It’s exhausting to recollect, however 20 years in the past, Apple was not a really cool firm. Sure, OS X was intriguing, and the titanium PowerBook was undoubtedly a cool laptop, But when most individuals considered Apple, it was in all probability the bulbous, colourful iMac G3 that popped into folks’s heads. The firm was beginning to construct its popularity for actually fascinating merchandise, however it wasn’t solidified simply but.

That all modified on October 23, 2001, when Steve Jobs pulled the primary iPod out of his pocket. For a era of music followers, it grew to become the quintessentially cool merchandise that was greater than only a fad. It’s not a stretch to say it reinvented the music trade whereas concurrently paving a path for Apple to grow to be the world’s greatest firm. It was the last word gateway drug to getting individuals who had by no means purchased an Apple product earlier than to see what all of the fuss was about.

At this level, the considerably skeptical reception to the iPod is a part of tech trade lore – significantly Slashdot’s dismissal of the product as “lame” in comparison with a Nomad MP3 participant. (Raise your hand in the event you ever used a Nomad. That’s what I believed.) And it’s not just like the product was an on the spot hit – the primary iPod value $400 and solely labored with the Mac, two elements that restricted its enchantment.

Those limitations helped it obtain some critical cachet, although. Seeing an iPod within the wild was a rarity, and my Mac-owning pals who have been early adopters needed to cope with my incessant questions and requests to carry it and spin its distinctive wheel. It didn’t assist that my faculty suite-mate (who had a titanium PowerBook and iPod) and graphic designer buddy (with a EnergyMac G4 and iPod) have been consistently going off about how nice their {hardware} was. I used to be primed to grow to be a type of switchers Apple favored to speak about within the early 2000s.

The iPod might have began out as a Mac-only product, however lower than a yr later, Apple opened it as much as the opposite 98 p.c of laptop customers by introducing a Windows-compatible mannequin in the summertime of 2002. Less than a yr after that, Apple fully redesigned the iPod and launched a brand new model of iTunes for Windows. At the identical time, Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, making it rather a lot simpler to get authorized music onto an iPod. With that, the iPod moved absolutely into the mainstream.

There’s no good technique to quantify how many individuals purchased an iPod for Windows after which ultimately switched to a Mac. But, Mac sales increased from about 3 million in 2003 to greater than 7 million by 2007. Apple’s transfer to extra highly effective Intel processors in 2005 seemingly helped adoption, however the iPod “halo effect” was usually cited within the mid-2000s as a driver of the Mac’s rising reputation.

Growing Mac gross sales and the preferred client electronics system of the last decade actually paved the way in which for the iPhone to be the monumental success that it was virtually. Sure, the iPhone ultimately killed the iPod, however as Steve Jobs said, he’d fairly cannibalize Apple’s gross sales with one other Apple product than let another firm do it — this was how he justified the existence of the iPod contact, which was mainly an iPhone with no cellphone.

I is perhaps overselling the iPod to Mac to iPhone evolution, as a result of I lived it. After getting a second-generation iPod in 2002 (embarrassing admission time: I additionally purchased 4 extra full-size iPods between then and 2009), I obtained my first Mac in 2003 and the primary iPhone in late 2007. I keep in mind being extra enthusiastic about my first iPhone than my first iPod, largely as a result of it was mild years higher than the Moto RAZR I used to be utilizing on the time. But my first iPod was equally an enormous step ahead from the MP3 gamers I owned earlier than. And in my early 20s, there was nothing extra vital to me than music.

That might not make me distinctive, however it’s nonetheless true. Before the iPod was all over the place, another person who had one was somebody you possibly can belief. They took music as severely as you probably did; they knew how liberating it was to have your 100 favourite albums with you, on demand, any time you wanted them. In a world the place Apple Music presents entry to 90 million songs anyplace you might be for 10 bucks a month, which may appear quaint. But 20 years in the past, it was a revelation.

I nonetheless have the final iPod I ever bought, a 2008 iPod traditional with 120GB of storage – about the identical house as I’ve in my iPhone 12 Pro. It’s nonetheless stuffed to the gills with music, some 11,000-plus songs, most of which come from albums I fastidiously chosen over time. Most of them are nonetheless in my Apple Music library, which has now ballooned to greater than double that dimension, with over 25,000 songs.

I’m nonetheless a agency believer within the artwork of constructing album, however I’ve additionally collected 1000’s of singles, or a handful of songs from artists who catch my ear on one of many many curated playlists on the market. The music trade has modified, and so have I. Whether or not that’s factor is a debate for one more time, however there’s little doubt that each the music and expertise industries modified fully due to the iPod – one thing its humble introduction 20 years in the past solely barely hinted at.