When Apple unveiled the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, the company also made something go away: the iPod Classic, the last of the clickwheel music players. In Apple fashion, the product’s disappearance wasn’t explained. It simply vanished from Apple’s website.
However, CEO Tim Cook has revealed why the iPod Classic was discontinued: Apple could no longer buy the parts to make it.
Cook has explained during an interview at the Wall Street Journal’s WSJD conference in response to a question from the audience.
Business Insider has the full quote:
“We couldn’t get the parts anymore, not anywhere on Earth,” Cook said. “It wasn’t a matter of me swinging the ax, saying ‘what can I kill today?’”
Cook said the demand for the device just didn’t justify putting big research-and-development bucks into redesigning it.
At the heart of the final iPod Classic was a 160-GB hard drive made by Toshiba, a product that dates back to 2009. If sales of the device were low, it’s likely the demand wasn’t enough to keep Toshiba building it. It’s also older, slow technology – spinning at 4,200 RPM – and thus wouldn’t be in demand for other devices either.
If you don’t want to spend the bucks for a 128-GB iPhone 6 or 6 Plus for your massive music collection, then your only choice for onboard storage is the 64-GB iPod Touch. That has less than half the space of the iPod Classic, but you can always fall back on iTunes Match for cloud-based storage.
(Image Source: iCLIPART)
