I came across this great video on of the very first time the iPod was introduced by Apple. The first iPod was announced on October 23, 2001 and Steve Jobs said it was a large market. It took awhile for people to realize how right he was and it’s amazing to see how much Apple has progressed since that day. The first iPod I ever owned was the 3rd Generation iPod (pictured below) and man was that thing beautiful. It did not have one push button on it, every button was touch. But now the iPods are much thinner, with more memory, look even more beautiful, and they have better battery life. The first iPod had only 10 hours of music playing on its battery. Now they have the super small iPod Nano that has up 24 hours of music playing on one charge. Apple has come a long way since 2001 and now pretty much run the music industry with iPod + iTunes. I loved my 3rd Generation iPod so much it made me grow interest into the company, influencing me into getting an iMac and ever since I have been an Mac user. Click the read more link for a walkthrough of the iPod’s history. Happy Belated Anniversary to the iPod!
The first iPod ever offered a breakthrough in allowing people to carry their entire music library in their pocket with 10 hour battery life. The first iPod was able to carry 1000 songs that you can easily go through with Apple’s simple button layout with a unique wheel to scroll through your music. Now the first iPod was not greeted with open arms by the press. It was criticized because of its lack of Windows compatibility and its $400 price tag. After a month it was released in Europe and received a much more enthusiastic response. iPods started to sell and a whole new assemblage started.
The 2nd generation iPod showed no differences in looks but was the first iPod to have the Ability to sync with Windows PC’s. It even had doubled its hard drive size to 20gb. And introduced the touch iPod wheel that we use today.
Then in April 2003 the 3rd generation iPod was introduced with a whole new way to control the iPod. It still included the unique wheel but instead every button on this iPod was touch. The Pause/Play, Menu, Next, and previous buttons were moved up under the screen and all lit up to allow easy use in the dark. This was the first MP3 player to have every button touch. It was the first iPod to have both Firewire and USB 2.0 support and sported a new doc. The iPod with USB 2.0 made it much easier for PC users to sync their iPod with their PC. In the same year iTunes was introduced opening a new door for the iPod to supply legal music. After this generation the iPod was really becoming one of the best music players.
The very next year a new iPod was released and this time HP wanted in on the iPod business. They created the HP+iPod line, with HP’s name carried the iPod into stores that did not normally carry Apple products like Walmart. This only happened because HP was the largest PC manufacturer in the world. With all this going on the iPod just kept gaining a larger and larger market share. Later that year BMW noticed where the iPod was going and decided to add in iPod compatibility, so that BMW owners could play their iPod in their car sound system. Today many car manufacturers have added iPod compatibility in their vehicles.
Another new iPod was released in 2004 also. It was called the iPod Mini, which was much smaller than the normal iPod. They even released it in 5 different colors just as they did in the past with the first iMac. The iPod Mini offered a better way to carry your music in your pocket. But the largest significance from the iPod Mini was the introduction of the Click Wheel. Apple ran into a problem with making the iPod smaller, they had to figure out a way to fit the buttons somewhere. Their solution was the infamous Click Wheel, which was a very unique button layout. To this date iPods have featured the click wheel and is still successful with iPod users.
Later that year Apple introduced the iPod Photo, the first iPod with a color display. You were able to view your photos on this iPod, but the ability to watch videos was still not available for iPods yet. The iPod photo also had a larger hard drive and was the last iPod to support Firewire.
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPod to the world, he had talked about flash drive mp3 players in a negative way. He continued to have a negative view on flash memory, until the iPod Shuffle was introduced. The iPod shuffle sported a flash memory hard drive for $99 for the 512mb version. The iPod Shuffle did not have a screen, neither did it have a click wheel, making it a very cheap alternative to the iPod. It was also the first iPod to not support Firewire.
Great News For Apple in 2005
In 2005 Apple announced that they had sold over 28 million devices giving them a 75% market share in digital music players. Late 2005 was their best quarter since 1995, and financial giants were predicted sales to continue to go up for Apple. The iPod had become more and more of a success every year since Steve Jobs first introduced it. The iPod had become a household name when it came to music, and the iPod started getting people to look at Apple’s other products expecting the same great design and simplicity they experienced with the iPod.
