The end of an era for the iPod that changed the world

This week Apple announced that it was scrapping the iPod. Lots of people were surprised to realise the company was still making them—but it’s the end of an era even so. And not just any era. When Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod, at a comparatively low-key ceremony in California 21 years ago, he said the device would change the world.

He was right on the money. First it created a legitimate market for music downloaded in MP3 format at a time when the world of digital music was a lawless free (literally) for all where pirates roamed. But there was more. The iPod fundamentally changed how people consumed music and how charts worked, and ultimately paved the way for the smartphones and streaming services that are so key to our lives today.

Patrick Freyne talks to Conor Pope for In the News and reflects on what the iPod meant, what it did and what the world has become because of it.