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The Retro Pod fits right in with TikTok’s love of iPods. From demos of his old-fashioned Mini to outfits that make Shuffle look like clips of him in hair, the app that turns your iPhone into his iPod is a deserved hit. When Retro Pod began hitting the market in late December, TikTokers praised the app’s ability to recreate the “tactile, bumpy, vibratory feel” of his iPod that was lost in the music-streaming era. . His video featuring the app had nearly 5 million views, but by the second week of January, viewers began commenting that they couldn’t find the app at all. Retro Pod has disappeared from the App Store.
It’s not confirmed why Retro Pod was removed from the App Store — neither the app’s developer nor Apple returned it The Bargerequest for comment. But when this app explodes, it’s not hard to imagine Apple not letting it go. The company has very clear rules against apps that duplicate Apple products.
However, the Retro Pod performed well. According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, the app has been downloaded a total of 443,000 times on iOS, with 275,000 downloads in the first week of January alone. Evidently he peaked at number 11 among US music apps before being taken down by January 8th.
“People really want it. It’s a bit of a cultural heritage.”
Over the years, there have been apps that mimic the iPod since the iPod was a common gadget for the home. In 2009, iClassic was released for his iOS as a jailbreak app. In 2019, (another) retroPod app became available for Android, and iPod.js debuted as his web-based iPod. Coinciding with the success of Retro Pod, iPod.js has also recently gone viral. Developer Tanner Villarete says the site has a total of 1.8 million users, of whom two-thirds have visited in the past week or so.
These were made outside of the App Store, but Apple has slipped in another iPod clone before. In 2019, an iOS app called Rewind tried to work within Apple’s ecosystem. Two months after his debut, it went viral on the internet, garnering 150,000 downloads. That’s when Apple put a kibosh on it. According to Rewound developer Louis Anslow, the app was initially removed for violating Apple’s in-app purchase rules. He modified it and re-released it, then removed it again for Apple to duplicate his Apple products.
Like the Retro Pod, the Rewind got a little too close to the sun. The app should have been rejected in the first place, but Apple’s moderation team never found them. The Retro Pod even managed to push five updates after his October debut. It’s the latest in a string of apps that weren’t pulled until someone else caught their attention. If the app truly recreates the iPod experience for his iOS users, it’s unlikely to need Apple’s approval.
Nor is the market what it was when Rewind pulled out. Three years ago, Apple was still selling iPods (even though its last model, his iPod Touch, was basically the iPhone minus the phone). Apple officially discontinued the iPod earlier this year. Anslow believes that while Apple has withdrawn from the iPod and consumers nostalgic for the product, there’s a greater need than ever for an app that can turn an iPhone into his iPod.
“I was determined to get this back,” says Anslow. “Because people really want it. It’s a bit of a cultural heritage.”
The public may still see the iPod as a nostalgic relic, but it’s still proprietary to Apple. The rules that determine what iOS apps can and cannot do are what Apple wants. Until the company loosens its grip on his dormant IP, true iPhone-to-iPod apps are unlikely to survive. Unless, of course, Apple decides to release such an app itself. It seems they missed the opportunity to ignore the demand.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the original iPod.js redirected the user to the Spotify library. Stream music in your browser instead. A different version of his iPod.js redirects to Spotify.
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