
Apple Introduces What It Calls an Easier to Use Portable Music Player (2001) - daschaefer
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/business/technology-apple-introduces-what-it-calls-an-easier-to-use-portable-music-player.html
======
oneplane
That last line about raising the bar... and raise it did! Apple often doesn't
invent the whole thing, but definitely puts a usable version on the market. I
remember the space between CD players and iPods having those rather crappy MP3
players, mini-disc players (which were actually quite good, but still used
cartridges) and the really big laptop-HDD music players, and none of them were
actually nice to use, or at least, not any 'nicer' than a portable CD player.

This happened over and over again with the other stuff they made. It's not
like there were no phones with touchscreens, or no tablets, or no
smartwatches, TV media players etc. There always are/were/will be, but it's
becoming something of a trend that Apple gets it's hands on one of those ideas
and then puts a version on the market that actually works well for most
people.

~~~
paulmd
There were also CD players that could play MP3s burned on a data disc. That
bridged the "capacity gap" \- 640/700 MB was a lot of MP3s at the time,
especially since people used lower bitrates. Remember, the first iPod was only
5 GB.

The big problem was the interface, it really sucked to try and navigate a
couple hundred MP3s on a one-line display.

~~~
ianlevesque
Yeah that spinning click wheel was genius at the time.

~~~
branchless
Why? It allowed navigating up and down. And you could select. A simple plus
sign like button did this.

~~~
ChristianGeek
You obviously never used one. It gave you full, immediate control over how
fast you scrolled, which buttons could never do. It enabled you to immediately
change direction without lifting your finger. You could start by placing your
finger anywhere on the wheel, which made it easy to use in the dark, and
moving your finger from the wheel to the button in the center was just as
easy.

It was, and still is, the best interface I've ever used for navigating through
large, grouped lists.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
You could also adjust the volume through your pants, at least with some
versions. It was _just_ sensitive enough that I could do this with jeans
without having to stick my hand in my pocket. Honestly this was one of my
favorite features, at least until the headphone remotes.

------
asp2insp

      The market for all such devices is growing and is expected to be around 18 million units by 2005, according to IDC, a market research firm.
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_pe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg)
shows Apple, with the introduction of the iPod nano, color, and shuffle, sold
over 20M units in 2005

~~~
gumby
Compared to the usual IDC/Gartner et al that is amazingly spot on. Not that a
four year forecast like that is easy to do!

~~~
Flammy
When I read that line it made me think... has anyone done any decent
comprehensive retrospective scoring/review of their or other industry
'predictions' even in the near future?

------
Razengan
And can you guess what people said about it at the time?

[http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-
ipod.50...](http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.500/)

> _iPod? iPoop... iCry. I was so hoping for something more._

> _Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve!
> Where 's the Newton?!_

> _heres an idea Apple - rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why
> dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive
> and crap server line up? or are you really aiming to become a glorified
> consumer gimmicks firm? :mad:_

The more things change...

~~~
eli
It _was_ a bit of a gimmick when it came out. It was expensive and required
you to already own a late model Mac computer (iTunes was Mac only). Macs
weren't as popular then so, at first, it was an expensive accessory for
existing Apple fans.

~~~
rconti
Which, in hindsight, was probably a good way to test a market, and ensure
demand didn't outstrip supply too badly at the outset.

~~~
eli
I suppose that depends whether you believe that was part of an intentional
strategy at all. In any event, it certainly wasn't apparent at the time.

------
julianpye
The key quote in this article is 'The Recording Industry Association of
America, which represents the major record labels, declined to comment on the
iPod.'

Until the iPod 'recordable' audio devices were Asian products and the content
played on them worldwide was by UK and US record companies. Ever heard of DAT?
It was a digital audio recorder concept slapped on a stringent copy control
system through the AHRA, the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), basically a law
acting as a deterrent for any product to harm the enormous US driven CD
market.

Suddenly the manufacturers this time around were also US IT companies. Dell,
Microsoft, Intel and others joined the RIAA umbrella with Asian manufacturers
at an industry forum called SDMI, a traveling circus that I joined, while
working with Universal Music for Panasonic.

But one company at SDMI was missing - Apple. The labels were watching them,
later even supporting them with a price of $1 per track rather than $3 offered
to the MS-PC systems, but they thought Apple was just an R&D project,
irrelevant for the market at large.

------
scottmf
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
CmdrTaco will probably never be able to live that down.

