October 23, 2001: Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the primary iPod, a tool able to storing a whole music library in a extremely moveable package deal.
The primary-generation system boasts a 5GB exhausting drive able to placing “1,000 songs in your pocket.” That will not sound too dazzling in a world wherein individuals can stream the huge Apple Music library from their iPhones, nevertheless it was a game-changer on the time!
First iPod modifications the course of Apple historical past
Earlier than the iPhone put the web in everybody’s pocket, the iPod put 1,000 songs there — and altered the music enterprise alongside the way in which. When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s first iPod on this present day in 2001, the corporate was nonetheless finest identified for Macs, and a conveyable music participant may need appeared like an unlikely detour.
Nonetheless, the modern white system helped flip digital music from a messy assortment of recordsdata into one thing individuals may carry, curate and purchase with ease. The iPod grew to become a cultural phenomenon, laid vital groundwork for the iTunes Music Retailer and helped rework Apple from a pc maker right into a shopper electronics powerhouse. In hindsight, it wasn’t only a new gadget. It was a rehearsal for the iPhone revolution to come back.
A lot because the iPhone was Apple’s try to reinvent cellphones, the iPod was the corporate’s try at creating an MP3 participant that wasn’t horrible to make use of. The idea took benefit of a brand-new 1.8-inch exhausting drive beneath improvement by Toshiba. Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s senior VP of {hardware} engineering on the time, took the brand new storage system to Steve Jobs and satisfied him that the expertise existed to construct an incredible moveable music participant.
As CEO of Apple, Jobs acquired a lot of the credit score for the iPod on the time. However the revolutionary system’s creation was really a collaborative effort. Along with Rubinstein, Apple engineer Tony Fadell oversaw improvement of the {hardware}. Phil Schiller, Apple’s advertising and marketing director, got here up with the concept of utilizing a scroll wheel to navigate track lists.
And the identify “iPod” got here from a contract copywriter, Vinnie Chieco, who recalled the well-known 2001: A House Odyssey line, “Open the pod bay doorways, Hal.”
Watch the unique iPod launch
Steve Jobs unveiled the first-gen iPod a bit over a month after the 9/11 terror assaults on New York Metropolis’s World Commerce Heart and the Pentagon, referring to it as a “breakthrough digital system.” He wasn’t flawed, and the iPod launch grew to become an vital milestone in Apple historical past.
“Music is part of everybody’s life,” Jobs mentioned on the time. “And since it’s part of everybody’s life, it’s a really giant goal market all around the globe.”
The small white iPod value $399. In comparison with dear gadgets just like the $1,999 iPhone Duo, that appears decidedly low cost for Apple, circa 2026. (Adjusted for inflation, it’s the equal of $760 at present.) Nonetheless, some skeptics nonetheless lambasted the system.
“All that hype for an MP3 participant? Break-thru digital system?” wrote one notorious on-line commenter with an obvious typo fetish. “The Actuality Distiortion Subject™ is beginning to warp Steve’s thoughts if he thinks for one second that this factor is gonna take off.”
First iPod launch paves means for Apple’s larger give attention to music
Picture: Newsweek
In the long run, the iPod grew to become an enormous hit for Apple. By 2007, Cupertino bought its 100 millionth iPod. That made it Apple’s hottest product till the iPhone got here alongside later that 12 months. The digital music participant helped drive the success of the iTunes Music Retailer, which rapidly grew to become America’s high music retailer.
Greater than 20 years after the primary iPod’s launch, Apple lastly shut down the product line on Could 10, 2022. That’s the date Apple pulled the plug on the iPod contact, the ultimate iteration of which was launched in Could 2019. (That mannequin got here with as much as 256GB of storage — greater than 50 occasions that of the first-generation iPod.)
Whereas Apple moved past the iPod, the revolutionary MP3 participant stays baked into Cupertino’s DNA. The corporate’s give attention to music led to Apple Music, one of many hottest music streaming companies on the earth. And the iPod’s iconic white earbuds, which grew to become synonymous with the gadget, advanced into the ultra-successful AirPods.
What was the primary iPod you owned? Let’s hear your recollections within the feedback beneath.
