Birth of the iPod

b00le writes "There's a little story over at Wired about the genesis of the iPod from the point of view of Ben Knauss, a former senior manager at PortalPlayer, the company Apple Computer approached to help develop its player. There's some nice gossip about The Steve's involvement in the project, the extreme secrecy and so on, but for me, the kicker comes at the end: 'Knauss stayed on until near the end of the iPod's development, but quit shortly before it was released because he had no confidence it would be a success. "It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.' "

Comments

Tee Hee

[USAPatriot]

...because he had no confidence it would be a success. "It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.' "

No kidding, he's not alone.

Here's what our very own illustrious CmdrTaco said at the time, " No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

Hindsight 20/20

[sebi]

"It was probably a mistake, but then you have to go with what you think at the time," he said.

I guess it would be easy to make fun of him now. Let us however not forget that one first reaction to the unveiling of the iPod read "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

It was interesting to note...

[CrackedButter]

...that IBM had an idea which incorporated bluetooth headphones, makes me wonder why Apple didn't do it, and that was in 2001! But don't get on at me for how it would effect the ipod's battery life, the ipod *could* be a little bigger to take a bigger battery and then we could all be happy.

Honest Question

[NYTrojan]

This is not meant to offend, I am really curious..

Obviously the iPod is very popular, but for the life of me I don't see what makes it different from other mp3 players. For those of you who shelled out the big cash for this thing, what makes it so special? Why sets the iPod apart aside from slick marketing?

Re:Honest Question

[TheRaven64]

For me:

1. Size. It is small enough that I can clip it to my belt and forget it's there (until I sit on it). It's also small enough to comfortably fit in trouser pockets when it's raining.
2. UI. It is very easy to navigate to a particular song / album / genre / artist and tell it to play all of them. You can also play pre-selected playlists in a very small number of clicks.
3. Integration. iTunes is a superb piece of software, and it makes managing large collections of music very easy. iTMS is also very nice, but wasn't available here (UK) when I bought my iPod. The iPod integrates very nicely with it - music and playlists are transferred in the background, and play counts and ratings are synchronised.
4. FireWire. USB2 seriously loads the CPU, which is not something I want, especially when using my iPod as an external hard drive (I often use it as a backup device).
5. The dock. The iPod dock has a line out port, and is connected to my stereo. When I get home, I drop my iPod in the dock and remove the headphones. When I do this, there is no interruption to my music (and it's charging while it's in the dock).
6. AAC support. I prefer AAC the sound of AAC audio to any other lossy compression scheme (and I was using it with FAAD in WinAmp/XMMS before I became a Mac / iPod user)

There are also a few other quite nice things, such as the fact that it stores a copy of my calendar and address book (although not a very up-to-date one, since I don't bother syncing it that often).

Re:Honest Question

[nine-times]

You hit a lot of the big points, but I'd like to add something small that I find pretty nice: On a mac, you can use iSync to get your calandar and address book on to the iPod. It may not sound like much, but iSync can keep multiple Macs, your .Mac account (webmail address book), your iPod, your PDA, and if you have a phone that connects, your cell-phone, all up-to-date with the same info. OK, I only use it to keep my Mac, my web-mail, and my iPod with the same contact list, but it's nice to have...

And I find the dock particularly useful... I have no stereo, just the dock plugged into some speakers.

But in general, I'd wrap up everything you said and everything I've said into this: The thing is well thought out, well engineered, and well put together. Most of the MP3 players I've found have been just difficult enough in their setup, just crappy enough in their design, and just bulky enough to carry around (for the amount of space provided), that they seemed like more trouble than they're worth. I'm someone who likes to play with technology for the sake of playing with it, but I won't continue to use something on a daily basis until it's reached a certain level of maturity. PDAs, for example, I find to be more trouble than they're worth. Most MP3 players, I find to be "not quite there, yet" and more trouble than they're worth. The iPod was the first one who hit "ready for prime-time" status, in my mind.

Sucess in marketing.

[H8X55]

A lot of techs i know have blown off the iPod and are currently using another device to provide portable storage and audio playback. The iRivers are incredibly popular amoung 'i.t. people'. I know a lot of folks rave on about Creative's products as well. I personally like the Neuros.

From a tech standpoint the iPod lacks some functionality, or has too high a price point for many of us. But from marketing, fashion, and the MTV crowd it is the "it" thing to own. No one can predict these things though. "It" just happens. Like a $45 trucker hat.

Not just the iPod...

[ugauaauag]

This guy also had the iTunes Music Store thought up as well.

"Tony's idea was to take an MP3 player, build a Napster music sale service to complement it, and build a company around it," Knauss said.

Its "The Innovator's Dilemma"

[crovira]

As an organization get larger, (enough to afford a $3 million conference room) the costs of promoting any ideology or technology get larger until they become insurmountable.

That's when some fool with more brains that money eats the lunch of some bigger fool with more money than brains.

Innovations come from without, not from within.

The scroll wheel invented here?...

[Wonderkid]

I lived in California between 1991 and 2000 and frequently showed my friends (some who worked for Apple and others who were well connected patent attorneys) drawings of conceptual hardware devices my company was (is) planning. Plus, a drawing of a computer of the future I designed and won and award for in 1982 (yes, '82). My 'scroll wheel' was identical to the iPods, button in the middle etc. I refer to the first generation iPod scroll wheel, not the excellent new clickable one in the 4G ipod and iPod mini. I have no proof my idea was stolen, but am fairly sure it was as the few people I showed it to reacted in that way that says "Hmmm..." But you know what, congrats to Apple for actually making the thing. For that is what counts.

OK. Where's the real dirt?

[pdp0x14]

There was some gossip in the article, but not enough. I'm sure there was more to his leaving than just not thinking the product would be successful.

It's excruciatingly unpleasant to work with Jobs; that's widely known.

One of endless examples:

By Andy Hertzfeld, on how he was inducted into the original Macintosh team:

... [Jobs] walked over to my desk, found the power cord to my Apple II, and gave it a sharp tug, pulling it out of the socket, causing my machine to lose power and the code I was working on to vanish. He unplugged my monitor and put it on top of the computer, and then picked both of them up and started walking away. "Come with me. I'm going to take you to your new desk."

I'd like to know much more about the iPod story.