~~~
fsck--off
The review has to be looked at in its context. If the sales figures on
Wikipedia are correct, the device he reviewed sold just 236,000 units in Q1-Q3
of 2002. Apple didn't sell more than a million iPods in a quarter until 2004,
at which point the full-size device had 4x the storage, a click wheel, support
for Windows, and a color screen (optional); the Mini was then in its second
generation.

------
headmelted
Am I a jerk if I say "and what?"

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm getting old and crotchety. But listening to and
reading the same old things about Apple over and over (and over and over)
again is getting really, really old.

"Apple might not invent much but they take things and perfect them!"

"Steve Jobs was a genius"

And my personal least favourite:

"Apple is so successful because they can combine the software and hardware
into a single whole"

Maybe some or all of that is true, but I'd estimate that at least 5% of what I
read/hear in a day is about the genius of Apple. That's partially my own fault
for being so into tech of course, but how did we end up here?

This is not me hating on Steve Jobs or Apple. I just don't understand how
people can keep wanting to talk about the same thing ad infinitum. These are
things my drunken non-tech friends try to convince me of when they feel like
"dropping some knowledge".

I don't mean for this to be a rant at all. I just remember a time when folks
in tech circles gave praise for folks building really cool, novel shit. The
article above is proof of Apple getting praised for that once upon a time, but
how many times can we revisit this?

Even at the time Apple did the iPod and just moved right on doing other cool
things.

Now I just feel like we're driving on a road to nowhere viewed through a rear-
view mirror with rose-tinted glasses. Wasn't that why Steve got rid of all the
heritage Macs when he went back in '97?

I expect to get down-voted to oblivion for this, and I get that it's for good
reason.

I'm definitely getting crotchety, then. But we really did build and discuss
really cool things once upon a time. I miss those days.

~~~
kem
Not just you. I have similar sentiments, if not exactly the same.

To me, the ipod was a double-edged sword, because I felt like it introduced,
or at least reinforced, many UI choices that are actually very poor. The onion
parody of the keyboardless laptop ([http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-
introduces-revolutionary...](http://www.theonion.com/video/apple-introduces-
revolutionary-new-laptop-with-no--14299)) is funny precisely because it's
true.

I'd argue that Apple's UI choices have been popular as much for creating a
cache of sophistication as for actually being useful. Binding multiple
functions to the same physical element on the ipod was useful to an extent,
but then they went overboard at some point. They were always more difficult to
use than they should have been, and to me, they were overhyped.

I own a mac which has been good to me, so I'm not totally anti-Apple. But I
prefer other OS GUIs, and am often confused why Apple doesn't get called more
on their over-minimalism in design. There's such a zeitgeist of minimalism in
general in design that no one really questions whether it goes too far
sometimes.

------
abc_lisper
If you want to see short sightedness of nerd experts in action, look no
further than this gem here

[https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-
releases-i...](https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-
ipod)

~~~
icebraining
Just a small reminder that personal opinions (like CmdrTaco's comments) are
not the same as sales forecasts. To many of us, it _was_ lame.

~~~
coldtea
> _To many of us, it was lame._

Compared to what existing at the time device?

I had Nomad like devices and they were crap.

~~~
icebraining
Compared to any device that had a USB port and hence actually worked with our
PCs.

~~~
honkhonkpants
See, that's just the thing right there. Jobs wanted to market a great product
and was in no way concerned that some people might not be able to use it,
because expanding the product to those users would compromise the greatness of
the product. USB ports with comparable speeds to FireWire had only just been
released on PCs when the iPod came to market, and charging a battery over USB
was at that time just an abuse of the specification, whereas FireWire was
designed from the beginning to provide 15W nominally and up to 45W tolerated.
USB did not reach FireWire levels of battery charging ability until 2012!

