Steve Jobs Biography: About Those Ubiquitous iPod Ads

[buckers]

I miss those colourful ads. It focussed on the music.

 

[Navdakilla]

Jobs is a genius

 

[iBug2]

Because if you have iTunes on Windows, you don't need to buy a Mac.

Yes, but at that point 45% of Apple's revenue was music. So even though releasing iTunes for Windows might have cannibalized mac sales, the extra music revenue from it would be much higher, and that's what the vice presidents kept saying over and over. Steve didn't care about the extra revenue, he wanted to keep iTunes Mac-only, but eventually he said "I'm done with you *******s, do whatever the hell you want to do".

Fortunately it was the correct thing to do.

 

[Sackvillenb]

Interesting. And an extremely smart move. This halo effect has absolutely been integral to the constantly growing popularity of macs... and with iPhones and iPads, this halo effect is bigger than ever.

 

[vastoholic]

Coming from Rural Oklahoma at the time and just getting into college a few years into the iPods lifecycle, the ads didn't really hit me, but my college book store was selling them. I bought an iPod mini as my first apple product and I remember my mom even suggested the Mac mini for college even though none of us had ever used a Mac. I didn't know much about them at all so I shrugged off the idea. It wasn't until 2008 when I bought an iPod touch for myself in Iraq, that I finally decided to buy my first MacBook Pro. And then I landed a sub contracted job for Apple after I moved to California and my bank account has been slowly going downhill from there.

My parents are still avid windows users though.

 

[stevejolly]

...Jobs was completely against releasing iTunes for Windows even though it meant huge music revenues. Fortunately he did what he thought at the time was wrong...

Don't miss the real point of that:

Jobs was insightful — and humble — enough to tell us this story. Many great leaders and entrepreneurs would not have been willing to share the rueful smile and the value in that tale. Steve was sometimes arrogant and wrongheaded, partly due to his own self-imagined personal "style"; but in the final two-thirds of his life, his fact-parsing ears and truth-seeking mind pointed his mouth toward the words and commands of inspiring leadership.

 

[jlc1978]

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)

...Jobs was completely against releasing iTunes for Windows even though it meant huge music revenues. Fortunately he did what he thought at the time was wrong...

Don't miss the real point of that:

Jobs was insightful — and humble — enough to tell us this story. Many great leaders and entrepreneurs would not have been willing to share the rueful smile and the value in that tale. Steve was sometimes arrogant and wrongheaded, partly due to his own self-imagined personal "style"; but in the final two-thirds of his life, his fact-parsing ears and truth-seeking mind pointed his mouth toward the words and commands of inspiring leadership.

While SJ had many flaws, he also had the ability to admit he was wrong ad well as respect those who stood up to him when they felt they were right and could make a strong argument for their POV. A rare quality in a senior leader but will be part of the cultural DNA heft at Apple.

 

[penguy]

I was initially going to reply that the iPod was what brought me to consider the Mac, it was in many ways, the Store...from there I tried out the iPod (which thankfully worked with Windows). Once I used that for a while, I really wanted a Mac, but couldn't justify the cost until the original G4 Mini was introduced...I still have that one, added a 2009 C2D and a Macbook with identical specs...and am considering the Mini server next...but the iPod, coupled with the ability to play with it in the store is what put Mac's in my house...

 

[iBug2]

Don't miss the real point of that:

Jobs was insightful — and humble — enough to tell us this story. Many great leaders and entrepreneurs would not have been willing to share the rueful smile and the value in that tale. Steve was sometimes arrogant and wrongheaded, partly due to his own self-imagined personal "style"; but in the final two-thirds of his life, his fact-parsing ears and truth-seeking mind pointed his mouth toward the words and commands of inspiring leadership.

Sorry but, this really wasn't about that at all. This is a point I certainly did not miss, but it was an irrelevant addendum.

 

[Schmitty11]

I blame the acid for the psychedelic ipod ads

 

[zap2]

That's how my first Mac came, first I saw my brothers iMac G4, then I got an iPod mini, but I knew from day one I wanted an iMac, and I ended up with the iMac G5

 

[pika2000]

This is true. My first Apple product was the 5G iPod, and I finally wanted a Mac because iTunes on Windows was getting suckier and suckier.

 

[Winni]

It's interesting. I've owned three iOS-based products for a while, a first generation iPod Touch, an iPhone 3G and an iPad -- and those were the products that almost drove me AWAY from using Macs. iOS and iTunes are horrible products that only exist to lock-in the customer to Apple's content delivery chain; they're digital prisons, nothing else.

 

[lamerica80]

Im starting to regret ordering the book from Amazon - I can read it here for free!

 

[redgaz26]

when i bought my first apple product, the first intel imac, I went into PC world in Glasgow, asked where the macs where and the staff didnt even know, i had a look around and there was 2 imacs under a shelf! they did not know they were there
last time i ever shopped in there, now we have a fantastic apple store in the centre
ive had 2 imacs, now on a macbook pro, had all the iphones , an ipad and an apple tv
****** pc world

 

[iSayuSay]

Yeah .. that worked .. Steve basically put a big hole on my wallet. A nice hole indeed

I bought and tried iPod touch for my first taste of Apple poison.
After that I go with iMac, and now with iPhone. But I don't know what this article means by "iPod ads are subsidized by Mac sales?"

Does it mean money from Mac sales used for iPod campaign at the time? Now I know why I should pay more for my Mac!! Dammit Apple

 

[LukeHarrison]

when i bought my first apple product, the first intel imac, I went into PC world in Glasgow, asked where the macs where and the staff didnt even know, i had a look around and there was 2 imacs under a shelf! they did not know they were there

****** pc world

We're getting better! The one I work in (not the Glasgow one) has two dedicated Apple tables, fitted by Apple themselves. One for Macs and one for iPad. They're the same sort of tables you see in the Apple Stores, and totally outshine our standard metal shelves! Plus, we're one of the top Apple sellers in the company, with very knowledgeable staff.

So, don't tar us all with the same brush.

 

[Clix Pix]

For me the situation was exactly opposite. I had bought my first Mac, the G5 iMac, and although I'd taken a stab at trying to figure out iTunes and the point of it on my PC, i'd long since given up. Now I had this shiny new iMac and of course iTunes was a featured part of it. About a month or so after I had bought the new machine I decided to figure out what this iTunes thing was all about.....and then I watched the keynote in which Steve introduced the then-newest iPods and the penny dropped. OH!!!!! I played around in iTunes a bit and then hustled off to the Apple store to buy my first iPod......