Apple’s original iPod went on sale 25 years ago today, on November 10, 2001. The $399 music player initially only worked with a Mac, but it became one of Apple’s most important products and helped the company expand beyond the computer business.
Steve Jobs had unveiled the first iPod just over two weeks earlier, on October 23, at a small press event in the City Hall auditorium at Apple’s Infinite Loop headquarters. Advertised as “1,000 songs in your pocket”, the device combined a 5GB hard drive with a monochrome LCD display, a mechanical scroll wheel, and up to 10 hours of battery life.
The original model required iTunes. Its FireWire connection transferred music and charged the battery, while automatic syncing copied songs and playlists from the user’s iTunes library. Apple said an entire CD could be transferred in less than 10 seconds, and a collection of 1,000 songs in less than 10 minutes. The hard drive may also store documents and other files.
Before the announcement, Apple invited the press to a presentation of a “revolutionary digital device,” specifying that it was not a Mac. Reports variously suggested a music player, a home stereo accessory, or a portable device with handwriting recognition. A MacRumors a compilation of entries published two days before the event included the name “iPod”.
The announcement received a mixed response. Our original coverage is still available, along with reader comments questioning the device’s price, Mac-only compatibility, and what it means. One reader described it as “far from revolutionary,” while another wrote “all this fuss over something so ridiculous!” Early discussions in the forums also covered fingerprints on the glossy back, heat when charging, and the sound quality of the included earphones.
Hardware revisions followed in quick succession. The second-generation iPod adopted a touch-sensitive scroll wheel, while the third-generation model introduced the 30-pin Dock connector in 2003. The full-size iPod gained a color display in 2004 and video playback in 2005.
The iPod mini was announced in January 2004 and represents the first extension of the product line. It featured a smaller casing made of anodized aluminum in silver, gold, pink, blue, or green, and introduced the Click Wheel, which integrated playback buttons into the touch-sensitive scrolling surface. Apple adopted the same control for the fourth-generation full-size iPod that same year.
In 2005, Apple introduced both the iPod shuffle and iPod nano. The shuffle omitted a display and offered a smaller, simpler music player, while the nano replaced the mini with a slim design based on flash memory. Later iPod nano models added video playback, a video camera, and a touchscreen. The sixth-generation square model, introduced in 2010, could be worn on the wrist using third-party watch straps.
By April 2007, Apple had sold 100 million iPods, less than six years after the first model reached customers. By October 2011, sales had surpassed 304 million units.
The iPod touch arrived in September 2007, several months after the first iPhone was sold. It featured a 3.5-inch Multi-Touch display, Wi-Fi, and Safari, without requiring a cellular plan.
Apple discontinued the iPod classic in September 2014, five years after its final hardware revision. The iPod nano and iPod shuffle followed in July 2017, leaving the iPod touch as the only model.
The seventh-generation iPod touch received an A10 Fusion chip and up to 256GB of storage in May 2019. It remained on sale without further hardware updates until May 10, 2022, when Apple announced its discontinuation and said it would be available while supplies last.
In its announcement, Apple attributed the end of the range to the integration of music playback into its other products. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said “the spirit of the iPod lives on” across devices including the iPhone, Apple Watch, HomePod mini, Mac, iPad and Apple TV.
