So what's not to like? Well, iPod sales fell a whopping 20 percent to 7.54 million. Nobody's surprised that iPod sales are falling, as the standalone MP3 player is rapidly losing ground to smartphones that play tunes and do a zillion other things as well.

It's too bad that Apple didn't break out its third-quarter iPod sales by model. It's a safe bet that the iPod Classic, the venerable click-wheel model that's sooo 2007, took the biggest hit, followed perhaps by either the iPod shuffle or nano. The iPhone-like iPod touch, however, is probably selling well.

Of course, it's too early for Apple to kill off the iPod entirely. Seven-and-half million sales in one quarter is still impressive, even if recent trends suggest that the music player's best days are behind it.

It may be time, however, for Apple to prune the iPod tree. Two options:

Kill the iPod Classic: Sure, this old-school device has 160GB of storage and holds up to 40,000 songs. But other than DJs and music industry pros, who really needs to store that many tunes? Besides, with the arrival of cloud-based storage services, including Apple's own , the mega-capacity music player may soon lose its mainstream appeal.