The iPod Is Kaput

This holiday season, Apple sold 6 million iPods—a 52% decline over the year before, and a paltry number compared to the 51 million iPhones and 26 million iPads it unloaded. Apple brought in $57.6 billion in revenue last quarter, of which iPod sales contributed only $973 million. Other than a cheaper iPod Touch, there were no new iPods introduced mid-2013. Looks like the now-classic gadget is on its way out, writes Sean Hollister at the Verge.

Its sales decline probably has a lot to do with Apple's self-"cannibalization," which the company has acknowledged. "Every one of those 51 million iPhones can take the place of an iPod," Hollister writes. Of course, it could also be that fewer people bought iPods over the holidays precisely because there weren't new models. Still, "sales have declined time and again" ever since 2009, Hollister notes. But he acknowledges that the device's future remains "completely uncertain"; there's always the chance that Apple will revive it the way the company recently brought back the Mac Pro. Click for Hollister's full column. (More Apple stories.)