Click Wheel

The Click Wheel is a physical user interface that was present in Apple's iPod line, including the 4th-generation iPod, iPod mini, iPod photo, iPod U2 Special Edition, and some iPod nano generations.

Description
As implemented by Apple, the Click Wheel's select button is in the middle, the next song is the button below the right side of the circular control system, the previous song button is at the left side, the menu (or back) button is near the top, and play-pause is near the bottom. To scroll down, the user "turns" the wheel in a clockwise rotating motion around the central select button, and counter-clockwise to scroll up.

History
The first iPod, released in October 2001, featured a physically-moving Scroll Wheel, with a center button in the middle and four push-buttons around the wheel. The 2nd-generation iPod, released in July 2002, featured a Touch Wheel, which replaced the physically-moving wheel with a touch-sensitive version surrounded by the four push-buttons. The 3rd-generation iPod, released in April 2003, moved the four outside push-buttons to the top, and replaced them with LED-lit touch-sensitive buttons.

The iPod mini and the 4th-generation iPod, both released in 2004, made the four buttons into clicking push buttons, and embedded them below the four directional edges of the wheel. This became known as the Click Wheel.

Legacy
A version of the Click Wheel was considered for the iPhone line, but a multi-touch interface was implemented instead, starting with the first iPhone that was released in 2007. The multi-touch interface eventually replaced the clickwheel in the iPod touch series as well as the 6th and 7th-generation iPod nano.

In 2009, Apple's reliance on the Click Wheel interface for its successful iPod line was parodied in a satirical "news" coverage from  about the "MacBook Wheel".

Articles

 * A Visual History of the iPod Click Wheel (R.I.P.) by Brent Rose at Gizmodo (2014-09-10)
 * The iPod click wheel was the pinnacle of purposed hardware design by Chaim Gartenberg at The Verge (2018-11-21)
 * Turn your iPhone into a click wheel iPod Classic with ‘nice throwback’ app by Ben Lovejoy at 9to5Mac (2019-11-28)

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