I used to think of Apple as a tech firm, then as a design firm, but I realised a few years ago that what they are is masters of marketing.
In a time when people still had their VCRs and Cassette players because they refused to let go of the old technology because of it's 'value' Apple managed to turn technology into a disposable accessory. Almost none of Apple's products are particularly revolutionary, hell, voice recognition software has been around as long as I have, but they still managed to brand it and sell it, but it's not revolutionary tech or software that's doing it for them. It's the fact that when someone breaks their iPod, they don't bother to get it fixed. They just buy a new one. I have no idea how that happened.
I'm working from an Australian perspective here so the following won't be relevant to the rest of the world, but when iPods happened, Australia was in a recession due to being in the middle of a decade long drought. That's important because typically, during economic downturns, people hold onto their technology. This was still true at the time. People were buying new flat screen TVs but still keeping their old CRT televisions. They'd buy DVD players, replace their VHS collections, but still keep the VCR. Because the technology had value.
Suddenly the iPod came along. That's when the revolution started. Technology went from being something with value to being something that had value only until the next 'version' came out. And these are things people were spending hundreds of dollars on, and yet the attitude became "Oh, it's broken, well, time to get a new one." Certainly, a large part of that was Apple's warranty repair and customer service which, in Australia, were horrifying. It seemed like 1 in every 3 iPods broke within 6 months due to factory error. And suddenly, Apple stopped repairing them.
Stores stopped taking them, saying "You have to contact Apple yourself."
It became too much effort to get an iPod repaired. It was easier to just purchase a new one. And people did.
I have no idea if it was intentional on Apple's part, but it worked.
That marketing, the idea of disposable technology, comes down to Apple and all other industries looked on with envy.