Apple Rolls Out Revamped iPods (Yes, iPods) 2012 was the last time the tech giant upgraded the music players.
By Nina Zipkin
Apple's recently launched streaming music service has been in the news of late, thanks to Taylor Swift's open letter to the company urging them to pay artists during the 3-month free trial period and a Federal Trade Commission antitrust investigation into the service's policies.
But while Apple Music has certainly been the most talked about, the iPod -- Apple's venerable but somewhat neglected music player -- got some love this week thanks to a slew of technical and aesthetic upgrades.
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The revamped iPod Touch comes with a new 4-inch Retina display, an A8 chip for improved graphics and gaming (the same one in your iPhone 6), and an M8 motion coprocessor for activity and fitness tracking.
The new player also contains an 8 megapixel iSight camera in the back and a FaceTime HD camera in the front. Users can get Apple Music through the music app, and will also have access to Beats 1 radio. Though users can't make calls with the iPod Touch, they can send voice and video messages via iMessage with Wi-Fi.
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The redesign marks the first time new features have been added to the iPod since 2012. The original iPod (the iPod Classic), which debuted almost 14 years ago, was discontinued last fall.
The upgrades come as iPod sales have declined significantly. In 2014, Apple reported $2.3 billion in iPod sales, down 48 percent from 2013. From 2012 to 2013, sales were down 21 percent. Sales of the iPod generated only 1 percent of Apple's total revenue last year.
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The iPod Touch is now priced at $199 for a 16GB model – with $249 for 32GB, $299 for 64GB and $399 for 128GB.
While there were no hardware or software changes made to the iPod shuffle and iPod nano, they are now available in new colors: space gray, silver, gold, pink and blue. The iPod Touch is also available in those colors.
