iPod Turns 10 Years Old Today

[Billicus]

<--- Proud owner of iPod 2nd Generation (Was so happy to get it for Christmas that year!!), iPod Shuffle 1st Generation, iPod Touch 1st Generation, and iPhone 4. The way I enjoy music is a lot different from my 2002 trip to New York for which I burnt a lot of mix CDs to listen to on the bus.

 

[SactoGuy18]

I think it took the 1G nano and the 5G iPod classic (the first model that could play video) for the iPod to really take off in popularity in 2005, just when the iTune Music Store started to really take off in popularity. But it was the 2G nano and the 5.5G iPod classic that I consider the iPod "coming of age"--they were the first models to incorporate seamless transitions between tracks.

 

[Savor]

Happy Birthday to the one device that helped Apple rise from the ashes and back into the mainstream. I know the iMac and the "Think Different" campaign in the late-90's helped get the ball rolling, but it was iPod and iTunes that helped create this ecosystem that we know today. To me, iPods always had some of the better ads over iPhones and iPads. People sometimes take for granted how the iPod changed our lives. We no longer had to carry around a CD player and case. Instead of just one album in our music player, we had thousands of songs in our pocket to help eliminate our album collection that cluttered our homes and cars.

Kudos to Jon Rubinstein for helping create it. Such a shame his Palm and webOS devices went belly up and the iPod classic that he helped engineered never got an update after the 6th generation and GB bump after two years. And such a shame SJ couldn't live to see this day.

After a decade, no 10-year anniversary edition for the classic line that helped started it all?

 

[JPIndustrie]

There's still a need for a device like iPod. Unlike phones, music players don't have contract and serve specific needs (iPod Classic for example). Just stop defending Apple's moves with reasons that don't even make sense.(

What do you even mean? It makes perfect sense. Why would you want to be known as the company holding onto tech 10, 15 years old? No self-respecting tech company should be interested in embracing the past that isn't the point. Hope you pre-ordered Steve's bio, you are going to learn a lot about this guy trust me.

Agree with the reason, wish Apple doesn't kill the iPod line

They're not killing the iPod line. Do you have an iPhone? Do you use both to listen to music? Wouldn't you agree having an iPhone cuts down on consumer need for an iPod?

The pt is - you are. Everyone in the iPhone and iPad forums are. Not Apple. They're just selling innovation; not 'generations.

 

[retry4]

Wow... Only 10 years and 1 day ago the world didn't know what an iPod was.

 

[haruhiko]

Haha, negative comments come up with every Apple product release, the iPod, the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, the iPad.

 

[MacAddict1978]

What's really funny is how everyone has gone to the old thread on MR linked in the article and begun to rate the posts....

Uh, that feature wasn't there back then, and I wonder how you would have rated those posts 10 years ago vs. now.

My first reaction to the iPod was... cool. I was still a foolish Microsuck Winblows user back then, and even considered buying a FireWire card when the PC version came out. It's funny how the PC version when it came out was it's own model.

 

[steve2112]

But frankly, between the Nano and the Touch, there really isn't much room for things like the Classic. It's only a very few users that actually want to drag around so much music they can't possibly listen to it all in a reasonable timeframe. Call them hoarders or whatever, but do the Classic unit numbers really justify R&D/marketing that would be required to refresh the thing ?

At Amazon, the Classic is outselling the Nano, Shuffle, and 64GB Touch. So, yeah, I'd say there is still a market. Maybe not enough of a market to warrant a major upgrade, but certainly enough to keep it going.

 

[KnightWRX]

I don't understand why you feel Nano shouldn't do anything other than playing music. Its not like having more features would affect its music capabilities. Let me take an example, Kindle is better than iPad for reading. That is NO reason for Apple to exclude books functionality.

The form factor would surely be harmed by the extra hardware required or the battery life would be severely hampered by a smaller battery if they kept all the extra features you say.

Kindles and iPads don't have that issue, being much bigger than the current Nano.

----------

At Amazon, the Classic is outselling the Nano, Shuffle, and 64GB Touch. So, yeah, I'd say there is still a market. Maybe not enough of a market to warrant a major upgrade, but certainly enough to keep it going.

And they are still selling them. I said "warrant a refresh". Does it really need a refresh anyway ?

 

[Sequin]

At Amazon, the Classic is outselling the Nano, Shuffle, and 64GB Touch. So, yeah, I'd say there is still a market. Maybe not enough of a market to warrant a major upgrade, but certainly enough to keep it going.

The classic seems a lot smarter money wise to me. I've had my iPod classic for at least 5 years. At the time $250 seemed like a lot, but it's definitely been worth the price considering how long the product lasts. People that use their iPhone as their music player are probably still spending money by upgrading when new models come out. Touch is a waste in general if you have the iPhone. Nano only holds enough for playlists. I also like playlists and all, but in general I find that I shuffle all of my 4,000 or so songs at once. I don't like listening to the same things over and over and it's nice to be like HEY I FORGOT ABOUT THIS SONG.

 

[haruhiko]

I stopped participating on slashdot around that time, in large part because it was filled with people too stupid to understand the advantages of the iPod.

One thing I've learned is, these people never eat any crow. They never learn. A few years later they're not even aware that they thought that.

It's like android fans now. Too stupid and too dishonest to even talk to. It doesn't matter what you say. Their minds are immune to reason and facts.

