Agree there were many attempts before. Heck, even General Magic created an iPhone-like experience over a decade earlier! But none of those early predecessors a

Agree there were many attempts before. Heck, even General Magic created an iPhone-like experience over a decade earlier! But none of those early predecessors achieved anything even close to the scale of the iPod. I'm not arguing that Apple is the sole responsible for miniaturization of technology, but selling dozens of millions (and eventually hundreds of millions) of their gizmo certainly helped fast-forward the industry. Things would have happened a lot slower if it weren't for the iPod.