4 ms·

The first iPod to really become popular was the 4G, which I think not coincidentally was also the first to have proper USB support. iTunes not being on Window

The first iPod to really become popular was the 4G, which I think not coincidentally was also the first to have proper USB support. iTunes not being on Windows seems like a lesser factor; even if iTunes was on Windows it wouldn't have mattered because most Windows computers of that time did not have firewire ports. As soon as iPods supported USB fully, their popularity took off like a rocket. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#/media/File:Ipod_sales_pe... Incidentally, cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. He's mocked in retrospect because later revisions of the iPod became massively popular, but the version he was responding to never did.

ghaff 6y ago
I largely agree with all that. The eventual incredible success of the iPod which in turn was the beachhead for the iPhone (which also wasn't really a massive success until the 3G) tends to obscure its early history. The initial iPod was basically one of many digital music players available at the time and, as you say, you couldn't even really use it with the desktop computers that had something like 95% market share. Apple clearly became one of the most successful companies ever, but it's not like that was an inevitability as soon as they released the first iPod.
georgespencer 6y ago
Totally agree, in the main. Looking back it's very weird and un-Apple-like that iPod launched without iTMS, although taking their time held them in good stead with the App Store and simultaneously launching new hardware alongside a marketplace seems to have held them back with iPad/iBooks and the watch + its anaemic store. I quibble one point you made (sorry -- former employees sometimes turn into nitpicking apologists): > cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. You're right that this iPod never became as popular as we understand the iPod to have been looking back from 2020, but the implication is that it was held back because of the assessment cmdrtaco made of it: > No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. Clearly it had no WiFi and a lower capacity than a Nomad, but that would continue to be the case for many years, right up to peak iPod in 2008 when Apple introduced the first iPod with WiFi (iPod Touch 1G). (Apple was never interested in competing on capacity -- a feature -- and actively sought to reframe marketing towards _benefits_, like how many songs or photos the capacity enabled you to hold in your pocket.) So the absence of WiFi and lower capacity than Creative's lineup did not appear to be limiting factors in the iPod's success. I think they made it lame to cmdrtaco, but each subsequent iPod for the better part of a decade 'suffered' from the same lameness, and did so well that Amazon had precisely two sections for MP3 players for many years: "iPod" and "Non-iPod Music players"! I believe that the tipping point for iPod came alongside several things: the final refinement to the interaction model (scroll wheel => touch wheel -- the first device is identifiably an iPod but almost ashamedly so, with buttons around the edge of the wheel which ruin the fascia), the miniaturisation of the device (and in particular the ruthless Jobsian cannibalisation of the Mini with the Nano), and the vacuum of competition around iTMS from its launch through 2006 or so.

ghaff 6y ago

I largely agree with all that. The eventual incredible success of the iPod which in turn was the beachhead for the iPhone (which also wasn't really a massive success until the 3G) tends to obscure its early history. The initial iPod was basically one of many digital music players available at the time and, as you say, you couldn't even really use it with the desktop computers that had something like 95% market share. Apple clearly became one of the most successful companies ever, but it's not like that was an inevitability as soon as they released the first iPod.

georgespencer 6y ago

Totally agree, in the main. Looking back it's very weird and un-Apple-like that iPod launched without iTMS, although taking their time held them in good stead with the App Store and simultaneously launching new hardware alongside a marketplace seems to have held them back with iPad/iBooks and the watch + its anaemic store. I quibble one point you made (sorry -- former employees sometimes turn into nitpicking apologists): > cmdrtaco was right about the extant iPod he was actually criticizing. It was lame and that iPod never became popular. You're right that this iPod never became as popular as we understand the iPod to have been looking back from 2020, but the implication is that it was held back because of the assessment cmdrtaco made of it: > No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame. Clearly it had no WiFi and a lower capacity than a Nomad, but that would continue to be the case for many years, right up to peak iPod in 2008 when Apple introduced the first iPod with WiFi (iPod Touch 1G). (Apple was never interested in competing on capacity -- a feature -- and actively sought to reframe marketing towards _benefits_, like how many songs or photos the capacity enabled you to hold in your pocket.) So the absence of WiFi and lower capacity than Creative's lineup did not appear to be limiting factors in the iPod's success. I think they made it lame to cmdrtaco, but each subsequent iPod for the better part of a decade 'suffered' from the same lameness, and did so well that Amazon had precisely two sections for MP3 players for many years: "iPod" and "Non-iPod Music players"! I believe that the tipping point for iPod came alongside several things: the final refinement to the interaction model (scroll wheel => touch wheel -- the first device is identifiably an iPod but almost ashamedly so, with buttons around the edge of the wheel which ruin the fascia), the miniaturisation of the device (and in particular the ruthless Jobsian cannibalisation of the Mini with the Nano), and the vacuum of competition around iTMS from its launch through 2006 or so.