There’d be NO iPhone without iPod!

Let's move on

Let's talk about the end of an era, you know? It's a sad week for those of us who are true Apple fans

Maybe you don't care about the story. And if you don't, then I would say you're probably like between the ages of like 15 and 20

And the kids these days, you know, the iPhone's too good for those kids

You know what I'm saying, Lewis? They've got no respect. They don't know how good they got it. They don't know how good they got it

And they don't realize that the iPod is, was the beginning of an error where you would have all your music on you at all times

I remember when the iPod came out, it was truly revolutionary. At that time, in those days, it was not easy carrying music around with you

Like, I'll tell you what I used to do. I used to have a mini, a mini, a mini, a mini disc player, a Sony mini disc player

which was a beautiful device. And I would rip my music to it from CDs

And it would take hours. It was a real time one to one thing

Oh, wow. So, like, if I wanted to record a CD, I had to leave the minidisc player recording for like 90 minutes, right

Connected to my computer. It was crazy. And there was no easy way to add digital music to anything

Or you could have, like, cassettes or something. people were still using cassettes. They weren't popular, but they were still around

Carrying big cases full of CDs. Yeah. And do you remember those, do you remember those CD wallets that would connect to the thing in your car, right

Yeah, on the visor. The visor in your car. So you can have all your CDs in there and my car like a multi-just change

You go right a corner. Absolutely. Like, I had a huge nylon notebook full of CDs

I mean, that's what things were like back in the day. people just couldn't carry around music

And then iTunes came out. The iPod came out. And you could just download music to the iPod and carry all that music with you

wherever you went. Like that was truly a revolution. And it was like Leander Keeney said in one of his stories

So Leander, well, one of his books, he wrote a book. It was the cult of iPod book

Wasn't it, Lewis? Yeah, the cult of iPod. And he had a great line in it, which I was going to have you read Lewis

but I'm just going to say this first line. Fire, the wheel, and the iPod

And I was like, that's a dang good line. In the history of inventions, gadgets don't come more iconic

than Apple's digital music player, which is true. I mean, the Zune came close

Did you ever see the Brown Zune? Oh, yeah. Leander was a big fan of that, actually, back in the day

Leander was a big fan of the Zune. In fact, there were episodes where he talked about

how much he liked the Zune. That's how long we've been doing this show. Yeah, he wrote a big column back at Wired about it

So, anyway, talk about Brown. The Brown Zoo. That was a great marketing decision, wasn't it

We need a brown one. Brown is the new black. So, as many of you probably heard, Apple has discontinued the iPod

It is truly the end of an era. Look at that beautiful iPod. Man, what a great industrial design

Apple has stopped making it. They announced that they are discontinuing the iPod Touch this week

which I didn't even realize was still for sale because it's been so long since we've talked about it

I kind of wonder what version of iOS it's running. It's probably like iOS 11 or something

iOS 10. And Apple says that they are going to keep selling it

while supplies last, but after that it will be gone. So if you want a piece of memorabilia

a piece of tech history, you might want to pick one of those up while you still can

what we're going to say, Lewis? The 7th gen one runs iOS 15

You're kidding. iOS 15. It's basically an iPhone without a cell connection, right

I mean, that's what iPod touch is. Yeah, that's truly amazing. So for those you that don't remember, quick history listen

iPod. Wow. Wow. And the iPod revolutionized the music industry and helped make the MP3 ubiquitous

hailed as the 21st century Walkman. And Steve Jobs was a huge. fan of Sony and of the Walkman. So it's, it's really fascinating to me that he took that technology

and that concept and took it to a whole different level. And Sony didn't actually, wasn't actually

able to do that same thing because they didn't have, they didn't have the, um, the ability to see

into the future, to appear to the future and see where we were, we were all headed. And they were

busy creating mini disc players, which is what I had, which was a absolutely stunningly beautiful

device, but not very technically capable, although it did sound incredible. Apple says

