The birth of the iPod | Macworld
Today, Macworld published a detailed look at the October 23, 2001 launch of the original iPod.
It’s fascinating to watch the launch video, especially juxtaposed with thelaunch of the original iPhone in January 2007. Presenting in Apple’s limited-capacity Town Hall, rather than the larger expo venue at the Moscone Center, Steve seemed somewhat more subdued than usual. I don’t blame him: Apple was diving headfirst into a totally new consumer market, with angry pundits far from convinced that the purchasing public would be interested in investing $399 in an MP3 player.
It’s fascinating to watch the launch video, especially juxtaposed with thelaunch of the original iPhone in January 2007. Presenting in Apple’s limited-capacity Town Hall, rather than the larger expo venue at the Moscone Center, Steve seemed somewhat more subdued than usual. I don’t blame him: Apple was diving headfirst into a totally new consumer market, with angry pundits far from convinced that the purchasing public would be interested in investing $399 in an MP3 player.They were wrong. (Okay, it’s easy to report that now.)
In 2001, the portable MP3 playing industry was dominated by cheaper, low-capacity units, like Diamond Multimedia’s Rio 500:
The Rio 500 was a solid device. I snagged one with 64MB of onboard memory, at a list price of $269, and spent most of 2000 listening to The Eagles’ Greatest Hits 1971-1975, since it would only really hold one album. Totally worth it.
Then everything changed.
Over a period of 30 years (from its 1979 unveiling through its discontinuation a year ago), Sony sold 220 million Walkman units. Not a bad record. But: in ten years, Apple has sold 300 million iPods. That’s a lot of stocking stuffers.
Of course, the iPod does lack two socializing features unique to the original Walkman, both introduced at the behest of Sony CEO Akio Morita: dual mini headphone jacks (labeled “GUYS” and “DOLLS”, so you and your moll can listen to Luck Be A Lady together) and a “HOT LINE” button that lowered the volume if someone was trying to communicate with the user.
When the iPod’s popularity skyrocketed after the 2003 introduction of the iTunes Music Store, witty op-ed columnists bemoaned the proliferation of pod people: with loud, tinny music leaking from their white earbuds distracting you as you try to suffer through your subway commute, pod people turned a deaf ear to the world — especially to the audiophiles kvetching about lossy, highly compressed MP3 files and the disappearance of the album format.
Things are better now, of course.
Now we’re deaf and blind, as we walk in front of city buses tweeting from our iPhones.
But! At least we’re listening to higher-fidelity audio files now, thanks to iTunes Plus.