Bonus: Walt Mossberg remembers the iPod nano

Apple announced this week that the iPod nano has been discontinued, taking down the website for both the shuffle and the nano today. Walt Mossberg - renowned tech reviewer, looks back on the iPod nano's origin with an anecdote about an interaction he had with Steve Jobs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Steve Jobs did show me this device before it came out. He kept cannibalizing himself, he and Apple. And I remember they had the iPod mini, which was, held more songs, came in different colors.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  The iPod mini is what all of our competitors have their sights focused on.

• 0:20Speaker 00

  And I remember going to see him one day, and he said, "We're pulling the mini off the market." And I said, "What are you talking about? It isn't that old." And he said, "Well, not only is it not that old, but..."

• 0:31Speaker 01

  It's the most popular MP3 player in the world.

• 0:34Speaker 00

  And he said, "But I'm bringing out this other thing." And he whipped out of his pocket the Nano.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  The iPod Nano.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Which was way smaller, and had even more capacity and all that stuff in a much smaller body. And I said, "Well, why are you doing that?" And he said, "Well, I want to be the one to cannibalize us. And the problem with the mini now is it's been out for however long it's been out, not that long, maybe a year or something like that, a year and a half. And he said, "And the contract manufacturers in Asia have figured out pretty much how to match this, so other people can bring out their own versions that look a lot like this, but they can't do the Nano yet. So I'm taking this off the market and putting the Nano on it."

• 1:18Speaker 01

  One-third the size of the smallest phone on the market.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Want to stay ahead.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  That's how small this is. It's really small size.