Today the experience of taking one's music into the world has been integrated across Apple's product line

the iPhone and Apple Watch to iPad and Mac the iPod simply became obsolete

no one's buying them anymore because yeah the iPod lives on in all of our devices Lewis

yeah they took a little bit of ways to get around to that point in their press release

so her pressure is all about how digital music exists and it's fantastic and it's going by the way

we killed the iPod. At the very end, right? Whoops. It's also interesting to me

how unceremonious Apple is with a lot of these kinds of decisions

They just kill stuff. I actually think it's pretty amazing that Apple killed the iPod

at all. And I think that's one of things that is really special about Apple

And it was something that was driven by Steve Jobs. He had like this line. I remember I'm paraphrasing that

You can't be afraid to kill the baby because someone else is going to do it, which is kind of a crass way of saying

if you have this popular technology that is making you a lot of money

you have to be willing to make it obsolete in order to move past it

And I don't think that most companies would have had the foresight to do that. Like

they would have just kept making the iPod forever because iPod sell

In fact, look at Sony. Like Sony kept making versions of the Walkman First it started with tape players And then they had the disc men right So it was essentially the same concept but a different medium It was CDs instead of tapes

And then they made the mini disc player. So it took the CD player and just made it smaller

But it was the same thing. They never, they never moved on because they kept selling them and they just kept making

them and making them until they no longer sold. And Apple didn't do that

They took the bold step of actually. killing the entire device, even though it was hugely profitable for them because they saw that

eventually this time would come to an end and people needed something that was bigger and more broad

than the iPod. And they came out with the iPhone. They integrated the technology into the iPhone and

it obsoleted the iPod, which I don't think most companies would have had the bravery to

actually do. You know what I'm saying, Loose? Sure. Yeah. I mean, but on the other hand

they did keep selling them until, you know, yesterday. Well, they're still selling them now

Let's see. No, apparently they're sold out now. Oh, they are? Okay, I'm not going to go. Store

Dot Apple.com. The pressurously said that they would be available until, you know, while supplies last

Uh-huh. But the latest thing is like, sorry, they're gone. They're actually gone already? No, I've got to look this up

Well, that's the headline I read on cult of mac.com. I haven't actually had a chance to read the story yet because that seems pretty self-explanatory

Well, Lewis, I hate to break this to you. What? You can still buy one? No, come on

That's not exactly accurate. It looks like they are still available on Apple's website

The space gray is. Yeah. iPod Touch. Someone's getting a... Oh, someone's getting flogged

Hold on now. Let me try. Let me try this. This is the space gray

The 32 gigabytes. 32 gigabytes. Come on. Dude, 32 gigabytes is 200 bucks

Oh, wait. It looks like it is sold out. Hold on. There we go

Let's look. Is this one still available? 32 gigabytes of silver. It says

it doesn't say sold out, but it also says that you can't buy it. So maybe it is

That sounds sold out to me. Yeah, it looks like it might be sold out. I'm looking at all the other colors

Don't question the cult of Mac. I should never have questioned the cult of Mac. It's never a good idea

I'm not going to sit here and check all of the the different sizes. But yeah, it looks like they might actually be sold out now

That's crazy. If you want one, I think eBay is the way to go at this point. Yeah. Or maybe, you know, maybe Best Buy or something

You know what I mean? It might be available with some outlets. Who knows? Oh, yeah, Best Buy. Excuse me, probably got some

If you won't want a couple in the back. Man, I remember my first, my first iPod

I know that, I know that you never owned one, Lewis. I don't know if you're going to admit that here on the show

But you never own one. I had an iPod color. And I love that thing, man

It was actually, you know what? Let me send it to you to read this, this excerpt from Leander's cult of iPod book

because I feel like this actually perfectly describes what the iPod became to an entire generation of people

You want me to do a dramatic reading? Maybe not dramatic. Maybe just read it without doing the British accent because I heard your British accent earlier and it needs work

That would be dramatic. That would be tragic. tragic comic That was more accurate, yeah

What are you talking about here The iPad is to the 21st century

What the big band was in the 20s iPod I did it We were talking about this earlier

We cannot stop saying iPad I know for some reason Both of us keep saying iPad I have no idea why embarrassing

