apple's missed opportunity (ipod 20th anniversary)

one year ago this month, apple discontinued the ipod line after 21 years. it lasted a surprisingly long time into our modern age of streaming, but apple could have done something neat (at least for audiophiles) for its 20th anniversary.

companies like sony and fiio continue to sell mp3 players, but specifically designed with high audio quality in mind. there's clearly still a market (albeit a small one) for mp3 players that apple could have used to produced a cool niche product in 2021 to celebrate 20 years of such an influential product:

an ipod with a click wheel, apple music/spotify support, some storage capacity, bluetooth, and a good dac. they could have made a killer ipod with those features and released it in 2021 but clearly they didn't care about how they got to where they are today enough to create something special.

yes there are still other mp3 players on the market, but almost none of them will compare to the simplicity and aesthetic of an ipod.