iPod Turns 10 Years Old Today

[MacRumors]

Ten years ago today, Steve Jobs took the stage and introduced the first iPod.

The portable music player is seen as being largely responsible for Apple's dramatic comeback over the past decade. It also led Apple down the path into the consumer electronics market. While the iPod has diminished in importance over the past few years, Apple's bottom line is now dominated by devices such as the iPhone and iPad.

Macworld provides a nice story detailing how the iPod came to be:

Behind every successful product lies a problem in search of a solution. The inspirational problem, in the iPod's case, involved the pitiful state of the young MP3 player market in the late 1990s.

Portable MP3 players had been around since the mid 1990s, but Apple found that every one on the market offered a lackluster user experience. Steve Jobs had a strong term for gadgets like that: "crap". Everyone at Apple agreed.

Initial reaction to the iPod wasn't entirely favorable. Slashdot's famous reaction was "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." MacRumors was also around at the time as well, and much of the reader reaction was also negative. One commenter wrote:

All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field(TM) is starting to warp Steve's mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.

Of course, ten years later, the iPod has sold over 304 million units.


Article Link: iPod Turns 10 Years Old Today

[DaveXXDave]

first and i love my ipod touch :P

[jca24]

I still have mine!

[Renverse]

I hope all of those negative commenters eat some delicious crow today. Yum.

[SilianRail]

Originally Posted by Renverse

I hope all of those negative commenters eat some delicious crow today. Yum.

The first iPod did suck for a $399 product in 2001 dollars.

[MacSince1990]

Happy birthday, little guy!

[darbus69]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

got my 5gb FireWire baby with its 20 minute battery!

[racer1441]

Originally Posted by Renverse

I hope all of those negative commenters eat some delicious crow today. Yum.

Wouldn't it be great if Steve Jobs, knowing this was coming, sent letters before his death with the negative reviews to the people who thought it would fail with a big picture of him smiling sitting on a pile of cash?

[Lennholm]

Miss that design, how the buttons are arranged to resemble a speaker element is just lovely.

[crackstein]

That's why I hate so called experts!

[tigres]

Got one as a gift from someone special.

In a safe unopened for the next 10 years or so.

[Clown Boy]

The iPod failed IMO.

A £400 device without video.

WTF was Jobs on?

[thejadedmonkey]

Originally Posted by Lennholm

Miss that design, how the buttons are arranged to resemble a speaker element is just lovely.

Agreed. They've never made a better looking iPod than this beauty.

How I miss the jog wheel

[X5GEE]

still have my original.

[Stella]

Expensive, sure, but over all a good product. I really enjoyed mine.

Looks like the iPod Classic is on its last legs... but the original product has morphed into new products.

[andrewface]

they've come quite a long way from iPod 1 to iPhone 4s

[RodThePlod]

Many happy returns, dude!

(not that you had too many returns, of course)



RTP.

[andrewface]

Originally Posted by Clown Boy

The iPod failed IMO.

A £400 device without video.

WTF was Jobs on?

hahahaha

[jon1987]

Originally Posted by Clown Boy

The iPod failed IMO.

A £400 device without video.

WTF was Jobs on?

I'm sure apples bank balance proves the iPod turned out to be a failure.

[jmpnop]

Really sad to see Apple not paying attention to one of the best products - Nano is pretty useless (compared to 5th gen), Touch didn't get any update, Classic is dead in Apple's eyes

[vitzr]

Originally Posted by Renverse

I hope all of those negative commenters eat some delicious crow today. Yum.

Ah yes, instead of celebrating the brilliance of the iPod, the posters choice is to take a negative demeaning stance, an outlet for revenge, an expression of distain. How revealing of who the author is... So sad.

[rotarydialz]

It wasn't the first mp3 player and many people didn't think it was the best either. The imitators always wait until Apple hits a grand slam before they get to work on their version.

[Cougarcat]

Originally Posted by jon1987

I'm sure apples bank balance proves the iPod turned out to be a failure.

If the iPod hadn't dropped the price, FireWire requirement, and Mac exclusivity, then it wouldn't have taken off.

[xraytech]

Holy Crap!!!

Look how much some of the Gen 1s are going for on eBay!

http://www.ebay.com/ctg/Apple-iPod-c...d=p3286.c0.m14

[KPOM]

The iPod is what eventually got me back into the Mac fold. I purchased it in December 2001, even before it officially worked with Windows. I remember XPlay, Ephpod, and other "hacks" to get it to work with Windows. I even purchased a Firewire PCI card for my Windows XP desktop to get it to run. Of course, I managed to mess up the drive the first time, and took it to one of the brand new Apple stores 40 miles away, where the Genius Bar representative happily restored it.

I do remember the early criticism. In some respects, it was like the reaction to the iPhone 4S. Apple products in many ways fail to meet the hype but then greatly exceed the hype at the same time, if that makes any sense. People are "disappointed" that whatever they release didn't meet some wild speculation, but then realize that it's a great product. It happened with the iPod, the iPhone, the MacBook Air, and the iPad. All were roundly criticized by many "experts."