Kiss the click-wheel goodbye: iPod Classic likely to be retired

Get ready to kiss the click wheel goodbye. This is the year the iPod classic will die.

At Apple’s upcoming keynote event, we’re expecting the launch of a new flagship iPhone 5S, a cheaper plastic iPhone 5C, and a reduced-price iPhone 5 to round out Apple’s iPhone product lineup. Each of these devices will have the same screen size and aspect ratio, and include Apple’s Lightning dock connector, which was introduced with the iPhone 5 in 2012. New iPads are also expected to make an appearance.

One thing we’re not expecting to see Tuesday? A new iPod classic.

“I don’t see Apple investing any more into the iPod classic, even just to upgrade the connector,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told Wired. Anthony Scarsella, chief gadget officer of Gazelle.com, shares a similar sentiment.

“It’s been a couple of years since the iPod classic has been updated. We can assume it will be phased out, unless we see it updated on September 10th,” Scarsella said.

Apple thinks carefully about its entire product lineup, and the classic fills one niche: mass storage, specifically allowing you to take all your music with you on the go, Golvin said. The current iPod classic, introduced in 2009, offers 160 GB of storage for up to 40,000 songs. Other products offer ample music storage plus a host of other functions, and make more sense for Apple to produce.

“Honestly, I think it’s time for [the iPod classic] to be retired,” Boundless app CEO Ariel Diaz said. “It may be serving a small space for lots of music in a compact package, but it’s already an antiquated notion as we move to a world of streaming music instead of local MP3s and AACs.”