You probably heard, but this was a pretty big week for Apple. On Tuesday, Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus before taking out a gigantic pair of scissors and cutting up credit cards everywhere with Apple Pay. And oh yeah, he also previewed Apple Watch, something everyone will most definitely own and not take full advantage of in about a year.
But while Apple was doing all of this, ushering us closer and closer to the world of Her, they also quietly retired the iPod Classic. You can still buy an iPod Shuffle, Nano, or Touch, but let's be honest, those things were always odd offshoots of the OG. Sort of like Joey.
It truly is the end of an era.
The iPod was born in 2001. It had a clickwheel that actually moved and could hold up to 5 GB of music. It went through a ton of changes in the next 13 years—the 3G had four top buttons, it slimmed down as time went on, there was that ill-advised red and black U2 version (?)—but was always the apex of music storage. And status. Nothing was cooler in high school than having those white earbuds.
I remember holding a friend's iPod for the first time and feeling limitless. I didn't cop my own until 2004—just before the color screen was introduced—but from then on it was life. I spent hours upon hours loading music onto it, ripping songs from LimeWire and KaZaA that had bogus file names and entering in the correct track names, artist names and album names on iTunes so they'd look fresh on the screen. Sliding my thumb clockwise on an iPod classic is what I imagine heroin feels like.
But those days are over. As they should be—I stopped using my iPod the day I got an iPhone, as I assume most people did. And that was before things like Spotify and Pandora existed. The future is clearly bright (and honestly, a little nerve-racking), but we need to take some time to pour one out for our fallen friend. Apple didn't give the iPod classic a proper send-off, so we will in the best way possible—with a playlist.
Throw on some black, light a few candles, and listen to some music from the iPod's birth year. R.I.P., buddy. We'll never forget you. (Also, before we get into this, 2001 was a ridiculously strong year for music.)