Okay let me start over The iPod Yep Is to the 21st century

What the big band was in the 20s The radio to the 40s Or the jukebox to the 50s

The signature technology That defines the musical culture of the era. And what a marvelous technology iPod is, was I guess. Inside Apple's little white

boxes, magic, pure magic, and the guise of music. That's pretty solid stuff, isn't it

Yeah. The part that I liked is... I didn't even get to the part you wanted to hear. The part

that you haven't read, though. You want to keep killing? Like a cell phone or a laptop. The iPod

is kept close and carried everywhere. It's used every day, but not for work or to enslave you by

persistent contact. The iPad, I'm saying it again. You can't do it. The iPod is used to invoke

euphoria. People are in love with music. The sparkling genius of the iPod is that it gives it to you in

huge doses. The iPod can store an entire lifetime worth of music. I don't know if that's actually

technically accurate, but I mean it is now. We get it. But now when the iPod came out

And so it becomes the most personal of personal devices. More than a computer, a car or a fancy pair of shoes, it's part of your makeup, your personality. Did I get to the part

you wanted to hear? Yeah, that was exactly it, is it became a part of your personality, because

never before could you just carry all this music with you. And now you had all this music with

you and you listen to it in all these different events and all these different moments in your life. And you could never do that before easily. So when you're in the car, when you're on a flight

when you're on a drive, you could just pull up anything. And it added a soundtrack to your

life. And I think that's what made it special to so many of us is all of a sudden we were able

to bring our music with us wherever we went. And that was just never possible before

You know, and that was that was that was truly, well, that was one of my first introductions

into the Apple ecosystem. I think for a lot of people, the iPod was their first Apple device

And much like the iPhone, it was such a euphoric device. Like it was just so well built and so well

thought through and the aesthetic was so beautiful that it made. you fall in love with the device and it did feel like a part of you. And then you started to

wonder, well, I wonder what else is in the Apple ecosystem that might make me feel that way

And then I got a power book. And that also made me feel that way. And that was like my

introduction, my hook into the Apple ecosystem. And I was just reading Twitter this week because

there are a lot of people that were kind of like talking about their first iPod experiences and

their first Apple experiences. And the iPod was it for a lot of people. It was actually

surprising to see how many people were lured in to a love of Apple because the iPod was just such an iconic and beautiful device And it really was beautiful I mean the the the the I think it was one of the first

products, at least for me, that truly demonstrated Apple's unparalleled ability to build an

aesthetically beautiful device that was also very functional. And most technology just wasn't built

that way. It was cheap. It was plasticy. It was garbage. And then here you have this thing that looks like it belongs in a museum

It was made by an artist. And then it just worked exactly the way you would want it to work

That click wheel action. And that click wheel action, man, I do kind of miss that

And we got Dipsy do in the chat saying Apple should put a wheel option in the new OS for Apple music

That would be amazing. Dude, I totally agree. I think that they should bring back that scroll wheel action

I don't know why they got rid of it. They tried to add it back to the new Apple TV

remote, but it doesn't work, unfortunately, because no one's integrated it. Remember we had this

discussion and I was like, I thought the point, one of the points of the new Apple TV remote

that silver one, was that the, let me see if I can pull this up. Apple, Apple TV 4K. They have like this

touch ring on the outside of the, on the top outside of the controller. I don't know if you guys can

see this. It has these little dots on it. And the idea was that you should have been able to

scroll around just like you could on an iPod and control your media and control your Apple TV

But I can never get it to work. So I was like, oh, I must have had that wrong. That's not an

actual feature. No, it is. It just has to be adopted by the app makers like Netflix and

HBO Plus and or HBO Max. And no one's really taken advantage of it. So it's basically pointless

but it really is a great interaction method with when you're scrolling through songs

and technology and stuff and I would love to see them add that back

to the iPhone and give you like a digital version of it

it would be really cool if you get like the U2 product red edition iPod

and have like that red scroll wheel on there that would be super cool

a little haptic action on there to make you feel it. Yeah now funny enough I was I was reading a story this week

about the the mythical introduction of the scroll wheel and it churns out

it was actually Phil Schiller's idea did you know that loose his idea

or his discovery I mean according to Phil Scheller it was his idea

oh according to Phil well so I was looking at this tweet

by Tony Fidel who was, what was his role in the production of the iPad? Do you remember

