Apple Should Bring Back the Clickwheel iPod

It’s time to change everything… back

Illustration: Noah Baker. Source Photo: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images Plus

We need fewer things that do everything.

The iPod Touch—which is ultimately an iPhone without the phone—is a device without a clear purpose. Its cohort is large and, it seems, endlessly growing: 12 years after the LG Prada arguably launched the smartphone as we know it, we’re drowning in rectangular, internet-connected screens with apps that let you do the same thing over and over. Even your fridge can have a big tablet grafted to the front, and yes, you can watch TV on it.

So, we certainly don’t need a new iPod Touch. But Apple is rumored to be developing one anyway.

Let’s ignore for a second the thing that most demands our attention—a literal heap of electronic-waste that grows with each new gadget shipment—and think about the situation in terms of pure utility. The iPod Touch exists more for the company than it does for you: As AppleInsider has pointed out, it’s a relatively inexpensive ($199) way to get an iOS device to customers and, therefore, a route to funnel money into services like Apple Music and iTunes—services that are increasingly valuable to Cupertino.

The device doesn’t exist in a vacuum, of course. The iPod Touch launched in 2007, six years after the introduction of the first iPod and shortly…