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Blast from the Past: Apple Introduces "Easier to Use" portable music player

by Erica Sadun Apr 30th 2007 at 1:00PM

October 2001. Apple introduces a new portable music player that it declares is much easier to use. So much easier, in fact, that it may "broaden a nascent market in the way the Macintosh once helped make the personal computer accessible to a more general audience". This new device is called iPod.

The New York Times article that describes the iPod is pessimistic. The iPod-buying market would probably be limited to the 7 million existing owners of Apple Macintosh computers since no Windows support was provided at the time. And the new iPod might support piracy, although CEO Steve Jobs assured the music industry that steps would be taken to prevent songs from being transfered from the device to other computers.

The 2001 iPod's 5GB hard drive was large enough to store 1000 songs.



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October 2001. Apple introduces a new portable music player that it declares is much easier to use. So much easier, in fact, that it may...
 

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rp

I wish my 1st gen iPod still worked.. Well, it sort of does, if you lay it a certain way so that the firewire cable is holding a connection with it it sometimes will get a charge that holds for about 5-30 minutes of play time (it's pretty random). Too bad all of the songs on there are permanent; it stopped mounting about 2 years ago. Ahh, these are the days people, these are the dayssss wheeee

May 01 2007 at 3:14 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
VanillaSpice

I like the Blast From The Past series of articles! Keep 'em coming, Erica.

As for the criticism about this not being news, well, it IS labelled Blast From The Past ... what were you expecting? That's as stupid as complaining that the Mac 101 series is only dealing with simple concepts.

April 30 2007 at 9:56 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Graham Cox

Still using my original 2001 iPod daily - even the battery's still good :)

April 30 2007 at 9:48 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Shaw

BTW - I'm still rocking on my 1st gen 5g iPod. Got it the wek they came out. Still works great.

April 30 2007 at 5:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Skully

Well, I thought this was interesting. Even if it's not the ipod b'day. Poor Slevin! boy he needs a vacation or something! Hey Slevin, here's a blog for you. It's right up your... Alley!
http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showuser=107114

April 30 2007 at 4:27 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Nick

I still have that iPod. Same battery, too. Great, great device.

April 30 2007 at 4:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

No one said it better than CmdrTaco over at Slashdot in his now infamous one-line review:

"No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

Moral of the story? There's no such thing as a infallible crystal ball that pundits and analysts gaze into to predict the future.

That and yes, it's probably a slow news day.

April 30 2007 at 4:02 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris

I enjoyed looking back too, cheers Erica!

April 30 2007 at 3:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jason

I enjoyed that article. It's no harm to mix it up once in a while.
I'd actually be interested in more along the lines of what the initial reactions to the release of the iPod were.

It would make interesting reading considering we're close to the launch of the iPhone.

April 30 2007 at 2:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
gpelkabo

SLevin: Don't let the screen door hit you on your way out.

April 30 2007 at 2:50 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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