The father of the iPod. iPod, God, see, I'm doing it too. Oh my gosh. It's so easy. I don't know why it's so hard to remember

That's called the iPod. So he posted a picture and he said, this is the wheel that inspired the iPod

It's a Bang and Oliveson decked cordless phone that you could buy at the time. Phil Schiller brought it in

brought it to the first meeting with Steve Jobs when they were talking about the iPods

There it is. This was the, according to Tony Fidel, the inspiration for the scroll wheel on the iPod

But then if you scroll down, Phil Schiller chimes in. And I mean, first of all

where's Phil Schiller been? He's probably walking around in like a silk robe

drinking martinis all day, you know? now that he has nothing to do, but spend his Apple money. And he said

Hi, Tony. It has been a long time since this, but I thought of a wheel as input for iPod

And then I got the phone to show as an example of the idea. And it was not quite the first

iPod meetings. There you got Phil himself saying he thought of the scroll idea, the scroll wheel

idea. And, and, and, and, uh, and then he brought in the controller as an example of what he was

thinking, which I kind of find hard to believe a little bit because like how do you come up

with the idea and then you find a controller that has that input method already? I think probably

he saw the controller. He was like, this is a good idea. Let's add it to the iPod. I'm not doubting

Phil. I just think I'm just dumb a little dubious that he came up with the idea first and then

brought the controller in. Regardless, Phil says, I believe all credit. What a guy. Like he passes off

all credit. I give all credit to the hardware, software and ops teams that actually made it work so

beautifully. Well, yeah. I mean, let's just be honest. That thing, I haven't used this

banging all of something, but I mean, you know, it looks pretty standard, right

I mean, it doesn't look that, like the way that the iPod came

out was so amazing, right? It makes this look kind of silly

But, you know, maybe it was, maybe it all did stem from that. I don't know

Or maybe it all stem from Phil Schiller's amazing idea. Still, Phil Schiller's, amazing idea

just woke up in the middle of the night. Eureka. He had a voice from the ether saying

make it scroll, Phil. It must be a wheel. And the rest is history

Anyway, I definitely one of my favorite input methods for any piece of technology

Do you remember that video that was released as a parody a long time ago

called the MacBook wheel? Hmm. I don't think so. I would play it

but we would get, we'd probably get copyright strike. So I forget what organization made this

It might have been The Onion. And they had created this product

They called the MacBook wheel, which was a MacBook or the Powerbook wheel or something

But it had no keyboard because keyboards were superfluous, right? And instead, it just had one giant click wheel where the keyboard was

And the idea would be like, if you want to select a key, they had like some British guy there

He's like, you simply dragged the wheel to the, uh, to the letter you want and you click and then you move to the next letter that you want and then you click and the tech journalists were all there like looking at it and they were all their minds were completely blown because it was such a simple and beautiful input method right it like it a type of your report all you need to do is

scroll this wheel around like a rotary phone that's just getting ready to say it's all reminding

me of rotary phones yeah yeah that was oh my god that was a long time ago oh man that was that was a

funny video yeah that was that was an old school video so there you go the end of an era

Um, the iPod is no more. And, uh, if you want, check out this, um, I'll post a link to this in the show notes

an illustrated history of the iPod and its massive impact. Again, the kids today, man, they've got no appreciation for stuff like this

But this was truly a revolutionary product and it changed technology for all of us

And for those of us that had an iPod, which I know is probably most of us here listening

most of you listening, like you know what it did. It was just one of my

my favorite tech products of all time. I really loved it. And like Leander said, it became a part

of me. It became a part of our personalities. And this is just, I'm showing a picture here from

Newsweek, January 26th, 2004. So this is three years after the iPod came out. Now, remember when

the iPod came out, it actually wasn't successful right away. I think what really launched it into

the stratosphere is when they added iTunes to Windows and Windows users could could use iPods too

