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A Brief History of the iPod

Posted by michael on from the sing-me-a-song dept.

antdude writes "MacSlash mentioned MLAgazine's article on a brief history of the iPod. It all started on October 23, 2001 with the release of one of the most important products from Apple in its history."

6 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Don't forget the wonderful review at /. by kentheman · · Score: 5, Funny
    From here:
    No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
    Well, Apple did it. Again.
    --
    ... sometimes I fly with the white swan to my Liffey home.
  2. Apple's core... by mac666er · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since its inception, Apple has always been willing to gamble more with new products than most other companies

    Granted, they flopped with the Newton... but they came out with the mac, the powerbook, peer2peer file sharing out of the box, the trackpad, the powerbook duo, speech recognition integrated on the OS on the 90's, quicktime, and the list goes on... (I would like to give them the mouse and the interface, but as with everything they also have a dark side)

    It is good to see they are ripping the benefits of believing in something completely new... ( As they believed in a portable media player by some bogus guy who was rejected by other companies)

    Kudos to Apple

    1. Re:Apple's core... by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ibm os/2 (w3 or w4? can't recall) had this as an OS built-in while mac was still at system 7.2, which had no speech recog

      I don't know that that's correct. The first Mac I remember using speech on was the Quadra 660 AV which debuted in 1993 with System 7.1. How does that compare to OS/2?

      there were laptops before the powerbook was launched - what about the powerbook did you think was innovative?

      The PowerBook was the first portable computer you could actually use on your lap. Look at the position of the keyboard on a PowerBook and compare it to the position of the keyboard on any other existing laptop. Apple was the first company to do that: to move the keyboard back so you could have a place to rest your palms. Now all laptops are designed that way. That's a pretty good working definition of "innovative," huh? Being the first one to come up with something that is now universal?

      other media wrappers existed prior to quicktime

      Like which ones, exactly? (And no, your characterization of QuickTime as a "wrapper" is not correct. It's an extensible media file format plus a vast API.)

      "the mac" - it had innovative features for a pc, but it was still, essentially, just another sequential release for a pc company.

      I don't even understand that. The Mac was the first widely available computer with a mouse-driven graphical user interface. The Mac changed everything.

      --

      I write in my journal
  3. Uh, no. by GeorgeH · · Score: 5, Informative

    "It all started on October 23, 2001 with the release of one of the most important products from Apple in its history."

    Uh, no. It started when Tony Fadell had the idea of creating a digital music player and tying it to an online music store a few years before the iPod came out. Inside Look at Birth of the iPod on Wired News covers the stuff that happened before the iPod came out.

    --
    Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
  4. Re:A bit unnecessary, no? by dJOEK · · Score: 5, Funny

    So you're too poor to buy one?

    --
    Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
  5. Re:I think I can hear... by pslam · · Score: 5, Informative
    Also, I find it interesting how many ipod-clones are coming out. I guess it's true what Steve J. once said about "imitation being the greatest form of flattery"

    Apple was not the first to make a hard disk portable player. They were the first to ship one with a 1.8" hard disk, which hardly makes everything else a clone - they just got there second. Nobody was really taken by surprise, and the major MP3 companies were already well into designing their own.

    Apple was also not the first to make a mini hard disk portable. They were the first to ship a 4GB 1" hard disk player, and then only just. They were beaten by many companies to ship a 1" 1.5GB HD player (including where I work) - but they had a supply of 4GB drives before everyone else. In fact, Rio even managed to announce and demonstrate their own 4GB player hours before Job's keynote speech. Spot how he deliberately missed the comparison of the Mini iPod to the Rio Nitrus (a 1" HD player), and instead picked a Rio 256MB flash player as a convenient strawman.

    It's slightly irritating that Apple's reality distortion field now makes it possible for everyone to claim that all other players are "clones".