16 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the Original iPod

[Baumi]

A very different time, with Apple still being a niche player in most parts of the world. I remember the original iPod announcement and how I thought "Cool product, but – just like with Macs – nobody will sell any accessories for it here in Germany."

Glad I was wrong.

 

[JosephAW]

Ah yes, the infamous Thread 500:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

Such visionaries in there! Always good for a laugh.

I see some of my old posts before an account was required. Forget that today.

 

[Strelok]

I still have a Nano 1st gen laying around somewhere that I used in 6th grade I think it was. I remember getting an iPod Touch a year or two later. After I got my first smartphone (Droid 2), I never used an iPod again. It's just easier to have a single device that does the job of a phone and a media player.

 

[OllyW]

Still miss my iPod 3rd Gen. I think it still functions but I haven't used it in years.

My first one too. Liked it so much I bought a Mac a few weeks later.

 

[TSM]

I want a 7 soon!
[doublepost=1508773351][/doublepost]Or an X, it's ok.

 

[asdavis10]

<sarcasm>iPhone with Click-Wheel would have been a smash hit.< /sarcasm>

 

[WannaGoMac]

Wow look how clean, uncluttered, and straightforward to find functions iTunes looks!

Can we have that iTunes back please?

 

[Porco]

I am reminded of the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi:

“An elegant weapon for a more civilized age”

 

[SuperMatt]

I still have my 2001 iPod. It holds a battery charge for only about 5 minutes now though. Guess I could replace its battery but it's not that useful anymore since I have an iPhone...

 

[jujufreeze]

The smartwatch is the new ipod. Holds 4gb of memory and offline spotify is coming soon along with apple music. Phone is too clunky and impractical to workout with and the watch lasts a day in battery, has GPS, bluetooth, heartrate monitor, vo2 max and more to sync with my iphone, look at my fitness stats, use the stopwatch, look at the time! make payments or take a quick call. Its been more useful than I anticipated.

 

[trellus]

I laughed at this line in the article:

"The iPhone does everything the iPod did and more, and has served as an iPod replacement since its debut."

Well, yeah, no, not anymore. The iPod actually still has a headphone jack.

I no longer consider my iPhone (I have the 8 Plus) a music player. It works about 80% of the time (since I usually use wireless), but I still on many occasions find myself trying to plug in an audio cable or wired headphones and going... "oh, yeah, that's right..."

iPhone is no longer a fully functional music player -- unless you have a clumsy dongle that I almost never have with me and that degrades the "three-in-one" aspect of the device Steve Jobs heralded when iPhone was introduced. It's a very un-Apple like experience with that horrid dongle.

Steve Jobs mocked other phones for having styluses, noting that it's something to lose and to have to fumble with. That's how I feel about the dongle, only worse, because at least my Treo had a slot for its stylus -- no such home for the dongle on the iPhone, and no wonder, because it would be rather stupid to have a place for a dongle when you could just use the space for the headphone jack.

The iPhone is no longer what it was when Steve Jobs introduced it in 2007 as a three-in-one device. It is still a phone and an "internet communication device", but it's now a crippled iPod -- all so Apple can feed the ridiculous, unnecessary obsession with ultra-thinness (my 6s Plus was fine and had a headphone jack).

 

[CrystalQuest76]

Still have my iPad (Second generation with Firewire) that held 10 GB of music. I recently pulled it out of the closet and it still charged up plugged into wall outlet and it worked. It was a much simpler interface. Apple was not trying to sell music at the time.

 

[artfossil]

I had the original. I only bought it because there was a rebate coupon when I bought a new PowerBook (educational offer) because otherwise it was too expensive for me. I remember the next year I MIGHT see one person from time to time with an iPod on my campus.

My favorite though was the original shuffle with the plastic lanyard case. Apple even sent me a new case when mine started to crack.

 

[jasonklee]

I will never apologize. The iPod failed. It was being brutalized by the Zune before they turned it into the iPod touch. We never saw the ending. Also Apple eventually canceled the iPod. Right? So we original naysayers were proven right in the end. What we need are not toys but REAL computers for REAL people.

MacBook, MacBook Pro
iMac, Mac Pro

That’s it.

iPhone is just copying Samsung so our mobile experience is covered there.

 

[Stella Martin]

iPhone is expensive but it's worth it. It's very personalized, and built to withstand years of abuse from owners!

 

[macmyworld]

I had the original iPod and loved it. Lots of great memories. Before it I had an Intel MP3 player.

Really hate seeing the iPod going away due to Apple Music. Just tossed my nano since it doesn't support Apple Music.

Bought an iPod Touch for Apple Music and the thing is so dang slow that it wasn't worth it.

 

[Brenster]

Got on board with the 3rd gen iPod in early 2004, a couple of months after my first Mac. Was music obsessed beforehand anyway, and it was like the iPod and iTunes ecosystem had been custom designed for my obsession. Still keep my engraved 4th gen nano and 1st gen shuffle around for occasional listening and lawn mowing duties. All long since displaced by a succession of iPhones but I’ve never been able to truly say goodbye to the ipod.

 

[Since1987]

I still use my Nano 7 daily, if it had 64gb of memory I would make love to that little device. It hurts me that Apple killed off the iPod as the Nano 4 was my first Apple device ever and it was great,

It hurts me that Apple is dumb enough to kill products that are still completely relevant, people still want and would buy today... just to boost other products in their line that don't do this particular job as well. Tonerhead logic. Although now, it's Beats-heads running Apple instead of Tonerheads running Xerox.

Purely for portable Music listening purposes, the Nano was the best product available by Apple or by any other company. And now, NOBODY makes such a product. iPod Nanos ( and Classics, for car use) are on sale on eBay for 50-100% markup to satisfy the demand that Apple says definitely doesn't exist. Apple has 100% ABANDONED a market they dominated... by choice , just like Airport and FinalCut Studio.

This is even more egregious though, i mean... Kleenex = "Tissue" ---- iPod = "portable music listening device". Business wise, abandoning a product line you DEFINE, a market you OWN is insane, not insanely great.

An iPod Nano 8th gen 64gb is essentially Free Money for Apple. But hey, who wants that?? The important thing is Ivecook get to snuff another 3.5" jack and sell some more Beats wireless.

Jobs = Jimmy Johnson
Cook = Barry Switzer ( Cook is still "succeeding" based on Jobs fumes. Barely )

 

[koulmj]

I remember seeing this thing at a Campus Computer store the following January. I told my self, "That SH** is never gonna sell...", looks like I was wrong about this, but I was right about Crystal Pepsi.

 

[SSDGUY]

... and MacRumors forum was all “give us more powerful Macs and don’t waste time with toys”. Prescient.

Same as today. I say, how about both?

 

[Mildredop]

I simply didn't understand why anyone would want an iPod. Bulky, heavy and you can't record on it, edit on it, rename tracks etc.

MiniDisc was the way forward.

Eventually I bought a Sony HDD player. It was rubbish. So I bought an iPod and within a week ditched my Vaio PC and bought a PowerBook.

 

[rgarjr]

Those Pods were built like tanks. I've upgraded my hard drive from 5GB to 20GB.

 

[mariusignorello]

The forum replies to the article are good to read now:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/

Seems like nothing’s changed through the years.

 

[Four oF NINE]

iPods haven't gone away, they're built into every iPhone

 

[CTHarrryH]

Still have my original one - upstairs in some box - haven't listened to it in many years I think I was a first day order. I should try and power it up and see what music is on it.