Steve Jobs Introduced the iPod in 2001
Here is some footage of Steve Jobs introducing the very first iPod. It held 1000 songs (5GB) and was the size of a deck of cards.
Some thoughts:
Steve Jobs thought that my entire music library was 1000 songs and back then, that was probably true for a bunch of people. Now, our libraries swell at 60GB and 12,000 songs. Is it peer-to-peer sharing or are our music collections growing with the drive size of the iPods?
This introduction is missing the most fashionable piece of the iPod, its white earbuds. Sometimes I believe it was the earbuds that launched the iPod. The sillouhetted dancing figures and the conspicuous white wires hanging from our ears announced to the world that we owned the “correct†MP3 player.
Back then, I opted for the MP3 CD player that played 150 songs for a $1 a song. It still works and runs on a single AA battery, unlike the wheezing hard drive of my original iPod. Of course, it wasn’t as cool as the iPod by any stretch of the imagination.
Steve insists on showing the back first. I compare it to the scratched stainless steel back of my own original iPod and the five years haven’t been good to it.
I watched this introduction right after watching the 1984 introduction of the Macintosh. The audience isn’t cheering or excited at all. What changed? In retrospect, the iPod is just as pivotal as the Mac. Why is the audience so subdued?
It was interesting to watch this video after five years. I forget that there was a time when Steve might have had to convince the world that the iPod was a good idea. It was fun to see this slice of the past.