I think that's when it really started to blow up. And this is just, this, this, this

picture is so representative of that era. I was actually looking on eBay to see if I could buy

one of these newsweeks because I want to frame it and hang it on my wall. And it shows a picture of

Steve Jobs in his round little glasses and he's holding up the original iPod. And the headline says

iPod, therefore I am. Steve Jobs and the must have music player, everyone is talking about

And man, that was the truth. I mean, everybody loved their. iPod. It shows a picture of the tiny little hard drive, the tiny little 1.5 inch

Toshiba, like mechanical hard drive that was in the iPod. Made everything possible. And there's a bunch of great illustrations here. Look at that

The original version of iTunes with the brushed, is that brushed steel look to it

And Steve Jobs introducing it. God, I remember all this. That's so crazy. And then, of course

there was the iconic white ear pods, right? How could you forget that

Oh, it's got a picture of, what is this, like, Wynamp or something, which is what I used to use

to listen to music. God, this is bringing back so much memories. Man, oh my God

You remember Winnamp? I'm sure this is like really fascinating. Really fascinating discussion

Here he goes, talk about technology from the past. Oh, that's right

Oprah named the iPod, one of her favorite things and gives every member of her

350 member audience a 15-gibite iPod. Guess how much that cost at the time, Lewis

I'm going to say $399. You're right. You're right. Could you see it

Are you cheating? I could read as well as anyone. I thought maybe you're the delay

You wouldn't be able to see it. This whole thing is fascinating. I mean, it's quite a long history, right

Oh my gosh. This article is huge. I didn't realize how long this is. It goes on and on

Well, we've written it and updated it. and over and over. It's fascinating how many different models there have been

all these different things. I mean, one thing I didn't come across in all this

is like an actual tally of exactly how many different models there were of iPod

I don't think I've seen that in any of the coverage. There's almost so many. Like, how would you even get

I mean, would you count like the special edition U2 one is its own model

I mean, probably not, but... Oh, my gosh. 2000... So wild. What is this

2004. or 2003, Playboy launches, I bought a set of saucy pictures

optimized for the iPod photo. What? The galleries of playmates, blondes and voluptuous vixens

are dubbed the first iPod prawn. I had never heard of this

Is this like a real thing? I guess it was. Like Playboy was making pictures for the iPod

Oh my gosh, dude. That's crazy. And then remember the shuffle that looked like a stick of gum

God, thing. Like the fact that you couldn't see the screen, I really did not like it. And then the iPod

color. Oh yeah, there's one of the shuffles. See, I don't remember the iPod color. That's the one you

said you had? Yeah, that was the one that I first got. Oh, that was, oh, just the, okay. Yeah

Got it. Yeah. Are we going on and on about this too long? Yeah. I'm feeling nostalgic

And anyway, we won't go through the rest of these. Oh, God, look, the iPod shuffle

There's the whole, and then there's the new generation, the iPod shuffle, the iPod. the iPod Nano

the iPod Classic, and then the iPod Touch. I kind of feel like

the iPod Touch is when it started to lose its charm. You know, it was just way too much

like a normal computer at that point. Yeah, and it was an iPhone. It was an iPhone. Yeah, exactly

Yeah, the iPod Classic, that was, if I had ever had one

that would have been the one I would have wanted. Yeah, that was iPod perfected

But the thing is, is I don't think any of them were as beautiful as the original iPod

that was a masterpiece of design. It really was just one of the most beautiful products

that had ever been invented. And it was so functional. It's the beauty of its functionality

matched its beauty in aesthetic, right? Everything just played so well together

It was definitely one of the best achievements that Apple had. Anyway, there you go

Rest in peace, iPod. You are no more, but you shall live on in our hearts

and also on our iPhones and on our iPads and on our Macs as well

but hopefully they bring the that scroll wheel back to Apple music

or just to any music app that's really what I want because I'm not switching to

Apple music just to get the scroll wheel I'm sticking with more Apple music hatred

more Apple music hatred