4 ms·

iPhone predates iPod touch, though.

by fabioborellini 3y ago

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Wait, you're right. I could've sworn I remember the ipod touch being first. Now I'm wondering why it existed it all.
- derefr 3y ago
  Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod. iPods were just mid-tier consumer-electronics expensive; which, back in ~2005, was nowhere near entry-level smartphone expensive, let alone flagship smartphone expensive. Then, after the iPhone started getting rev after rev, Apple's "lean manufacturing" cost-optimizations gradually led to "an iPod" just becoming a particular assemblage of reused old iPhone parts, optimized for manufacturing cost and battery life. All the other iPods died out, leaving only the iPod Touch, there to consume old iPhone parts off the line. Around six years after that, "a commodity Android phone" became as cheap as an iPod Touch. At that point, the Touch continued to exist mostly due to brand value, and its ability to run iOS games (still a specific / "better" market than Android games, back then), without having to pay for an iPhone to do that. It's only in the last five years that it began to make economic sense to just get your 6yo who wanted to play iOS games an old iPhone rather than a "new" iPod Touch. It was at the exact moment that happened, that Apple finally killed the iPod Touch.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
    Interesting, thanks for the history lesson. /g
  - MBCook 3y ago
    > Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod. Yep. Well said. The cost of a full phone + expensive plan is a lot. Plus kids wanted the apps (really games) the iPhone had. Apple wanted to sell them games. And besides that parents were far more hesitant to give young kids phones than (for better or worse) than today. The final reason I’ve heard is the number of hand-me-down phones given to kids now that smartphones are ubiquitous means sales slowly fell to ver little compared to when introduced.
    - rezonant 3y ago
      And further, buying your kid an iPod Touch at the time served the same purpose (for Apple) as buying your kid an iPad today. It gets them into Apple's products space, develops brand affinity and trust, and gets them familiar with iOS so that they are more likely to buy an iPhone. It would be surprising if we had stats on iPad versus non-iPad kids and what percentage of them ended up being iPhone users, and those stats didn't show a strong correlation.

iPhone predates iPod touch, though.

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago

Wait, you're right. I could've sworn I remember the ipod touch being first. Now I'm wondering why it existed it all.

derefr 3y ago
Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod. iPods were just mid-tier consumer-electronics expensive; which, back in ~2005, was nowhere near entry-level smartphone expensive, let alone flagship smartphone expensive. Then, after the iPhone started getting rev after rev, Apple's "lean manufacturing" cost-optimizations gradually led to "an iPod" just becoming a particular assemblage of reused old iPhone parts, optimized for manufacturing cost and battery life. All the other iPods died out, leaving only the iPod Touch, there to consume old iPhone parts off the line. Around six years after that, "a commodity Android phone" became as cheap as an iPod Touch. At that point, the Touch continued to exist mostly due to brand value, and its ability to run iOS games (still a specific / "better" market than Android games, back then), without having to pay for an iPhone to do that. It's only in the last five years that it began to make economic sense to just get your 6yo who wanted to play iOS games an old iPhone rather than a "new" iPod Touch. It was at the exact moment that happened, that Apple finally killed the iPod Touch.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Interesting, thanks for the history lesson. /g
- MBCook 3y ago
  > Because parents didn't want to buy an entire flagship smartphone just for their 6yo to listen to music on the schoolbus. But they were okay with buying them an iPod. Yep. Well said. The cost of a full phone + expensive plan is a lot. Plus kids wanted the apps (really games) the iPhone had. Apple wanted to sell them games. And besides that parents were far more hesitant to give young kids phones than (for better or worse) than today. The final reason I’ve heard is the number of hand-me-down phones given to kids now that smartphones are ubiquitous means sales slowly fell to ver little compared to when introduced.
  - rezonant 3y ago
    And further, buying your kid an iPod Touch at the time served the same purpose (for Apple) as buying your kid an iPad today. It gets them into Apple's products space, develops brand affinity and trust, and gets them familiar with iOS so that they are more likely to buy an iPhone. It would be surprising if we had stats on iPad versus non-iPad kids and what percentage of them ended up being iPhone users, and those stats didn't show a strong correlation.