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And can you guess what people said about it at the time?

http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/apples-new-thing-ipod.50...

> iPod? iPoop... iCry. I was so hoping for something more.

> Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player. Go Steve! Where's the Newton?!

> heres an idea Apple - rather than enter the world of gimmicks and toys, why dont you spend a little more time sorting out your pathetically expensive and crap server line up? or are you really aiming to become a glorified consumer gimmicks firm? :mad:

The more things change...




It was a bit of a gimmick when it came out. It was expensive and required you to already own a late model Mac computer (iTunes was Mac only). Macs weren't as popular then so, at first, it was an expensive accessory for existing Apple fans.


Which, in hindsight, was probably a good way to test a market, and ensure demand didn't outstrip supply too badly at the outset.


I suppose that depends whether you believe that was part of an intentional strategy at all. In any event, it certainly wasn't apparent at the time.


Not sure what you mean by "gimmick". Sure, potential market was limited, as you said, in the first iterations. But for those people that had a Mac with FireWire and a solid music collection in iTunes, it was awesome.


Which was just about nobody outside Cupertino.

It was just as lame as CmdrTaco said it was, and it didn't take off until Gen4 (mid 2004?) when it got USB syncing and charging.


It was Gen 3 that introduced the 30-pin Dock Connector and Windows compatibility by means of USB in April 2003. My sister still has a working unit she uses almost every day.


However, part of its success was that Apple realized that by selling more iPods they would also, by extension, sell more Macs. This is why the iPod was advertised with one of the largest and most successful campaigns in history: Apple convinced itself that it could use the Mac's advertising budget for the iPod, because of this connection. So the iPod was really competing with an industry well beyond the iPod, and any other mp3-only technologies could not compete with this. The bet paid off big for Apple.


“No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame”

https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...




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