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16 Years Ago Today, Apple Unveiled the Original iPod

MacRumors said:



Today marks the 16th anniversary of the debut of the first iPod, which was introduced by Apple on October 23, 2001. The first-generation iPod, which Apple advertised with the tagline "1,000 songs in your pocket," was a rectangle-shaped device with a 5GB 1.8-inch hard drive capable of holding 1,000 songs.
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And on September 9, 2015, with only 3GB more the 8 GB iPhone 5C was discontinued.
How stingy Apple are with their storage over the last 14 years
 
Still use my first gen regularly. It works just fine. I India wish I'd left it in the box, though, as it might be worth something. But oh well--sixteen years of enjoyment....
 
citysnaps said:
You weren't aware that the iPhone 8 didn't have a headphone jack, before spending your $1000? And didn't discover it missing until after the return period?
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Good Lort, of course I knew it, I follow all the developments closely. :)

I bought it anyway because even though it's annoying, that one negative aspect of the new iPhones introduced in 2016 and going forward is still not enough to outweigh the positives for me, which are iOS itself and the Apple ecosystem such a iMessage and Apple Watch which I truly value.

I've had Bluetooth receivers for my wired headphones going back a few years, and Bluetooth headphones as well -- this isn't new to me, and most of the time it doesn't impact me at all since the most common use case for me is Bluetooth headphones and sometimes wired headphones via small, pocketable Bluetooth receivers.

However, with my 6S Plus and older iPhones, I was able to plug straight in without a dongle for the occasions where I didn't happen to have a dongle or Bluetooth receiver and just wanted to plug into a friend's car or home system without Bluetooth -- or test wired headphones in store displays where they let you plug in, which is what I tried to do the other day before I laughed and remembered I couldn't do that anymore. (I don't carry a dongle with me everywhere!)

To me, that is an obvious degradation of the iPhone as a true iPod, as it was when Steve Jobs introduced iPhone -- no dedicated music player sold today would sell well without a standard 3.5mm jack and so that means, to me, that iPhone is no longer truly an iPod anymore. I live with that and that's fine, just pointing it out.

(In fact, what I did the other day to test headphones is take in my little FiiO M3 portable music player -- I happened to have it in the car, but if I hadn't, I would have been SOL...)
 
I have just recently found my 3rd Gen iPod. Wow, can't believe how long ago this was. Doesn't turn on sadly. wonder if i could get it working, though really REALLY have no use for it.
 
MacRumors said:
It featured a black and white LCD and the first click wheel, a mechanical scrolling interface that let users quickly and conveniently scroll through long lists of music.
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According to an inside source, the click-wheel idea was taken from the Bang & Olufsen BeoCom 6000, a wireless phone that used a navigation wheel to give speedy access to features like a phone book.

When Steve Jobs introduced the iPod, he called it a quantum leap forward and outlined three major breakthroughs: ultra-portability, Apple's legendary ease of use, and auto-sync with iTunes.
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- We already had portable players. Heck some of us had 1GB microdrives in our PDAs. (Toshiba was developing a higher GB drive. Apple was smart to grab an exclusive for a while.)

- Ease of use came from a UI by a third party.

- iTunes was the biggie IMO, but of course the iPod was just a niche Apple user product, until iTunes got ported to Windows. THEN the iPod really took off.
 
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scottish said:
The forum replies to the article are good to read now:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/
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REALLY worth a read for those that haven't yet. Here's a tidbit:

>>No ***** Way

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


Also funny seeing complaints about the $400 price tag... who would pay a car payment for a MP3 player?
 
In an alternate universe, Apple, the iPod, the iPad, and the iPhone don't exist and Zune is the most popular music player in the universe. You also use a Windows phone with a stylus thing via Win CE v23.6.
[doublepost=1508878357][/doublepost]Bring back the HP iPod!
 
trellus said:
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).
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So your entire long winded post is based off of the headphone jack the Apple removed and they gave you an adapter, which is included. Is that supposed to reflect negatively on a company simply over a headphone jack, because Apple views don't align with yours? Apple can't please every consumer, including yourself. Basically you're just saying you don't agree with the changes that Apple has made and the iPhone isn't comparable to the iPod because it's no longer a fully functional music player, unless you have an adapter?

