Apple has now sold over 100 million units of its popular iPod touch portable media player, according to a report published today by The Loop.
The company has managed to hit the milestone in roughly five and a half years, which is considerable given the rise in smartphones and comparative decline in dedicated MP3 and multimedia players.
The news is also fitting given that Apple quietly unveiled a new 16GB iPod touch with a new 4-inch Retina display today. There’s been no official statement from the company, but the new gadget was first spotted by The Verge and is now appearing in Apple stores worldwide.
These days the iPod touch fails to create quite the same sort of hype as the iPad Classic once did, in part because it now apes the hardware design deployed by Apple in the iPhone.
It still embodies some of the sheer joy originally captured by Apple’s now iconic silhouette television adverts though, especially through the use of colorful back plates. It’s also a popular choice for parents who want to give their children an iOS device for playing video games from the App Store and movies from iTunes, without shelling out on an eye-watering monthly contract.
For now, it seems that Apple is content to continue producing the iPod touch as a legacy product. As long as there’s demand from consumers and it continues to ship a reasonable amount of units, there’s no real reason for Apple to discontinue it anytime soon.
With WWDC just around the corner, however, there’s every possibility that Apple could have something new in store for the iPod touch and iPod range as a whole.
Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.