They heard someone claim that multitouch was invented 30 years ago, so they insist Apple didn't invent anything. They don't care that it isn't true, it just gives them an excuse not to think.

It's about ideology. Their ideology has replaced thinking.

Unfortunately, this is so common among people that a genuinely rational person like Steve Jobs looks like a genius by comparison.

Yes. It's ideology.

 

[sixthrelease]

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

Proof that Steve Jobs can make anything a success. Here's to 10 more years of his gOOd innOvatiOns.

 

[Savor]

I think it took the 1G nano and the 5G iPod classic (the first model that could play video) for the iPod to really take off in popularity in 2005, just when the iTune Music Store started to really take off in popularity. But it was the 2G nano and the 5.5G iPod classic that I consider the iPod "coming of age"--they were the first models to incorporate seamless transitions between tracks.

I think it actually started by the time the iPod mini came out. This was around 2004. It came in different colors, a big box, and was simply cheaper than the bigger brother. At $200 for a 4GB by early 2005, that was more of the "mainstream" price tag. In my opinion, I think the iPod mini had the best build quality out of all the iPods. Anodized aluminum and no fingerprint/scratch magnet back like many of the bigger iPods with the mirrored chrome finish. I can still pick up a refurbished iPod mini for like $20 at GameStop! This is why the Nokia N9 interest me so much. It has polycarbonate, but their cyan color reminds me of that blue color of the iPod mini.

But yeah, from 2005-2009, iPod sales really started to peak. The year in 2005 was special because the bigger iPod finally got video and the iPod nano got introduced and became huge sellers to succeed over the iPod mini line. It got to another level by the time the iPod touch got released in 2007 once we had four different lines of iPods.

 

[zipster]

I hope the iPod line isn't killed. I have the 3G, 5G, and Classic versions. Love them all.

And it seems insignificant, but I miss the 'iPod' app on the iPhone.

 

[SeattleMoose]

The Very Seed of the "iGadget Revolution"...

The success and influence of the iPod can NEVER be overstated.

Geez how I miss the click wheel on the more "upscale" iPods.

 

[imageWIS]

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

And the Macintosh 128K sucked at $2,495 in 1984

 

[KPOM]

It is no longer called iPod on my iPhone. It is just music now. Has it always been this way?

I think on the original iPhone it was called "iPod," but now it is broken up into the separate Music and Video applications.

 

[ChrisTX]

I have 3 iPod classics 160gb, 30gb, and 20gb. All for in car use that always get used, an old gym specific nano, and a brand new(as of last year)touch nano specifically for the gym, plus my iPhone, and iPad. The point is, that I love all of my iPods, and they all serve a completely unique purpose in my life. Happy Birthday iPod!

 

[jmpnop]

The form factor would surely be harmed by the extra hardware required or the battery life would be severely hampered by a smaller battery if they kept all the extra features you say.

Kindles and iPads don't have that issue, being much bigger than the current Nano.

What I'm telling is that they shouldn't have downgraded to the tiny screen in the first place. Like I said, current Nano is merely a touchscreen Shuffle which is a steep downgrade and no reason to justify this move is convincing.

 

[jouster]

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)

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.

Right. Because the other $399 5GB MP3 players that size were way better!

Mine didn't suck then and it doesn't now. Still works perfectly and I use it nearly every day.

 

[KPOM]

Kudos to Jon Rubinstein for helping create it. Such a shame his Palm and webOS devices went belly up and the iPod classic that he helped engineered never got an update after the 6th generation and GB bump after two years. And such a shame SJ couldn't live to see this day.

After a decade, no 10-year anniversary edition for the classic line that helped started it all?

Apple's "anniversary lines" haven't sold well in the past. I think a lot of people were actually surprised Apple didn't quietly discontinue the iPod Classic like they did the MacBook. I'm guessing that once 128GB or 256GB of Flash Storage becomes cheap enough to put into either the iPhone or iPod Touch as standard, they'll drop it. By then, however, the cloud may have changed people's habits (though wireless data caps will hinder that).

 

[ArchaicRevival]

I remember I was in Lebanon when the first iPod came out, and my cousin was one of the few people that got an iPod in Lebanon, it was so fascinating!


Happy Birthday iPod!

 

[zea mays]

I got my first iPod in mid-2003 for my birthday from my mom. At that time, Target was clearance-ing out all the iPods. I remember you had to choose windows/mac - though with a little effort you could format either way - but you were pretty well stuck with what you chose.

My husband was jealous of my gift so we ended up driving quite way to find two more on clearance. Sold one on ebay - the forums were on fire with people trying to get the clearanced models. We had to buy a firewire port for our (one and only - it was a brief switch to PC for us) PC.

Still have those two iPods and they still run pretty well. Until about 1 year ago my grandpa was still using one to listen to audiobooks that we would put on it for him. May look into selling one on ebay after seeing those prices, though! Maybe hubby won't be so upset that we've moved the original boxes so many times!!

 

[NebulaClash]

I still have mine!

I still have mine as well, and it works just fine. I'm keeping it as a museum piece -- where the iPod all began.

iPod owner since January 2002. I had it before it became a fad. I remember the first time I saw another iPod owner on the street, and we both noticed, smiled and nodded at our choice.

 

[LeiQQ]

It was not that it was an mp3 player but how the user interacted with the device that made it great. Also how iTunes synced with the device made it great. I still have my 40GB with click wheel. I think it cost $300 and at the time it was worth it. I thought the photo iPod at $499 was crazy expensive at the time.