~~~
MagnumOpus
Yes, Jobs was short-sighted and made a bad business decision by not supporting
95%+ of his potential customer base.

He subsequently did a 180 on this decision - Gen 3 introduced USB syncing, Gen
4 introduced USB charging, Gen 5 dropped Firewire syncing - and hey presto,
the iPod started selling more than 5 million units a year, started being
profitable and swallowed the entire competition.

~~~
honkhonkpants
You're applying your own success criteria to someone else's project.

------
mind_heist
''It's a nice feature for Macintosh users,'' said P. J. McNealy, a senior
analyst for Gartner .

I am not completely sure what the tone of the comment here is. But I assume
the analyst was trying to say the iPod was "Nothing more than a nice feature"
for Mac users. The stock price fluctuates a lot depending on what Analysts
say, having worked for a couple of post IPO companies - I notice these
comments really do make a difference.And especially if you are newly-IPO'ed
company - it can make or break the "market perception" of your company , and
consequentially the "stock price" , and it drags your company into a downward
spiral independent of how good you might be doing on field.

Out of curiosity - I tried looking up the Analyst quoted in this article , his
personal website popped up a bunch of NSFW images! And the firm he consults
for
"[http://www.digitalworldresearch.com/"](http://www.digitalworldresearch.com/")
does not even have a website built.

It just feels terrible (and happy at the same time) to read an article from
the past where analysts who are proclaimed to be experts in a certain segment
are grossly wrong.

~~~
kelnos
I think that was a direct response to the then-Mac-only nature of the iPod.
Initial criticism (referenced in the article) was that Apple/Jobs initially
had not yet decided whether or not to release a Windows version of iTunes.

I think in that light, McNealy's point is pretty spot on. I assume that,
initially, the iPod sparked some new Mac sales, but overall most Windows users
weren't going to jump ship to Mac just so they could use the iPod. Apple's
later release of iTunes for Windows is an admission of that. I can't imagine
the iPod continuing to do as well as it did if iTunes had been Mac-only.

(And imagine if the iPhone required a Mac!)

~~~
joezydeco
Pretty sure that Jobs believed the iPod would attract people into Mac
ecosystem and Windows compatibility was completely out of the question.

 _" While it seems a given that the iPod was to be made compatible with
Windows, Jobs was very resistant to the idea. At one point he said that
Windows users would get to use the iPod "over my dead body". After continued
convincing, Jobs gave up: "Screw it," he said at one meeting where they showed
him the analysis. "I'm sick of listening to you assholes. Go do whatever the
hell you want.""_[1]

That one phase, _go do whatever the hell you want_ , literally changed the
world. Win32 iTunes led the way for the success of the iPod and eventually the
development of the iPhone. Think about the alternative path for a moment.

[1] [http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-
wha...](http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-what-might-
have-been/)

~~~
nsxwolf
I remember installing a FireWire card in my PC and buying some really shoddy
software to copy MP3s onto it. Lots of PC owners were willing to jump through
hoops to get the iPod.

------
sebisebi
They also made it harder to use portable mp3 players. The first ones could be
used as a simple usb drive. Try putting some music or anything else on an
iphone today without installing app.

~~~
gilgoomesh
Apple would say that syncing through iTunes is easier than interacting with a
filesystem.

As a concept, this leads into a debate about whether ideas like the Plan 9
operating system – where everything was a filesystem – are right or wrong.
Clearly, some people _love_ filesystem interfaces and would like to use that
as a metaphor for _all_ information systems. Apple's attitude with their
iDevices has always been to use "appliance" interfaces to information systems
and make filesystems an implementation detail.

