Apple at 50: The iPod Mattered More Than the iPhone

Source Domain: www.pcmag.com

I still remember the first time I heard an MP3 file. It was back in 1995, right after I graduated from college. It was some proto drum-and-bass track that I had downloaded to my PC from an FTP site, back when the web was just beginning to go mainstream. I don’t remember the name of the song or the artist. But I do remember being stunned by how clear it sounded. It was a full four-minute digital audio file that, at just a couple of megabytes, was also small enough to download in a few minutes over a dial-up connection.

Today, with the exception of a growing band of vinyl enthusiasts, almost everyone listens to digital music. The single biggest reason for that is Apple’s iconic iPod. Almost overnight, the iPod was everywhere in the aughts. There were giant billboard ads and flashy TV commercials. People around the globe rocked out with Apple’s famous white earbuds.

In 2022, Apple discontinued the iPod after 20 years. Today, as we look back at all things Apple for the company’s 50th anniversary, it seems fitting to reflect on the iPod’s origins and how it utterly changed the way we listen to music today.

Apple Took Its Time

A flurry of little-known startups released the first batch of MP3 players in the late 1990s. They were cramped by current standards, with just 32MB or 64MB of internal memory—enough for an album or two’s worth of music, or a decent mixtape. Ripping your music to digital files offered advantages over CDs and MiniDiscs—they didn’t skip, and you could rearrange them however you like.

But it was the rise of illegal file-sharing on Napster, Kazaa, and other peer-to-peer services that cemented the MP3 as the new format of choice. And as the market for MP3 players expanded, Creative Labs, Samsung, and other familiar names entered the fray.

An Apple iBook and iPod circa 2001 (Photo: Apple Corp. via Getty Images)

True to form, Apple watched the market for a couple of years. Then Steve Jobs announced the sleek new iPod on…

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