How the iPod Made Apple Relevant Again

The iPod marked a change for Apple. It was the product that transformed it from the floundering tech company into the trendy giant it is today. But this story behind it's creation is filled with a mix of pressure, personal loss, luck and talent.

ColdFusion/ Burn Water Music: @ColdFusionmusic

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[JavierCR]

Those of us who remember the Walkman, the discman, the mini disc, the MP3 players and then the iPod, truly understand the impact it made.

[BsktImp]

I can still remember, in the pre-iPod Walkman era, the fashion was to do almost everything to conceal the headphone wires but when the iPod came out showing the white wires _were_ almost like a status symbol.

[RalphieMuskinyaar]

I’m so glad I lived my teenage years during the iPod era. It was honestly a beautiful time.

[lilytea]

0:00: 🔑 The original iPod was designed and manufactured in a few months and credited to an obscure man named Ken Kramer.
3:12: 🎵 The rise of digital music and the MP3 format disrupted the music industry, leading to the development of portable MP3 players.
6:31: 💽 Apple developed the iPod with a small form factor and high capacity hard drive, using the iconic mechanical scroll wheel for easy navigation.
9:29: 💽 The iPod was developed by a team led by Fidel, using components from various companies. It had a minimalist design and became a status symbol.
12:41: 🎵 Apple's iPod revolutionized the music industry, selling over 400 million units and paving the way for the iPhone.
Recap by Tammy AI

[sinhachetan]

It’s astonishing to think that there is an entire generation that has grown up without immense fascination with iPod.

[OrinSorinson]

I am one of those people that collects iPods and still uses them. I got a bit surprised by the small resurgence they've had in the last couple of years. They're still great little devices, especially the classic ones, with a few upgrades.

[LongIslandDad]

I remember back in the late 90s, a friend had a portable CD player that could also play the MP3 files on a data CD, that held hundreds of songs per disk. My mind was blown.

[supersardonic]

I remember saving up for the iPod Nano 3rd Gen as a kid. It wasn't much but for that brief moment, I felt like the coolest kid on the block who didn't have an iPhone and immediately loaded it with all the songs I got off of Limewire.

[lukewilliamrimmington]

I swear to god ColdFusion brings out the best videos. By now we all have close to 1000 ColdFusion videos in our pockets like how Steve Jobs said we would have 1000 songs with the Ipod. It's ironic saying this as I like Android.

[Bellinose]

I still have my iPod 6th generation, and it still boots and works. It was a gift from my daugther. I never thought ColdFusion would take me down to nostalgia lane so much one day :)

Yet another great CF video, thanks!

[guitarboyjeff]

I REALLY ABSOLUTELY miss that anticipation of what they were going to do with the next iPod!! My first one was the 30GB iPod Video for Christmas 2005!!! I felt like the man because not a lot of people had that new iPod at the time! Now days with Apple Music, Apple ruined the way iTunes would allow you to customize your playlists individually instead of just syncing all of it like now. I absolutely hate that they did this to the playlist feature. Sometimes my artwork doesn’t show on one device and sometimes my playlists get duplicated and this infuriates me because they could have just easily made Apple Music for only Music and playlists like iTunes and moved the iPhone updaters to finder. I know they could have kept the playlist features the same. If it aint broke don’t fix it!! This time they broke it instead of fixing it!! I understand why they had to separate the iTunes store but I hate that Apple Music and Finder are required to keep my iPod running with music and playlists and I refuse to keep a separate mac just for iTunes of old!! 😑

[asynchronous_man]

This video made me nostalgic, CD, MP3 and memories of the user experience with the original iPod, and of course the memory of the vibe of the old internet!

[monogramadikt]

i remember sony, samsung and other companies making great mp3 players with drag and drop music folders that were cheap, had good storage ability for large playlists and had a great sound quality, but were a pain in the ass to use sometimes if you were already sucked into the apple ecosystem and didnt own a pc which was more suited to the (not always essential) software involved in said devices

[Ynhockey]

Great video as always! Please do more videos about specific products.
A small nitpick though: 05:07 I don't think that there is solid evidence that the record labels took a huge hit because of p2p file sharing, or that it was self-evident that the future of music was digital, at the early stage. It became obvious later of course, but there was a strong argument that p2p was actually causing a lot of people to buy more music, since they could listen to the mp3 for free and be exposed to hundreds of artists in a short time. What Apple did with iTunes was actually prove the record labels wrong: even if they were losing money, it wasn't because p2p was taking away from legitimate record sales, rather it was that indeed the future of music was digital, and the record labels wouldn't lose all that money if they set up a compelling legal paid alternative to p2p. Mind you, 0.99 per track was considered very expensive at the time, especially in countries where p2p was the most popular. The fact that it worked proved the previous points beyond all doubt.

[lessthantom]

I was a tween when iPods came out. They were easily the most popular device as a kid since the game boy color. By the time the second gen nano came out 90% of my friends and classmates had an iPod. They were truly integral to mid 2000s life.

[primalconvoy]

I remember having an iPod ages ago. It kept wiping my memory everytime I connected it to a new PC at the internet cafes I would visit. It then dawned on me that Apple didn't really make a truly "take everywhere" device but rather a box that was designed for computer users rather than the general public. The last straw was that I need to keep installing iTunes and changing the settings to not wipe my iPod every time I used a new PC wherever I travelled to in the world.

They was the first and last owned Apple device I ever thankfully used and it was an easy choice to move onto far superior Android/PC-centric/based MP3 players, phones, consoles, etc.

[davmai]

For my friends and I in middle school, the iPod was like a Nintendo Switch, as parents were reluctant on giving their kids expensive smartphones. We played games in the hall- and stairways. Fun times with the iPod.

[by]

Never owned one of these, but remember when MP3s were getting lots of attention. In the late 90s one person in my circle took some old PC parts and a DC to AC inverter and ran an old DOS machine in the trunk of his car. Every time the car powered up, the PC would boot up and the autoexec.bat would start MP3 playing. I think he had a 10GB or more of HDD. Long before the iPhone I had a flip phone with a micrSD card slot that played MP3s and had dual speaker as well as a headphone jack. It also had a camera and limited apps. I could get to my bank account in text on a very small screen.

[gsadow]

One correction: MP3 format does introduce significant losses in fidelity of the original music. It was very compact, but to state that it didn't affect quality is just not correct.

[DeckardShotFirst]

Sidebar, Apple computers had to get permission at the beginning to use the Apple name, at that time already owned by Apple Music formed by the Beatles. They were given permission on the condition that they never go into the music business. When they started iTunes, they had to negotiate again for their name, they could have potentially lost the use of the name Apple as a result.