Whenever any new tech is unveiled, its naysayers are quick to dismiss it as too ambitious, too short-sighted, or simply as unreliable. The same happened to Apple when it changed the game with its iPod series 21 years ago.
On Wednesday, Apple announced that it would no longer be making any new iPods, with the current generation of iPod Touch being the last such device by Apple.
Turns out, when the company first released the iPod, rival company Microsoft's Bill Gates was critical of the product. Gates had told a German newspaper that while Apple may have struck gold with the iPod's success two decades ago, but that it wasn't going to last forever.
To Gates' surprise, Apple built a product based on the success of its iPod. We now know it as the iPhone, the face of Apple's products. In fact, it was developed by the same team behind the game-changing iPod.
"As good as Apple may be, I don't believe the success of the iPod is sustainable in the long run... You can make parallels with computers: Apple was very strong in this field before, with its Macintosh and its graphics user interface - like the iPod today - and then lost its position," Gates had told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in 2005.
Also read:?Apple Discontinues iPods That Revolutionised The Handheld Music Experience
Gates may have been wrong about Apple's future, but he was right about the iPod's demise. MP3 players, (including Microsoft's own iPod lookalike Zune players) were slowly weeded out from the market as cell phones become more advanced.
Apple has sold about 450 million iPod devices over the last 21 years after the first launch in 2001, according to The Indian Express. The first iPod was released in October, 2001 after Apple released iTunes for Macintosh computers.
Also read:?How Apple's Video iPod Unknowingly Saved 'The Office' Show From Getting Cancelled
While the iPod may be dead, it truly changed the way how we consume music on a handheld device. What do you think about Bill Gates' take on Apple's success? Let us know in the comments below.?For more in the world of?technology?and?science, keep reading?Indiatimes.com.
References
Dormehl, L. (2022, May 12). Today in Apple history: Bill Gates predicts doom for iPod. Cult of Mac.?
Mukul, P. (2022, May 11). Explained: Why Apple discontinued iPod, and what next for its music ecosystem. The Indian Express.?