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RIP iPod. Apple’s pioneering music-in-your-pocket has gone the way of the BlackBerry, the 244-year-old Encyclopedia Britannica and the dodo. The Cupertino-based tech group this week said it was discontinuing the iPod Touch, its last remaining portable music device.
安息吧，iPod。苹果公司首创的“口袋里的音乐”已经走上了黑莓(BlackBerry)、有244年历史的《大英百科全书》和渡渡鸟的道路。这家位于库比蒂诺的科技集团本周表示，将停产iPod Touch，这是它剩下的最后一款便携式音乐设备。
At 20 years, the iPod had half as long a run as Sony’s Walkman, its clunkier predecessor. The Walkman allowed 1980s cool kids to listen to music cassettes while rollerblading or doing aerobics.
iPod的寿命定格在20年，只有其更笨重的前辈、索尼随身听(Walkman)的一半。随身听让20世纪80年代的酷孩子们在滑旱冰或做健美操时听音乐磁带。
Sony moved with the times, transitioning to the CD Walkman when compact discs sounded the death knell for those sticky tangled tapes. But the Japanese conglomerate initially balked at devices for streamed music, fearing cannibalisation of its record label business. All told, Sony sold some 400mn Walkmans, not far short of estimated iPod sales.
索尼顺应时代潮流，在CD光盘为那些粘粘纠结的磁带敲响丧钟的时候，转向了CD随身听。但这家日本企业集团最初对流媒体音乐设备犹豫不决，担心会蚕食其唱片公司业务。索尼总共卖出了4亿台随身听，与iPod的估计销量相差不远。
CDs, too, are virtual toast. Kicking off at the dawn of the 80s, the shiny discs peaked in the years spanning the millennium. The heydays were relatively brief but certainly longer than the blink-and-you-missed-it season of the laser disc, which briefly vied with video for viewer eyeballs.
CD也早已是昨日黄花。始于80年代初，这种闪亮的光盘在跨越千禧年的几年里达到顶峰。这段时期相对短暂，但肯定比镭射光盘昙花一现的时间要长。镭射光盘曾短暂地与视频争夺观众的眼球。
Nostalgia and the enduring love of retro mean the iPod will not die from the collective consciousness. The Walkman survives in the Smithsonian and on online retailer eBay. A new generation of cool kids rediscovered vinyl. Even CD sales blipped up last year.
Some countries have stronger attachments to analogue technologies. BlackBerry phones enjoyed a brief renaissance in Indonesia. Outsized faxes continue to whirr across China and Japan. The latter, home to some of the most cutting-edge technology on the planet, struggles to wean itself off museum-era gadgetry. Sony stopped making Betamax tapes — the technology trounced by the VHS format — only in 2015. Local authorities and banks were still using floppy discs last year.
一些国家对模拟技术有更强的依赖性。黑莓手机曾在印尼短暂复兴。超大的传真机继续在中国和日本各地嗡嗡作响。后者虽拥有地球上最尖端的一些技术，却难以摆脱博物馆时代的设备。直到2015年，索尼才停止生产Betamax磁带——这项技术早已被VHS格式击败。日本地方政府和银行去年仍在使用软盘。
Of course, it’s just possible that this is more about quality than sentimentality. After all, the US military, reliant on floppy discs for its nuclear arsenal, pulled the plug on those only a couple of years ago.
当然，也有可能这更多是关于质量而不是感情的问题。毕竟，依赖软盘管理核武库的美国军方，直到几年前才停止使用软盘。