~~~
userbinator
What I see as being the "Apple way" is that they want to have control over
what users can put on their devices, basically a form of DRM. Media players
based on filesystems are _immensely_ flexible and can be used for far more
than just playing media --- a lot of them were basically a USB drive with a
battery and an extra controller to read files off it and decode them into
audio. Given that many people were already used to using USB drives, I doubt
iTunes would've really been perceived as "easier"; instead of having to
install and familiarise themselves with a new manner of software with its own
interface, all they'd have to do is plug it in and copy the files to it
utilising the same skills they already had.

On the other hand, Apple doesn't want you to be able to easily share your
media with others, nor copy it _off_ the player; no doubt under the influence
of the RIAA and other pro-copyright, pro-DRM groups.

While I think concepts like Plan 9 may be going a bit _too_ far, I strongly
believe that the filesystem as a place to organise all your persistent data is
ideal because of its power and freedom; IMHO the trend away from the
filesystem is nothing but a way to force users into proprietary systems and
control their actions. The companies and media groups don't want things like
P2P filesharing, whether over the network or even casually between friends
using physical media (look up the term "copyparty".) They don't want users to
have that freedom. Hence they are driving them away from the concept of
"files" in general, essentially attempting to deprecate and push that out of
the mind of users so that as an end-goal, they ultimately will not ever
realise that sharing with or giving something to others could be, and was, at
one time as easy as copy-paste.

I think I'm not the only one who saw the USB-sticks-turned-media-players and
thought "that's _just right_ ", and abhorred Apple's proprietary
overengineered solution; but in the end, it seems Apple's marketing won...

------
ctapan
I think the article was right calling it as a nice feature for Mac users.
Eventually iPod became popular with the launch of iTunes on Windows:
[https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/10/16Apple-Launches-
iT...](https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/10/16Apple-Launches-iTunes-for-
Windows.html)

Windows platform not just opened ~90% consumer market (in 2003) for iPod. But
also became the first Apple standalone product for pricetag ($299)
approachable to wider market. Suddenly an Apple product was affordable. This
combined with awesome product I believe helped iPod scale to popularity. In
fact this brought many people(I believe) from Windows to Mac.

~~~
thomasahle
Yes, this is exactly the interesting part of the article. I didn't know Apple
originally considered making the iPod Mac only. It doesn't seem like a far
stretch to imagine, that it would have significantly reduced its impact.

------
627467
I like the "what it calls". I miss these neutral toned titles. Nowadays the
tech press is all about priming the reader through its titles.

------
cmdrfred
Does anyone know of a modern high capacity (100 Gig+) MP3 player? The largest
I've found is a modified Ipod that can get me 240. Everything seems to be 8 or
16 gigs, I have 300 Gig's of audiobooks and podcasts alone.

~~~
B1FF_PSUVM
> I have 300 Gig's of audiobooks and podcasts alone.

You must have eternal life, too. Some billionaires are really keen on it.

~~~
DanBC
A book is about 500 MB. So 300 GB is only about 600 books.

At a book per week that's only 12 years worth of reading.

~~~
cmdrfred
I listen to audiobooks 18 hours a day, 8 at work, 8 while sleeping, and 2
while commuting.

~~~
DanBC
Yes, people who listen to a lot will find it really easy to get hundreds of
gigabytes of material.

------
neves
I still miss my scrolling wheel. Way better than any phone interface for
browsing a big collection of music. Does Apple still holds a patent for it?
I'd love to have a music player with a scroll wheel.

------
noahmbarr
Walt Mossberg's review a couple days later:

[http://allthingsd.com/20011101/ipod-
review/](http://allthingsd.com/20011101/ipod-review/)

~~~
kayali
Particularly prescient:

> _And if the iPod succeeds, I expect it to be just the first in a new line of
> noncomputer products from Apple._

------
balabaster
My favourite line in the whole thing is "Steven P. Jobs, Apple's Chief
Executive..."

I'm sure many of us in this forum knew exactly who Steven P. Jobs was, but
it's astounding to me that he went from requiring an introduction in full in
2001 (that's not really that long ago, relatively speaking) to someone you can
just refer to as Steve Jobs with no further qualification necessary - everyone
knows exactly who he was.

