The Apple iPod was announced without any fanfare and unexpectedly on October 23, 2001.  Prior to the Apple iPod announcement, Apple introduced iTunes for its Macintosh, a program that converted audio CDs into compressed digital audio files, an organized  digital music collection and played radio on the Internet. The introduction of the iTunes was made on January 9, 2001,  a full10 months before. 

The brand new Apple iPod was unlike any of its competitor audio players that used flash memory or CD Roms.  Instead the new Apple iPod sported a hard drive for storage.  The first iPod had a 5 GB storage capacity (enough to store 1,000 songs) and sold for $399.00.  It also worked only on Macs, using iTunes as the music organization and a tool converting the CDs to play on the iPod.  It does not appear that the iTunes program was made with the iPod in mind, as Apple started the development of the iPod just six months before.

By the end of the year Apple had sold 125,000 iPods. Meanwhile Third-party developers were busily programming  new software that allowed the iPod to work with PCs.  However, the final versions of the software was not available until June of 2002.  From March 2002 till the end of the year, Apple was busily developing and introducing updates of the original iPod.  First came the 10 GB, 2000 song capacity in March 2002.  In July 2002 Apple made 4 major announcements of new versions of the iPod which included new Music Match software instead of the iTunes. The announcements included a PC version (with Music Match); Second, a 20 GB iPod, then 10 and 20 GB models with a touch sensitive scroll wheel which was easier to manage than the moving wheel. Apple also announced the price reduction of its 5, 10, and 20 GB models.

Now, in 2007, Apple has upgraded to the 60 and 80 GB models with new innovations.  There seems to be no end in sight.

Henry Leyva