Apples latest earnings have been out for a while, and the company have noted a year on year decline in sales for the first time ever. This isn’t the end of the most iconic mp3 player of this century though, simply a sign that things are moving on. The Touch and iPhone are ‘cannibalizing’ the classic models, according to Apple’s Chief Financial Officer. This seems pretty likely as everyone knows the iPhone has become hugely popular and its ability to play music just like the Touch has begun to render the original design somewhat useless – unless you don’t have the money to shell out on the iPhone, of course.

Apple could well introduce new iPod models in Autumn, but the question raised by many bloggers and technology experts is less about new products and more about the continuation of old ones – most notably, the classic. While there might still be a market for the smaller nano and shuffle players – their size and price keeps them in the game – will the classic iPod finally be laid to rest without sufficient reason to part with your hard earned cash when just a few more notes will buy the far more impressive touch? The large blogs have reported that the hard drives needed to power the Classics haven’t been ordered by Apple, prompting rumour of the designs demise.

It’s more likely that the design simply won’t be updated rather than totally phased out of sales and it will be quietly left to dwindle away. At least for the next few years there’s a good reason to hold onto the Classic though – no other iPod comes close to its 120GB storage capacity and even the rumoured 64GB iPod Touch will only offer half the space at something near double the cost. People with large music collections – and there are a lot out there, including people who have ripped their entire CD collection to digital format – will still need the extra space the Classic provides.

When the classic does fade away, it will be the end of an era for digital music, although hopefully the start of even greater things for the market.