Hello & welcome to another GK Nugget. This time we’re
travelling 15 years into the past where on this very day the portable music
player industry changed forever. No prizes for guessing, 23rd
October 2001 was when Steve Jobs unveiled the very 1st iPod… and the
rest, as they say, is history.
Over its 15 year journey, can you guess how many times
has the iPod evolved? Available now with a maximum memory size of 128 GB, the 1st
edition had a capacity of only 5 GB & was marketed as being able to offer “1,000 songs in
your pocket”.
Nobody expected Apple to release a MP3 player. In fact,
the 1st generation iPod received much criticism ranging from its
US$399 price to the scroll wheel and its lack of Windows compatibility. (Windows
compatible iPods came out in July 2002).
The name "iPod" was inspired by “2001: A Space
Odyssey” – the 1968 epic science fiction movie produced & directed by
Stanley Kubrick. The immortal line: “Open the Pod Bay doors, Hal” was the inspiration.
Steve Jobs used to talk a lot about the iMac and iLife, so adding the “i”
prefix was a natural thing to do. Jobs initially rejected the iPod name, but
later came around to it.
Apple's first iPod came with a little secret — in the
form of a game that could be accessed if you knew the right combination of
buttons to press. Breakout, the hidden game itself, is notable in Apple's
history as it was a product that both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked on
together at Atari.
The full range of sounds, on average, for an iPod is 120
decibels.
In September 2002, the iPod was briefly taken off the
market in France when authorities said it was too loud and could damage
listeners’ ears. Under French law, portable devices were limited to 100
decibels. The iPod’s software was quickly updated to reduce the volume.
June 2004 saw BMW debut the first car entertainment
system with built-in iPod integration. Within a couple of years, 90% of new
cars would also offer this feature.
In January 2005, Apple announces a new entry-level iPod,
the iPod Shuffle, using flash memory with 512MB and 1GB capacities. Small
enough to fit into the coin pocket of your jeans, the iPod Shuffle could
directly connect to your computer through the onboard USB port.
In December 2005, the White House reveals that President
George W. Bush also used an iPod. In March 2008, the iPod went to space on the
Space Shuttle Endeavor & in April 2009, on a state visit to UK, President
Obama gifted an iPod to the Queen of England.
In its 15 years of life so far, over 400 million iPods
have been sold. That’s equal to more than 73,000 iPods being sold daily for 15
years.
The iPod changed the world of music by introducing the
idea of “shuffle” to listeners. With the iPod, and iTunes, you can listen to
music at random. Instead of making choices, you can let fate choose what you
listen to.
In the age when online music piracy was rampant, iTunes (which
even today is used to sync music, images & videos with Apple devices) created
the first legitimate digital music store that competed effectively with piracy.
Answering my question at the beginning of the Nugget - the
15 year journey of the iPod has see 6 generations of the iPod Classic, 2
generations of the iPod Mini, 7 generations of the iPod Nano, 4 generations of
the iPod Shuffle & 6 generations of the iPod Touch. Phew!!
But unfortunately the iPod has been a victim of its own
success. Sales are slowing down at an alarming pace (Some figures suggest the
number of iPhones sold in 3 months beats the number of iPods sold in a year).
And since January 2015, Apple does not disclose the number of iPods sold. It
combines the figures under the “Other products” section of its balance sheet,
thus drawing the spotlight away from its iconic invention.
I am sure at some point in our lives we’ve all bobbed our
heads to the tune of a song on an iPod – hope this nugget has rekindled some
fond memories of your musical past.
That’s all on this weekend’s GK Nugget.
