NAOMI LYNCH
Special to The Leader
On Sept. 9th, the world said farewell to an iconic member of the 21st century: the iPod Classic.
What makes the departure even more sullen is that Apple didn’t say a word when it pulled the nearly 13-year-old product.
According to the Huffington Post, the iPod Classic simply vanished from Apple’s website, leaving only the iPod Shuffle, the iPod Nano and the iPod Touch in its wake. In a world full of smart devices, it’s easy to forget how much the original iPod changed the game.
Apple proudly introduced the first iPod in October of 2001, claiming the device offered “1,000 songs in your pocket” with a mere 5GB. This was revolutionary — most CDs held, at most, 20 songs, so being able to fit your entire music library on a single device was amazing.
The price tag was astronomical: $400. People were willing to shell out hundreds of dollars for convenience, and so Apple went from a near-bankrupt computer company to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world.
So, as tribute to the iPod Classic, we will be giving a salute to “fallen technology:”
1. Tamagotchi
According to the website Mimitchi.com, “Tamagotchi, the original virtual pet, first made its impact in pop culture history when Bandai launched the product in 1996.” Who knew that a little egg on a keychain could make people go crazy? Countless hours would be devoted to raising these digital monsters as we watched them eat, poop and evolve. God forbid the person that was around when your dear Tamagotchi kicked the bucket, though. Nothing beat the teenage angst of having to push the reset button.
Dearest Tamagotchi, we salute you and hope you will return to save us from another iteration of Flappy Bird.
2. Neopets
For those who couldn’t afford to keep shelling out money on Tamagotchi pets, Neopets was the best alternative. As reported by Princeton.com, Neopets is a virtual pet website launched on Nov. 15th, 1999 by creators Adam Powell and Donna Williams. Neopets took Tamagotchi to a whole new level — incorporating new worlds, games and accessories to use to dress up your pets. Each pet was different — from a squishy little JubJub to a winged, dragon-like Shoryu. The best part about Neopets? You can leave them alone for years and they will never die. The company even went on to spawn a few Playstation games. Neopets still exist, but it is nowhere near as popular as it was in the early to mid 2000s.
Dearest Neopets, we salute you and hope that those 250,000 Neopoints on a Fairy Brush was worth the pain and struggle.
3. AOL/Dial-Up
“Bee-do-bee-do-beee-dooo!”
This is the sound that strikes fear into the hearts of children from the 90s and the beginning of the 21st century. That infernal sound is brought to you by America Online (AOL), a web services company created in 1985, according to the AOL Corporation website. We all remember the dozens of AOL disks emblazoned with “FREE 30-DAY TRIAL” on the package. Nothing was more fun than logging on to AOL and talking with your classmates through Buddy Chat, even though you were literally going to see them the next day! Surfing online was the bee’s knees, even if you were on Kid’s Mode. You found a way around that restriction, like the rest of us — but if someone called you while you were trolling a chatboard? Heaven help them. You would lose the connection and lament your barely-lived life, as your mother and your aunt discussed the horrendous dress Grandma Sally wore to your kindergarten graduation last week. As the World Wide Web became wider, there was no use for an application like AOL. AOL focused on becoming an all-around news resource, and their most popular products still include AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and AOL Mail.
Dearest AOL, we salute your contribution to the Internet world and we pray to never, EVER hear that screeching sound again as long as we live.
4. The BlackBerry
Forget about T-Mobile’s Sidekick and the Motorola Razr — one of the highest grossing phones of the last decade was Research In Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry. RIM was founded in 1984 by engineering students Mike Lazardis and Douglas Fregin, according to Globalnews.com. The first Blackberry was released in 1999 and — get this — it could only send emails! It was targeted for a business audience, but the consumer friendly BlackBerry Pearl was released in 2006. Who can remember the joys of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) in its heyday? It was like AIM for a select audience of awesome people! Other models, such as the Curve and the Bold, were very popular with young and old demographics, but the success of the iPhone forever changed the world of RIM, which was renamed BlackBerry in 2013. Their e-devices paled in comparison to Google and Apple, and the lack of apps in the BlackBerry App World made the demise concrete. In a last ditch effort, BlackBerry released BBM for the Android Play Store and the Apple App Store, but the app paled in comparison to the more able-bodied messaging applications out there. It was good effort to catch up, but BlackBerry waited too long to be a viable competitor in today’s market.
Dearest BlackBerry, we salute you and what you used to mean to us, but … the early bird didn’t get the worm. We will always love BBM, though!
So, we raise a glass to the pieces of our technological history that are no more. iPod Classic, may you hold 160GB of rockin’ jams in iHeaven where you and the rest of your brethren lay.
In the meantime, we’ll play a Miley Cyrus song until the next iDevice comes out.