Today, Apple Inc. is a trillion-dollar company, and it was the first-ever to hit that valuation. It wasn't always that way. Whereas this year it had a fiscal Q3 profit of $21.7 billion (with a B) and most of us yawn, 20 years ago its third-quarter profits were only $66 million. That's an increase of times 328!
Arguably, that all changed because of the iPod, which Apple is now discontinuing after a 20-year run.
Yeah, sure, the iPhone and iPad are the real moneymakers now. But without the iPods of yore, which accounted for as much as 44% of Apple's almost always growing profits in some years, would the iOS products even exist?
Don't forget that Apple Computer, as it was known at the time, despite always having a gift for marketing, was considered an also-ran in the computer space it originally occupied. In a commentary by Matthew Rothenberg of Interactive Week at the time (he used to work at MacWeek and broke the news in 2002 that the iPad was coming), he called Apple "the perennial longshot in the PC race" despite it beating financial predictions.
A week later, on October 26, 2001, Rothenberg seemed even less rosy about Apple's new toy. He likened the announcement by Steve Jobs of the first iPod to Apple's "finely honed marketing sword nearly lopped off a couple of the company's fingers." This followed a week of the web frothing at the mouth trying to parse what Apple could be announcing because its event invite said cryptically: "Hint: It's not a Mac." The reaction was the kind of "theological fervor that PC rivals such as Compaq Computer or Dell Computer can only dream of," said Rothenberg. Most Apple rivals can still dream on today.
History has shown the iPod was a game-changer for Apple, and the world, since the experimentation with that form helped drive the modern smartphone.
But was that original iPod any good?
Here's the full text of our first iPod review, written by former staffer Troy Dreier for the PC Magazine PC Magazine issue dated December 26, 2001 (it appeared online on November 7, 2001).
iPod: Not Just iCandy
Leave it to Apple, maker of some of the world's sleekest computers, to come out with the world's coolest MP3 player. Flash an Apple iPod ($399 list) around and your friends will be begging to play with it. But this beauty has more than good looks going for it: Its usefulness and simplicity make it a standout product, even for the price.
That Windows compatibility didn't take long. The second-generation iPod, released in July 2002, opened up the MP3 player of choice to Windows users via the Musicmatch Jukebox software. It started the ball rolling on a decade of updates that revolutionized the iPod itself. It moved from hard drive to flash storage, reducing its size dramatically until we got to the iPod nano. The screens went from black-and-white song lists to video-capable full-color, a move that eventually led to the stunning screens of the iPhone and, of course, the almost identical-to-this-day iPod touch. Eventually, iTunes came to Windows in 2003.
There was no one who couldn't use an iPod if they wanted to spend the money, and millions of people did. At least until the iPhone arrived in 2007. For more, read A Visual History of the Apple iPod.
Now watch: The iPod's 20th Anniversary: A Look Back
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