Over the last 50 years, Apple reimagined personal computers, catalyzed the era of the smartphone, enlarged an iPhone and called it the iPad and garnered a strong position in wearable tech through its Watch series and its AirPods. It also popularized software and services like its App Store, FaceTime, iCloud, iMessages and many more. For a lot of us, the first time we pinched-to-zoom on a photo was likely on an iPhone.<\/p>\n
However, Apple gives and it takes away. Things have had to change, be removed and consumers have to move on to whatever’s new. For better or worse, the weight of Apple’s influence has led to entire product categories following suit. Or, more typically, there’s resistance, complaining and then\u2026 following suit. With the benefit of hindsight, most of these cases are examples of Apple seeing where technology was going and getting ahead of a transition that would have been inevitable. Often, these transitions have caused short-term pain for some, but time has proven Apple (mostly) correct about dropping older tech.<\/p>\n
As Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch once said: murder your darlings. Here are some of the darlings we\u2019ve lost over the years.<\/p>\n
The death of the disk drive (1998)<\/h2>\n
This is a two-parter. The iMac G3 marked Steve Jobs’ return. The colorful all-in-one Mac was a new start in many ways. In 1998, Apple ditched the standard ports and myriad cable types of personal computers, going all in on USB and a little-known thing called the internet. (In fact, that\u2019s what the \u2018i\u2019 in iMac stands for.)<\/p>\n
In doing so, it also ditched the 3.5-inch floppy disk drive \u2014 although it did have a read-only optical disk drive. Even with sluggish internet and USB transfer speeds at the time, the convenience was plain to see and it led to a decade of thumb drives of ever-increasing storage limits. High-capacity alternatives to the floppy disk, like the Zip disk and even Minidisc, attempted to bridge the gap, but never gained the widespread traction and adoption of the original disk drive. But flash drives and, later, internet-based file storage quickly made them obsolete anyway. Apple was just a little early with its dismissal.<\/p>\n
Portable music players (2007)<\/h2>\n
Despite Apple\u2019s iPod being the de facto music player at the time, it was supplanted by the company\u2019s own biggest hit: the iPhone. At its peak, the iPod made Apple the zeitgeisty tech company it is today. It dominated the MP3 player market, and by 2006, iPods were responsible for 40 percent of the company\u2019s revenue. And that was before the era of Apple including a free U2 album with every iTunes account.<\/p>\n
When the iPhone launched in June 2007, it was swiftly followed by the iPod Touch in September. This was the iPhone without the phone part \u2014 indicating how the company saw the future of music listening. You didn\u2019t need an iPod if you already had an iPhone in your pocket. It\u2019s the best example of Apple cannibalizing a product that defined a decade with something far more impressive and, eventually, more successful.<\/p>\n
It was a slow death. Ignoring the countless MP3-playing rivals, (RIP Zune), Apple dropped the classic iPod in 2014. It soon did the same to the tiny iPod nano and iPod shuffle in 2017. Finally, the company discontinued the iPod Touch in May 2022.<\/p>\n