Apple launched the iPod 21 years ago, and changed the world - AppleInsider

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The iPod enactment did not past to spot its 21st birthday, but the power of this once-ubiquitous instrumentality shaped Apple, music, and the world.

You had one. Everybody had an iPod, immoderate radical had several, and astatine the clip it seemed arsenic if Apple had someway thrown a airy switch. One moment, astir cipher had immoderate portable euphony players, and the adjacent they were each wearing those achromatic earbuds.

That isn't true, of course, due to the fact that the iPod did instrumentality a agelong clip to ascent up arsenic precocious arsenic it got. Yet its eventual dominance was truthful full that it utilized to beryllium hard to ideate a clip erstwhile determination wasn't an iPod.

It was hard, too, to retrieve that determination were alternatives, but determination were many. Apple's iPod was acold from the archetypal euphony player, and Microsoft's failed, brown Zune whitethorn not adjacent person been its implicit worst rival.

As with immoderate play astir a emergence to power, though, the iPod should person watched its friends arsenic good arsenic its enemies. For the iPod was destroyed by a competing device, and erstwhile it came, the stroke from Apple's ain iPhone was total.

You don't person an iPod immoderate more. It's imaginable that there's 1 successful a drawer somewhere, but successful different airy switch, this treasure of our property went from everyplace to astir obscurity but for immoderate stalwarts that person removed the hard drives successful spot of flash media.

When Apple announced the extremity of the precise past iteration of the iPod, it did truthful with a header that was meant to observe the device, but felt much similar a dismissal of it. "The euphony lives on," was the full header for the May 2022 announcement that archetypal admitted the iPod was dead, and past spent much clip talking up Apple's AirPods.

We are fickle

If you privation grounds of conscionable however rapidly we hide things, you were amazed to work determination that the iPod's decease was successful May 2022. It already seems longer ago, partially due to the fact that successful 1 way, it was.

Long, agelong earlier the past gasp of the iPod touch, it had gone from a carnal instrumentality to concisely being the sanction of the euphony app connected the iPhone.

But the iPod's power does unrecorded on

It's not definite that it was due to the fact that we had the iPod that we got the iPhone, but it does look similar it.

"The commencement of the iPhone task happened from the iPod project," said designer Tony Fadell, champion known for his enactment connected Apple's iPod. "We started seeing these diagnostic phones with cameras starting to adhd integer euphony features, tools successful your phone."

"And it was wide astatine immoderate constituent they mightiness beryllium capable to drawback up with america with this pb that we had with the iPod," helium continued. "We were saying... what is the aboriginal of the iPod? And if radical person 2 devices successful their hand, which 1 would they prime up each time."

The iPod could clasp 1,000 songs. Apple Music present arsenic 100 million.

But past arsenic good arsenic being Apple's inspiration, it was truthful incredibly palmy that profits from it enabled Apple to make the iPhone.

Similarly, it's besides not definite that euphony and the euphony manufacture would beryllium successful the presumption and the signifier that it is today, if it weren't for the iPod. And yet you uncertainty it, due to the fact that iPod led to iTunes, which begat the iTunes Music Store, and that changed the world.

It's a smaller measurement from the iTunes Music Store to streaming services similar Apple Music, than it was from CDs and vinyl to integer downloads. In the aboriginal 2000s, Steve Jobs had to speech the grounds labels successful to providing music, and present streaming is their survival.

Looking backmost now, it's hard to ideate what a ceramic partition the grounds labels represented. Jobs lone broke done due to the fact that — backmost past — helium could accidental that Apple was truthful tiny that it wouldn't person immoderate noticeable interaction connected their business.

Today, the thought that Apple could ever beryllium thought of arsenic tiny is laughable — though Apple sometimes tries it on. And it's ne'er again going to beryllium babelike connected Windows users, the mode it was astatine the commencement of the iPod.

A solid of h2o successful a desert

When Apple's Jon Rubinstein bought Toshiba's full inventory of miniature hard drives for the device, and Tony Fadell worked connected its hardware design, the iPod was intended to beryllium lone for the Mac.

At least, that was Jobs's intention. Fadell yet enlisted writer Wall Mossberg to persuade Jobs to unfastened up the iPod to Windows users.

But astatine the launch, it was Mac-only, and the New York Times shrugged. The work said the iPod was bully for Mac users, "but to the remainder of the Windows world, it doesn't marque immoderate difference."

Of each the places to springiness the iPod a rave, though, you mightiness not person expected 1 from PC Magazine. "Leave it to Apple to travel retired with the world's coolest — and situation we accidental champion — MP3 player," said the magazine's review. "Not conscionable candy."

"Its usefulness and simplicity marque it a standout product, adjacent for the price," it continued. "Our lone gripe: portion the Mac-friendly iPod is disposable now, a rumored PC mentation won't look until spring, if ever."

Perhaps PC Magazine had been listening to Fadell astir wanting to bring the iPod to Windows. But it inactive took until July 2002 for that to happen.

From Windows to being shown the door

From 2002 to 2007, the iPod ruled — and it ruled an ever-expanding empire whose sheer momentum made it look unstoppable. The connection "iPod" became similar Biro and Hoover, 1 commercialized sanction that radical utilized to picture a full manufacture of competing products.

Apple's lawyers whitethorn not person loved that, but connected the different manus determination were nary competing products to talk of.

And past Apple itself utilized the word to assistance merchantability a antithetic device. In 2007, Steve Jobs gave a masterclass of a presentation, successful which helium got everyone watching excited by the imaginable of "a widescreen iPod with interaction controls."

It was the extremity of the iPod, but we didn't cognize it — and Apple was inactive 15 years distant from abandoning the device.

For a while, the iPhone could adjacent beryllium thought to beryllium helping the iPod. Its occurrence — besides dilatory to turn but past rather overwhelming — brought the satellite iOS, and with it, the iPod touch.

That truly was a widescreen iPod with interaction controls, and, much significantly, it was cheaper due to the fact that it wasn't a phone. You could bargain an iPod interaction arsenic your gateway cause into Apple's ecosystem, and past aboriginal determination to an iPhone.

But you would determination to an iPhone. Even arsenic Apple kept coming retired with much versions of the iPod touch, the satellite was putting its small achromatic devices successful drawers.

Or perchance landfills.

Apple's upbeat announcement astir the extremity of the iPod

It utilized to beryllium that, "iPod" was the connection utilized for each euphony players. Now if you constitute the connection iPod, it could adjacent get autocorrected into "iPad."

The iPod is 21 years aged connected October 23, 2022, and it is being erased from history. But it's near a people and our satellite has been shaped by it.

The euphony does unrecorded on.