile
and bolstering its bottom line, it’s unlikely
that the company could have gotten to the
point where it could release the iPhone...or
the iPad...or the Apple Watch...or whatever
comes next. It’s not overstating matters to
say that Apple owes all of its success to
that little white rectangle and the future it
brought with it. ■