5GB for $399: Apple's 2001 Player Reached 1,000 Songs

Apple sold 1,000 songs for $399 when Steve Jobs introduced the original iPod on October 23, 2001. The device carried 5GB of storage, measured 2.4 by 4 by 0.78 inches, and weighed 6.5 ounces, which Jobs described as "lighter than most cell phones." The presentation opened with his line about "a breakthrough digital device that's not a Mac."

Jobs entered the portable player market as Apple recovered from the dot-com downturn. Mac OS X had shipped, and iBooks and iMacs were selling. He told the audience the Mac could become the center of a digital lifestyle, serving cameras, camcorders, DVD players and portable music players. Music drew his attention because, in his words, everyone loves it and the market had no clear leader. He named Creative, Sonic Blue and Sony as existing sellers of portable players and said "none of them has really found the recipe yet, for digital music." He chose the hard-disk jukebox category as the way in, alongside CD players, MP3 CD players and flash players.

The iPod handled MP3, WAV and AIFF files, and its 5GB drive held about 1,000 pop songs encoded as 160Kbps MP3s. Jobs said "for most people it's their entire music library." The device used Toshiba's 1.8-inch hard drive, offered 20 minutes of skip protection, and charged and transferred files through a single FireWire 400 cable. Apple said FireWire moved a full CD to the player in five to 10 seconds against roughly five minutes over the USB connections of the period, and filled the device with 1,000 songs in about 10 minutes rather than five hours. A lithium-polymer battery ran 10 hours of continuous playback, and Apple said an empty unit reached 80% in an hour.

Jobs also argued for the interface. The scroll wheel used a piezoelectric clicker for tactile feedback, and controls were arranged for one-handed operation, searchable by playlist, artist or song. On stage he played the opening of Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery." iTunes 2 shipped the same day with MP3 CD burning and support for syncing the player. Libraries assembled on a Mac matched the iPod on connection for music transfer or charging, and the device could also operate as a FireWire hard drive.

The first iPhone arrived in early 2007, more than five years after the iPod launch, and both products stayed in Apple's lineup for over a decade. iPod sales declined as phones took over that work. The final model was the seventh-generation iPod Touch, released in May 2019, and Apple discontinued the line in May 2022.