TECH | Apple’s First iPod Went on Sale 25 Years Ago Today, Promising 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket

Twenty-five years ago today, Apple began selling the first iPod — a $399 music player with a 5-gigabyte hard drive that the company said could put 1,000 songs in your pocket.

The device went on sale Saturday, Nov. 10, 2001, through Apple’s online store, its retail stores and authorized resellers, Apple announced the day before. Apple had unveiled the player on Oct. 23, 2001, in Cupertino, California, with a slogan that became a catchphrase of the early digital-music era: “1,000 Songs in Your Pocket.”

“With iPod, Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket and listen to it wherever you go,” Steve Jobs, then Apple’s chief executive, said in the company’s launch release. “With iPod, listening to music will never be the same again.”

The original iPod weighed 6.5 ounces and used a mechanical scroll wheel to move through playlists, artists and songs. It connected to a computer over FireWire, not USB, and Apple said it could copy an entire CD in under 10 seconds and play music for up to 10 hours on a rechargeable battery. At launch it worked only with Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.1 or Mac OS 9.2, along with Apple’s iTunes 2 software.

Windows users had to wait. On July 17, 2002, Apple introduced a new generation of iPods for both Mac and Windows, with Windows models due later that August. Those first Windows iPods used MUSICMATCH Jukebox rather than iTunes. Apple released iTunes for Windows on Oct. 16, 2003, bringing the company’s jukebox software and its online music store to most PCs.

The iTunes Music Store itself had opened on April 28, 2003, first for Mac users in the United States. Songs sold for 99 cents, with no subscription fee, from a catalog Apple said included more than 200,000 tracks from the major record labels. The store, later known simply as the iTunes Store, became the legal download service that turned the iPod from a container for ripped CDs into a storefront in people’s pockets.

The product line soon multiplied. Apple introduced the smaller, colored iPod mini on Jan. 6, 2004, and began selling it on Feb. 20, 2004, for $249. The screenless iPod shuffle arrived on Jan. 11, 2005. The flash-memory iPod nano was introduced on Sept. 7, 2005. The iPod touch, with a Multi-Touch screen and Wi-Fi, was unveiled on Sept. 5, 2007, the same year Apple introduced the iPhone. Later models replaced the original mechanical scroll wheel with a solid-state touch wheel and then the Click Wheel that became the player’s most familiar control.

Sales grew far beyond the early, Mac-only market. Apple said on April 9, 2007, that it had sold its 100 millionth iPod. In a Sept. 9, 2009, product announcement, the company said more than 220 million iPods had been sold. On Sept. 12, 2012, Philip Schiller, then Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said more than 350 million had been sold. That 2012 figure is the last official cumulative total verified for this article. Apple later stopped separately reporting iPod unit sales.

When the company discontinued the last remaining model, The New York Times, citing the research firm Loup Ventures, reported an estimate of about 450 million iPods sold since 2001. Apple did not publish a final official lifetime total.

On May 10, 2022, Apple announced that the iPod touch would be available only while supplies last, ending the iPod line more than 20 years after the first player went on sale. By then, Apple said, the experience of carrying a music library had been built into the iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac, along with the streaming catalog of Apple Music.

“Music has always been part of our core at Apple, and bringing it to hundreds of millions of users in the way iPod did impacted more than just the music industry — it also redefined how music is discovered, listened to, and shared,” Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, said in that 2022 announcement. “Today, the spirit of iPod lives on.”

The anniversary was marked on national television Tuesday. CNBC’s “Power Lunch” displayed a chyron reading “25 YEARS SINCE FIRST IPOD RELEASE,” with an archival photograph of Jobs holding the original player.

If you still have an early iPod in a drawer, or remember loading one from a stack of CDs, The Fostoria Free Press invites readers in Fostoria and northwest Ohio to share those memories.

Sources: Apple Newsroom — Oct. 23, 2001 launch; Nov. 9, 2001 store availability; July 17, 2002 Windows iPods; April 28, 2003 iTunes Music Store; Oct. 16, 2003 iTunes for Windows; Jan. 6, 2004 iPod mini; Feb. 17, 2004 mini ship date; Jan. 11, 2005 iPod shuffle; Sept. 7, 2005 iPod nano; Sept. 5, 2007 iPod touch; April 9, 2007, 100 million sold; Sept. 9, 2009, more than 220 million; Sept. 12, 2012, more than 350 million; May 10, 2022 discontinuation. Sales estimate of about 450 million: The New York Times, May 10, 2022, citing Loup Ventures.

Featured image is an illustration, not a photograph of an Apple product or of any person.