Apple will discontinue Ipod Shuffle and Classic before year end

MAKER OF AGING MUSIC PLAYERS Apple will discontinue its Ipod Shuffle and Classic lines, according to sources close to the company.

Rumours have been circulating for some time now that Apple was considering axing some of its Ipod products, but apparent confirmation has come from unnamed sources cited by Tuaw.

According to Tuaw, Apple is planning to discontinue the Ipod Shuffle and Classic before the end of the year. These two are the lowest selling of Apple's Ipod range and also some of the oldest models still in existence.

In fact, the idea of carrying a music player around with no screen, like the Shuffle, is probably very alien to the majority of music on the go lovers today, so it's not surprising that it's getting the axe. The decade old Classic is, of course, just as outdated, and is probably better suited to a museum than someone's pocket.

Tuaw was keen to point out that its informer is not an analyst, which can be an unreliable source of information, given the obviously speculative nature of that line of work. We expect that the source is someone working at Apple or an Apple supplier.

Given the success of Apple's Iphone range, which effectively replaced both a mobile phone and media player for many people, it was probably only a matter of time before death knells started ringing for some Ipod products.

While Apple has yet to confirm these reports, and likely won't, we can probably expect the Ipod range to shrink to just the Ipod Nano and Ipod Touch, both of which are still selling well, just in time for the Christmas shopping season. µ