With production recently coming to an end, let’s take a moment to celebrate the impact that Apple’s pocket jukebox had on… well, everything
The iPod’s impact was seismic. By giving us instant access to our entire audio collections, it allowed us to fall in love with listening to music all over again through those iconic white earbuds. And in iTunes – the Mac app that was initially required to transfer and sync your music – we had the perfect interface to convert our music CDs to digital and then be super-geeky in managing and curating our new MP3 libraries. These were joyful, simpler times before the technology skyrocketed and iPhones started to replace iPods in the household, and before the Apple Music streaming service eradicated the need to even store the tracks on your device. For many, the golden age of the iPod was when it didn’t allow access to any other distractions beyond the music and the bright colours of the casings reflected our youthful exuberance but, as you will recollect on the following pages, tech waits for no one.
iPod classic
An icon and a cultural game changer
The very first iPod won from the moment it was announced. In a fledgling digital music industry it was head and shoulders above the competition, and it breathed new life into Apple and the entire tech world, which continues to benefit from its legacy to this day. The Toshiba hard disk drive inside had no home, but Apple snapped it up to offer 5GB of storage for your music, 10GB would follow later. This was a huge amount of space when you consider the size of the device and it was topped off by the clever scroll wheel on the front which was not just intuitive, but actually fun to use. Initially, only Apple users could transfer music to the iPod, but the second generation added Windows support via an app called Musicmatch Jukebox and the potential customer base grew exponentially.
Rip it up
The iPod was killing the pirating of music quickly and it transpired that people were prepared to pay for music legally provided it was easy to obtain and was reasonably priced. Apple nailed the idea and the improvements to iTunes – such as full Windows support – effectively created a whole new music industry that over time has evolved into streaming and the demise of physical music media. Vinyl and other formats occasionally have their moments in the limelight, but the reality is that digital music dominates by a huge margin and the iPod is to thank for laying the path we are all following today. Over the space of six years the iPod classic was improved with greater storage capabilities, topping out at 160GB, the ability to view photos and play videos, a
