So long, old friends: After many redesigns and colors, Apple has dropped the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle from its lineup. Why drop the teeny devices now? Their ancestor the iPod Classic is now gone, and the two devices were the only music players left that don’t use iOS. Worse, the iPod Shuffle doesn’t have Bluetooth.
Yesterday brought the death of the two older models of iPod, and the surviving model is what used to be called the iPod Touch.
This marks the first time since 2001 that Apple won’t sell a standalone music player. The iPod Touch is really a tiny tablet that runs iOS, the operating system of Apple’s phones and tablets. It only connects to WiFi, not mobile data, but otherwise resembles an iPhone.
Here’s where the death of the smaller iPods comes in. Like its cousin, the iPhone 7, the newest version of the iPod doesn’t have a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. How can Apple sell you Beats wireless headphones and AirPods if the Shuffle doesn’t even have Bluetooth?
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist