Apple Bids Adieu to iPod Shuffle — Music Buffs Knew Its Worth

Smartphones and easy access to internet made sure that we lost interest in carrying a device just for the music.

Apple has finally done the inevitable by confirming that they’re discontinuing the iPod Shuffle and the iPod Nano. The music devices didn’t offer internet access.

The last time the iPod Shuffle was refreshed was in 2010, and ever since, the iPod line up has seen further additions, with improved features and touch-support.

Apple in the past has stated that with the advent of the iPhone and the iPad, there will be a fall of traditional music player hardware.

Coming from the late ’80s generation, I moved from cassette-centric Walkman (from Aiwa to Sony) to CD-booted MP3 players but then came the iPod.

Pre-iPod, music players were clunky, which ruined the experience of listening to music. But when I got my first iPod Shuffe in 2003 (iPod didn’t make it to India very quickly), I was fascinated to use a music device that didn’t need tapes or CDs.

At first, I had a hard time figuring out how to get this piece of metal to play my choice of music, which I can nitpick from my collection on the PC (yes, those were the days of big computers).

But when I did find my way through, accessing music and experiencing it was a whole new ball game.

iTunes was the gateway to your iPod’s storage, and what really worked back then was you could charge the iPod by connecting it via USB cord to the PC. Music will never be the same, I had said back then, and Jobs made it happen for millions of music buffs like me.

You could play/stop with one button, raise/bring down the volume with another. Its simplicity helped people make the transition from tape players to the iPod.

That said, the emergence of smartphones, and easy access to internet made sure that we lost interest in carrying another device, just for the music.

I still have my Shuffle lying around somewhere, dust-ridden and hoping that someday, I will come back to find it. But what it doesn’t know is that my love for that tiny device has never died, and never will, even if Apple kills it for good.