Apple Kills iPod Nano and Shuffle, Tweaks iPod Touch Pricing

It seems that the era of the iPod is slowly coming to an end. On Thursday, Apple pulled the iPod nano and iPod shuffle from its website and later confirmed in a statement that it would be officially discontinuing the two media players.

Notably, the two iPods were the last to be music-oriented devices and run on an operating system other than iOS. Their removal from Apple’s lineup leaves the iPod touch as the last bastion of the company’s dedicated media player brand.

Coinciding with the move, Apple tweaked the pricing and storage options of its iPod touch lineup — offering a 32GB model for $199 and a 128GB model for $299, and doing away with the 16- and 64-gigabyte versions.

“Today, we are simplifying our iPod lineup with two models of iPod touch with double the capacity starting at just $199 and we are discontinuing the iPod shuffle and iPod nano,” Apple told Business Insider in a statement. The iPod shuffle and iPod nano were both launched in 2005 and haven’t seen an update in years. The iPod nano was last refreshed in October 2012, while the iPod shuffle was refreshed in September 2010. While the two dedicated music players still appear to be available from Apple retail outlets and third-party resellers, that probably won’t last long.

Their removal should come at no surprise, however. Sales of the two devices have been declining over the last two years, while the iPod touch — which has been refreshed as recent as 2015 — remains Apple’s best-selling music player. The iPod touch and iPod shuffle also lacked Bluetooth capabilities, meaning that they couldn’t pair with Apple’s new AirPods.

Still, it seems like the end of the line for the device that helped revitalized Apple’s success as a tech company when it was introduced by Steve Jobs in 2001. The dedicated media player lineup was so popular that initial ideas for the iPhone — by and far Apple’s current crown jewel — branded it as an “iPod phone.” Now, it seems that the tables have turned, since the iPod touch is essentially an iPhone without cellular capabilities. And there’s no telling how long Apple will continue to sell the last device in the iPod family.