It almost seems laughable in hindsight that he was referred to by his full
name.

------
jjawssd
Great article. I wish Apple had as strong a direction today as it did back
then. Or maybe something big is in the works. I'm mostly concerned about the
future of the Macbook Pro. Thoughts?

~~~
coldtea
> _I 'm mostly concerned about the future of the Macbook Pro. Thoughts?_

Check out the announcements on Thursday.

------
partycoder
During that time there were smartphones and handheld computers, as well as
smaller music players.

I personally used one of the early BlackBerries, as well as the "Pocket PCs"
and the Compaq/HP iPAQ. They were technologically capable of most of what the
first iPod/iPhones could do...

I think the game changers were, with respect to the current market direction
at the time:

\- Better usability. Fewer hardware buttons and no need for a stylus pen.

\- Readily available applications through the app store.

\- Readily available content through iTunes.

\- In app purchases.

Later all other mobile platforms copied this model.

------
cm2187
The reason I jumped on the ipod wasn't that it was easier to use (but it's
true that having a sceen to display the full name of the track was nice), but
rather because it had a way better sound quality than any other mp3 players
then.

You didn't have major brands doing mp3 players then. In fact in 2001 many
people were still using dial up connections. And all the mp3 players were
cheap chinese hacks with a massive background noise.

~~~
tbihl
It's possible that I was just out of the loop because I didn't get an iPod
until about 2003, but I remember having to convince myself to get an iPod
despite other companies reportedly having much higher audio quality in their
mp3 players.

And I think that fits with how I generally think of Apple. They don't try to
be the best in any specs. They were weak in battery life, too. But in the end
it was just a matter of trusting Apple to have put in the effort to be right
about all their trade-offs. In iPods and so many other things, this is where
they've stood out.

~~~
raisedbyninjas
The Creative Zen had support for the WMA codecs. IIRC it supported higher
quality encoding than the MP3 encoders of the time.

~~~
tbihl
That's the one I had in mind, too.

------
jwarren
That reminds me. I know the National Media Museum[1] in Bradford, UK are
looking for a good-condition generation 1 iPod to acquire. If anyone has one
that they want to put into a national museum collection, I'm sure they'd be
interested in hearing from you.

[1]
[http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/](http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/)

~~~
petepete
I have a generation 2 in perfect working order. It cost me £420
(approximately) in mid-late 2002 and was used daily for years.

edit: I found the donation page and may fill it in later. I'm quite
emotionally attached to it, unfortunately

[http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/collection/donateanobj...](http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/collection/donateanobject)

~~~
jwarren
Totally understood. There is something pretty cool about having an object that
you bought integrated into a national museum's collection though, knowing that
it'll be preserved and exhibited and quite possibly outlive you. Imagine kids
150 years from now peering at _your_ iPod and going "ooh, weren't people funny
back before the brain slugs took over!" I wish I had something neat enough to
donate :)

------
meddlepal
Semi-relevant... It's a little bit weird reading these historical articles
sometimes and realizing <X> actor in the story is dead, in this case, Jobs.

------
aluminussoma
When the iPod released, I remember thinking that Apple was tremendously
overvalued. I did back of the napkin calculations and couldn't see iTunes +
iPod sales supporting their market capitalization. Obviously, I was very wrong
and I often remember this whenever I evaluate trends. I could not anticipate
one of the most lucrative investment opportunities right there in front of my
eyes.

------
artursapek
Simpler times.

------
curiousgal
I still love my iPod Shuffle, despite the limited capacity (2Gb); The battery
life is still amazing!

------
_pmf_
Are Apple's recent releases so lacklustre that we have to turn to past glory?

~~~
SG-
no, but it was a pretty significant event that essentially shaped today's
phone and tablet space.

------
dandare
"Steven P. Jobs, Apple's chief executive..." Interesting, nobody calls him
that today.

~~~
freehunter
Well because he's not exactly Apple's chief executive today...

------
adaisadais
Ya say ya want a Revolution

