As reported by MacRumors, Apple seems to have discontinued its iPods Nano and Shuffle; their pages now redirect simply to Apple Music.
Along with the discontinuation of the iPod Classic in 2014, this strips the iPod line to only the iPod Touch, the iOS-running, Angry Birds-playing cousin to the iPhone, which hasn’t been updated since 2015.
The quiet gravity of this can’t be overstated, in my opinion — the iPod is what turned Apple in to the consumer electronics juggernaut it is today. The iPods Nano and Shuffle were the last “true” iPods, in that you couldn’t also read Twitter or check email on them. When the iPod was introduced just over 15 years ago, the idea that you could carry a thousand songs with you changed our relationship with music in a revolutionary way. Sure, it wasn’t the first music player of its kind; but its ubiquity — of its signature white earbuds and its aggressive poster advertising, sometimes filling entire subway stations and cars — was unlike much else in consumer electronics in recent memory.
RIP, iPods past.