The apps should have been rejected in the first place, but Apple’s moderation team failed to catch them. Like Retro Pod, Rewound flew a little too close to the sun. He modified and rereleased it before Apple took it down again for replicating an Apple product. Rewound’s developer, Louis Anslow, said the app was first pulled for violating Apple’s in-app purchase rules. Two months after its debut, it got major internet buzz and garnered 150,000 downloads. In 2019, an iOS app called Rewound attempted to function within Apple’s ecosystem. While those were created outside of the confines of the App Store, Apple has let another iPod clone slip in before. Developer Tanner Villarete says that the site has had 1.8 million users total, with two-thirds of those visiting in the past week or so. Coinciding with the success of Retro Pod, iPod.js has also recently gone viral. In 2019, (a different) retroPod app was made available on Android, and iPod.js debuted as a web-based iPod. In 2009, iClassic was released for iOS as a jailbroken app. It’s a bit of cultural heritage.”Īpps recreating the iPod have cropped up a bunch of times over the years, even when iPods were common household gadgets. It peaked at number 11 among music apps in the US before it was apparently removed by January 8th. According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, the app received 443,000 total downloads on iOS, including 275,000 downloads in just the first week of January. The company has a very explicit rule against apps that replicate Apple products.īut Retro Pod had a good run. But it is not hard to imagine that once the app blew up, Apple would not let it stand. It is not confirmed why Retro Pod was removed from the App Store - neither the developer of the app nor Apple returned The Verge’s request for comment. Retro Pod had disappeared from the App Store. Videos featuring the app racked up nearly 5 million views, but by the second week of January, viewers started commenting they couldn’t find the app at all. When Retro Pod started making the round in late December, TikTokers praised the app’s ability to replicate the iPod’s “tactile, bumpy, vibratey feels” that have been lost in the era of music streaming. From demos of defunct Minis to outfits showcasing Shuffles as hair clips, an app turning your iPhone into an iPod was naturally going to be a hit. Retro Pod played right into TikTok’s love affair with the iPod. Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Getty Images

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