Not sure why this got downmodded. The ipod came out in 2001. It didn't really take off until 2004. The guy I'm responding to is talking about UX from 2007-08, well after the maturation of the digital music player. iRiver sucking in 2007 does not mean that the iPod didn't suck in 2002.
iPod's chief competition at the time was the Nomad (as captured in Rob Malda's classic iPod review).
I bought a Nomad in August 2001 (roughly two months before the iPod came out). I have never had more remorse at being an early adopter.
The Nomad was the size of two Sony CD Walkmans stuck together. Its interface was a series of four fiddly buttons and a dire lo-res LCD screen. The iPod was a tremendous improvement in every single respect.
The reason why the iPod wasn't an immediate hit was because it was only available for the Mac. iTunes for Windows didn't get released until 2003.
If the iPod sucked in 2002, every other hard-drive based MP3 player sucked more.
This discussion was regarding whether or not the iPod counted as a dominant product line under Jobs. What particular year an iRiver anecdotally sucked, or whether the initial batch of iPods were as good as those brick sized Nomads is completely irrelevant to the fact that the iPod product line decimated every competitor in the market over its lifespan.
