Pour one out for every kid who strapped on a backpack in middle school as they are probably grieving today. With Apple’s discontinuation of the iPod Touch 7th announced yesterdayIt’s official: the iPod is dead.
Supposedly, the iPod was a music device designed to digitize song libraries and take listeners away from the limitations and galactically better sound quality of physical media. (Of course, whether such a shift was good for the music industry is another story.) But over the course of its many iterations, the iPod also heralded another revolution: that of mobile gaming.
Mobile gaming used to consist of games brick or Line on your parents’ dusty Nokia. And sure, after its launch in 2001, there was the iPod – literally with one shabby port of brick after the device was launched in 2001 – had a similar landscape for a while. Supply grew over the next few years, but not by much. in 2006, EA released iPod versions from coined classics like Sudoku and solitaire. Kaplan, the for-profit education giant, released a series of SAT preparation courses (I can only say: lol). Compared to other mobile gaming devices of the time, such as the Nintendo DS, the iPod was hardly revolutionary.
Then came the iPod Touch.
First released in 2007, the iPod Touch completely reinterpreted the design of the iPod. Rather than being a brick with a wobbly steering wheel, the iPod Touch looked a lot like its contemporary, the iPhone: sleek, rectangular, with a glass touchscreen mounted covering its entire silhouette. Unlike the iPhone, with an iPod Touch you couldn’t summon and instantly lose heart to dial up your crush from algebra. But if you had a WiFi connection, you could download a bunch of games that would at least distract you during Algebra.
And some of the games of the era were really excellent. fruit ninja! Tap Revenge tap! words with friends! temple run practically created a new genre, or at least popularized it widely, and laid the groundwork for truly terrific endless runners Alto’s Odyssey. I personally had a soft spot for Doodle jump, a platformer that depicts you as an elephant (?) with a jetpack. Stylized to look like a lined paper notebook, the visuals are colored in memory. But at least for me it was also an early entry into the wide world of rankings.
Aside from quality, some games have become real cultural giants. Angry Birds spawned a feature film, along with crossovers war of stars and transformers, and a host of other spin-offs. (My grandmother bought me one once Angry Birds Bathmat, assuming that since I like video games, I got to how Angry Birdsthe only video game.) The effect was undeniable.
And so the news of the iPod’s death triggered a lively wave of nostalgia my boxis Slack this afternoon.
Editor-in-Chief Lisa Marie Segarra called out pretty much all of the games listed above, further pointing to the iPod as the catalyst for the undeniable Candy Crush Insanity. She also praised the tilt controls that came with some games that were “so innovative at the time. Or at least it felt that way.”
“What a time to be alive,” added staff writer Zack Zwiezen. “I really miss the older era of the App Store. … No doubt we have great stuff today, but I can’t help but long for those simpler times when I drank fake beer and played with fake lightsaber apps.”
Times are indeed less easy. Instead of the handful of must-play options, Apple’s gaming ecosystem is bigger than ever, with big games — anything from blockbusters like XCOM and Genshin Impact to indie sleeper hits like Sayonara Wild Hearts and baby you are– find the way to the App Store. Apple Arcade, a subscription service that grants access to a library of games, is slowly becoming a must-have scouting ground for under-the-radar gems. (Many Apple Arcade games eventually make their way to Nintendo Switch or traditional consoles, where they are “legitimized” in the eyes of the hardcore gamer, obscuring the origins of mobile gaming.)
But every time one of these once-important devices takes its last breath, I’m struck by its finality — how everything, regardless of its seeming endurance or cultural impact, is ephemeral, a fleeting moment you don’t know it is it’s gone As they say, wouldn’t it be nice to realize that you’re living in good times when you’re actually living in good times? I think so.
Anyway, yes, RIP to iPod. You had a good run. You left a good legacy. And to really get all the mid-2000s: Thanks for the mmrs.