Apple even started using the iPod to promote their new iMac G5 take a lot at the video below.
In September 2005 the infamous iPod Nano was introduced becoming the smallest iPod with a display. The iPod Nano replaced the iPod Mini. The iPod sported a beautifully small color display and even had the ability to store and view photos. It looked just like the larger iPods except much smaller in every way. It also sported high-capacity flash memory with storage up to 4gb. It only came in black or white, and was highly criticized for being susceptible to scratches. The biggest difference with this iPod Nano other than its size was the new click wheel manufactured by Apple.
Then came the most revolutionary iPod of them all just weeks later, the iPod video. This was the first iPod to play video making it pretty much an all-in-one package, you could listen to your music, view your photos, play games, and now watch movies on your iPod. It played your music videos, movies, and tv shows that you downloaded from iTunes. During this time Disney worked with Apple to sell ABC programming on iTunes. This iPod had this great feature and was even 30% thinner than its predecessors. This was also the first full-sized iPod to not support firewire. It came in two versions, the 30gb and 60gb, with a choice of either black or white. The very next year they revised the iPod giving it a brighter display, larger battery life when watching videos, and a new 80gb version. The 80gb version was the largest storage space for an iPod ever.
In late 2006 Apple revised the iPod Nano. They made it more rugged with an aluminum case and this time it game in colors. This was the first time since the iPod Mini that you had a choice of colors other than black or white. They had the 2GB version in silver, the 4 GB version in green, blue, pink, and silver, and then the 8GB version in black. They also anounced a huge change to the iPod shuffle, making it extremely small and available in colors just like the Nano. They made the shuffle more enticing by making it with a built-in clip. The best thing about the shuffle was that it was just so extremely small.
Change Comes to the iPod in 2007
Then Came 2007, the year Apple complete change the entire iPod line and introduced something entirely new. Now you will notice that I did not include the iPhone, that is because the iPhone is something on a whole other level. In 2007 they did a complete revision of the entire iPod line making everything new and updated. The shuffle got the least change out of all of them only getting a new paint job. They change the iPod shuffle from a brushed alluminum to a new powered alluminum. The iPod Nano change entirely, it was a lot shorter and wider than the older nanos. The greatest thing about the new Nano was that it now had the ability to play video. Believe it or not the videos were not that bad to watch on the Nano’s mall screen. The iPod Classic even got a pretty big makeover changing it from its tradition plastic casing to the new alluminum casing. It also had a huge hard drive upgrade to the largest one yet at 160GB. Now the iPods exterior wasn’t the only thing to change, they updated the iPod’s software. The new software made the iPod more useful and even gave it more beauty.
Now the iPod Touch was a whole new thing adding many new features to the iPod. It had almost everything the iPhone had except the phone part. Apple really perfected touch interface with the iPod touch and iPhone making it pretty easy to scroll through your music, watch videos, look at your pictures, and even playing games all just by using your finger(s). The iPod Touch and iPhone were so different than anything else in the market, it shows just how creative Apple is. The Touch had the same beautiful glass screen as the iPhone with a sleek metal back just like the original iPods. The iPod Touch really changed up the Music player market once again.
Over the years we have been able to see such an elegant device evolve over the years, becoming thinner and more beautiful with ever year. When most people talk about music iPod and iTunes normally comes into the conversation now. Nobody really thought that Steve Jobs was right when he first introduced the iPod. Props are due for Steve Jobs and Apple for resurecting from the dead and becoming a leader in the music player world. Apple’s Macs got a boost from the iPods also, without the iPod the Macs probably would have never gotten as popular as they are today. Now is the time for Steve to keep up the iPods, make sure nobody gets bored of the iPod, and continue making Macs the great machines they are.
I have done a post here about the most recent iPods, so go check that out if you like. 