Or more the fact that you're just completely dismissive of that the iPhone is 10 times what the iPod was 10 years ago even if it is missing the headphone jack today. Its Capabilities and functionality has exponentially expanded. It just seems you're more in denial and bitter about how the iPhone is changed and it just does not meet your narrarive anymore.
 
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Xavier said:
Still miss my iPod 3rd Gen. I think it still functions but I haven't used it in years.

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Yes I still have mine. Got my first taste of Apple's customer service when it quit after two weeks. I called(no Apple stores then, kids)and after a short conversation they sent me a new one next day air, and a label to use sending the broken one back. From that moment on they had me. I've got a replacement battery, but haven't attempted the swap yet. Used it running. Dropped many times on pavement and never a hiccup.
 
rgarjr said:
Those Pods were built like tanks. I've upgraded my hard drive from 5GB to 20GB.
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Where did you get the HD replacement? Can you still get replacement batteries for them too? Maybe I should turn mine back into something useful, maybe to play music in my car or something.
 
SuperMatt said:
Where did you get the HD replacement? Can you still get replacement batteries for them too? Maybe I should turn mine back into something useful, maybe to play music in my car or something.
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I replaced the drive myself with a used one from a 3rd gen, their cheap priced. Batteries are also available on eBay for them.
 
Relentless Power said:
So your entire long winded post is based off of the headphone jack the Apple removed and they gave you an adapter, which is included. Is that supposed to reflect negatively on a company simply over a headphone jack, because Apple views don't align with yours? Apple can't please every consumer, including yourself. Basically you're just saying you don't agree with the changes that Apple has made and the iPhone isn't comparable to the iPod because it's no longer a fully functional music player, unless you have an adapter?

Or more the fact that you're just completely dismissive of that the iPhone is 10 times what the iPod was 10 years ago even if it is missing the headphone jack today. Its Capabilities and functionality has exponentially expanded. It just seems you're more in denial and bitter about how the iPhone is changed and it just does not meet your narrarive anymore.
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It's just not "everything an iPod is" anymore, because no dedicated music player sold today (that isn't ridiculously niche or has very small sales numbers), including Apple's own iPod Touch, comes without a headphone jack.

And yes, I'm saying because of that, it can no longer be properly characterized as fully functional music player without an adapter.

It's not that it doesn't meet my narrative, it's that it doesn't meet the characterization that Steve Jobs gave it as a "three-in-one" device, where one of those three is an "iPod."

As for "reflecting negatively on a company simply over a headphone jack," I think it does reflect negatively on them, sure, for that move which I think was a poor one because it really doesn't have any positives, frankly. The 6S Plus was a great phone and it had a headphone jack. Other phones that are water resistant have headphone jacks, so that excuse is BS.

Does it mean that the product isn't excellent to me as a phone and an "internet communication device," and acceptable to me as a music player? Well, I bought the iPhone 8 Plus, and I love it overall, so I think that says everything about what I think about the iPhone overall and Apple as a whole. :cool:
 
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theluggage said:
The iPod's real advantage - which wasn't initially apparent - was its ease-of-use and well-designed UI when compared with the competition.
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are you kidding me? I have an iPod and always found it terribly hard to use it. Just to think of the scrolling wheel makes want to vomit.
 
I killed so many iPod shuffles I think I kept that model in circulation. A couple of Nanos too...:cool: then I got an iPhone and they starting breaking down on their own. :p

The iPod was a fun bit of tech to own.
 
You obviously do not remember how horrible the music players of the time were when the iPod came out. The iPod was leaps ahead compared to them.

rafark said:
are you kidding me? I have an iPod and always found it terribly hard to use it. Just to think of the scrolling wheel makes want to vomit.
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Tape players weren't even so bad. I'm thinking about the Rio and similar mp3 players that were horrible.


Apple fanboy said:
Tape playing walkmans. The worst. There are songs I listen to now and wonder why it sounds so different with out the hisss!
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Paco II said:
Tape players weren't even so bad. I'm thinking about the Rio and similar mp3 players that were horrible.
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No tapes were terrible. Not the song you want to listen to? Fast forward and try and guess when the songs finished. Gone to far? Rewind and try and guess where in the song you are. Then they break!
 
I still have my 160GB model. I will admit I am finally starting to use my iPhone a lot more for car rides because of the streaming capabilities for podcasts. It's just way faster to stream than to download them and throw it on my iPod.

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