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I remember when I purchased my 1st Generation iPod and thought I would see hundreds if not thousands of people on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) Subway in Toronto, Canada with one enjoying their commutes with a little Apple Lifestyle Enhancer…boy was I incorrect. Looking back I guess I deeply valued Apple, was making decent money, and made the bold decision to buy my first iPod. My first iPod lasted 4+ years and only failed when a partner at the time borrowed it and dropped it in a flower pot filled with soil and water. The following image is the result of that experience. Rest In Peace old iPod wherever you are and may you know Apple has been Enhancing my Lifestyle since. Thanks Steve!

 

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"Combining technologies" is not the same as ripping off technology and actual product implementations and later paying hundreds of millions of dollars in court ordered damages for stealing, which is what Apple has done.
I can give a little here,but it’s just one of those ideas that they paid for. And don’t get me started on the vagueness of US patent licensing.
 
I remember getting my first iPod and obsessing more over it than actually using it. It was truly something else at the time.
 
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So much hate in those comments. Some things never change !

They must have vanished as your post is now #4 and I don’t see any hate in those prior.

Edit: Guess you’re referring to the old comments from yesteryear. True that!
 
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"Combining technologies" is not the same as ripping off technology and actual product implementations and later paying hundreds of millions of dollars in court ordered damages for stealing, which is what Apple has done. They never tried to just license these things from the actual inventors and give them the credit they deserve for their years of hard work, because they wanted all the glory for things they did not actually create.

We all remember (one of many examples) Steve Jobs standing on stage claiming Apple invented Multi-Touch!

He also stood on stage at the iPod Mini Event and claimed they invented (Patent pending!) the scroll wheel and the click wheel!


 
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Wow - I never owned an iPod (Apple products where very exotic in Europe at the time) - instead opting for a Creative Labs MP3 player and a Sony Minidisc recorder.

I was surprised that it was only 20 years ago.

I bought the first iPod right away because I owned one of these crappy Creative Labs things that ate batteries and was a pain to use. Expensive so worth it to me at the time. Of course one needed a Mac to make the first one work.
 
Isn’t one an analog dial, no different than a flat stereo knob and one a touch interface?
Like comparing a analog dial to a touch slider isn’t it?

We can draw conclusion with any products. You use your pointer finger to scroll through your roll-a-dex and you use your pointer finger to scroll your mouse wheel for files.
Apple just copied the roll-a-dex later on.

Tim, you should know better, you were onboard at the time!
 
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Apple always called it a click wheel as far as I remember, even on the first iPod.

But the actual click wheel (with integrated buttons) on later models was also not created by Apple. It was invented by Norihiko Saito in 1998, 6 years before Apple first used one on the iPod.

Apple actually had to pay him millions in damages.

Well, they didn't.


And a technology used in the click wheel was invented by Norihiko Saito.


The only thing you've posted that's factual is that he was paid damages.
 
Apple fans in 2001: enough of this iTunes iLife iPod garbage toys for teens, give me more servers and pro machines. And fix Mac OS X 10.0, it’s clearly not ready for public usage and Apple should’ve waited until it was actually ready before releasing it.
Apple fans in 2021: enough of this emoji iPhone Watch AirPods garbage for TikTok teens, give me my 32 cpu core 128 GPU core MacPro. And fix macOS Monterey, it’s still an absolute mess, and Steve Jobs never released things that weren’t quite ready for public usage
 
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Recall it well, also rolling my eyes because I dropped almost $300 bucks on this iPaq in Summer 2001.

Already had tons of MP3s from Napster. Two 32MB cards, ran on 2 AA Batteries. I could get maybe 25-35 songs on this if I dropped the bit rate to 128kb. Not THAT bad when I bought it, but then seeing up to 1000 songs on this *new* iPod (100 bucks more at $399), wow.

I finally picked up the iPod in June 2004.


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Apple user for 20 years, never knew the click wheel came from Bang & Olufsen. Really underreported fact, feel a little stupid now.
Yeah, but that’s pretty much everything that Apple made.
They never completely invented a new user interfaces or features from scratch.
The mouse came from Xerox.
Multi-touch came from a company that Apple purchased in the 2000s, it wasn’t Apple‘s technology.
That’s not their specialty, their specialty has never been creating revolutionary technology from scratch.
Their specialty, and Steve Jobs really had a knack for this, was finding extremely niche technology and envisioning ways to put it into a regular persons every day life.
Mouse, clickwheel, multi-touch.
Apple didn’t invent any of these, they just found better ways to use them
 
I had several hard drive based MP3 players, clunky and bug prone. I remember seeing the iPod in Toronto, sometime in 2002/3 I believe. The Walden Galleria Apple Computer store had set up a booth at the Moleson Ampitheatre to showcase the Apple devices, and they had an iPod. I remember playing with it and being facinated. It was uber expensive at the time, and was only FireWire - I remember thinking someone has to make some Windows software to interface to this thing and I am in! Luckily Apple saw fit to make it USB and Windows compatible soon after, along with huge promotions by U2 - boom!
 
Yeah, but that’s pretty much everything that Apple made.
They never completely invented a new user interfaces or features from scratch.
[...]
Mouse, clickwheel, multi-touch.
Apple didn’t invent any of these, they just found better ways to use them

I would agree and there's nothing wrong with that on its own. The problem is just that Apple in many many cases stole technology and products from people and companies and left them battling Apple in court for years and years, while the CEO stands on stage claiming Apple has invented it. It's a shameful part of Apples history.

Was the iPod a really great product? Absolutely, I loved mine and I believed for many years that Apple came up with that great technology.
 
My second Apple product ever was the iPod (Dock Connector) as they call it. Firewire 400 interface, and a dock one could use as well. Still worked when I last checked a few years ago. It even went through a period when it was running Rockbox instead of its native OS. Next up was the Nano (6th gen) the little square one. I loved that thing for working out at the gym, it was small enough to not get in the way but had the capacity and controls that a Shuffle did not. That still works and not bad battery life. A 40GB Classic as well, also still works but after a couple winters living in the car its battery life is poop.
These were great devices, well-designed with not too many flaws/issues, well-functioning, and having all that music in the car or on my arm or in my pocket was fantastic.
Nowadays the Watch with bluetooth headphones for the gym or outdoor activities, and the iPhone for the car or even in the house pushing to a receiver by bluetooth or AirPlay, have totally obviated any of my uses for the older devices, but they really were great and I find it also remarkable to look at how they evolved through the years.
 
The iPod reminds me of a time when technology was fun. Apple is still there with its hardware, but the software quality and loss of “it just works” is more Microsoft in the 90’s than Apple in the 2000’s.

Anyway, great to reflect on such an amazing device. The iPod was truly an achievement.
 
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I just yesterday found more parts of my unintended collection of iPods. I've lost a few, and destroyed a few over the years, but have so many. But they haven't been a waste of money. I grew to love the 'stick' Shuffle. It was perfect for skiing, head and shoulders over any other option. It was widely hated, but wasn't made for *everyone*. Apple tried to provide enough variety in their designs. I appreciated that refusal to just crank out the same thing, over and over. For a 'music player', they had the right idea, over and over. Happy Anniversary!!!
 
I remember the first iPod I owned was sometime in 2005 after having a bad experience with some Motorola MP3 player that I received for Xmas and then a worse experience with an iRiver. I remember thinking how I spent so much money on the iPod and how I might regret it lol
 
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