During his panel at the WSJD live conference on Monday, Apple chief Tim Cook explained the reasoning behind the discontinuation of the iPod classic, which remained largely unchanged for six years until last month.

Speaking with Wall Street Journal editor Gerry Baker, Cook said Apple was no longer able to source parts for the capacious iPod, which was the last of its kind to integrate a spinning hard drive for storing up to 160GB worth of music. He confirmed that development of a replacement model would not be pursued, reports Engadget

"We would have to make a whole new product," Cook said. "The engineering work to do that would be massive. The number of people who wanted it is very small."

While Apple did not officially announce it would be discontinuing production of the iPod classic, the company quietly removed the device from its website and online store shortly after September's iPhone event.

The iPod classic was a design carryover from the music player's heyday and was most recently modified in 2009. Aside from a few aesthetic tweaks, however, the functional bits remained untouched for more than six years.