iPod

January 12, 2005: Apple reports record earnings for the preceding three months. Impressive iPod sales during the holiday period, and demand for the latest iBook laptop, give the company a four-fold increase in profits.

Apple brags that it sold a total of 10 million iPods, and rightly so. The massive popularity of the portable music player drives Apple to its highest earnings yet.

“We are thrilled to report the highest quarterly revenue and net income in Apple’s history,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in a press release. “We’ve sold over 10 million iPods to date and are kicking off the new year with a slate of innovative new products including iPod shuffle, Mac mini and iLife ’05.”

January 8, 2004: The clumsily named iPod+HP, a Hewlett-Packard-branded iPod, debuts at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Shown off by Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the prototype device is blue, the color used for HP’s branding. By the time it arrives on the market later that year, however, the digital music player is the same shade of white as the regular iPod. The device doesn’t hang around for long, either.

November 14, 2006: Apple teams up with a slew of airlines to offer the “first seamless integration” between iPods and in-flight entertainment systems.

A special dock will let iPod owners use the devices to play music and videos on planes’ seat-back displays. The plan promises to rid the world of old-fashioned in-flight movies and printed magazines.

October 26, 2004: Apple debuts the iPod Photo, a device capable of putting not just 15,000 songs in your pocket, but also 25,000 photographs. The new device “lets you take your entire music and photo library with you wherever you go,” Apple says.

It is the first iPod to offer a color screen and the ability to display digital images and album cover art. The iPod Photo represents a big step forward in the functionality of Apple’s iconic music player.

October 23, 2001: Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduces the first iPod, a device capable of storing an entire music library in a highly portable package.

The first-generation device boasts a 5GB hard drive capable of putting “1,000 songs in your pocket.” That may not sound too dazzling in a world in which people can stream the massive Apple Music library from their iPhones, but it was a game-changer at the time!

October 16, 2003: Six months after opening the iTunes Music Store for Mac owners, Apple expands the service to cover Windows PCs as well.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs later quips that making iTunes available to Windows owners is akin to “giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”

The iPod music player, a product that was once the definition of tech coolness, rode off into the sunset on Tuesday. The last iPod nano and iPod shuffle models went on Apple’s list of obsolete products, which means the classic iPod lineup officially obsolete.

The music player that transformed Apple and the worldwide music culture will no longer be supported or serviced by Apple. It’s the end of an era.

The same is true for iPhone 6.

September 7, 2016: Apple unveils the very first AirPods during a special event in San Francisco. The blindingly white wireless earbuds look undeniably strange at first glance, with their long, slender stems and a charging case that looks like a dental floss container.

However, after their December release, AirPods will quickly become the most popular earbuds in the world.

September 5, 2007: Apple introduces its first new iPods after the release of the iPhone. The lineup includes the third-gen iPod nano, the newly renamed iPod Classic and — most significantly — the debut of the iPod touch.

In doing so, Apple sets out to demonstrate that there is still plenty of life left in the iconic portable music player.

July 19, 2004: The fourth-generation iPod brings neat innovations to the popular audio device, including the Click Wheel interface recently introduced on the iPod mini.

“The best digital music player just got better,” says Steve Jobs in a press release on the day the product launches. And yet some people feel disappointed by the upgraded music player.

July 15, 2015: Apple introduces the sixth-gen iPod touch, attempting to prove that there’s still a place for the humble music player in the crazy, crazy world of iPhones and Apple Watches.

Apple calls the device “the best iPod touch yet” in a press release, and touts “a new lineup of colors for all iPod models, including space gray, silver, gold, pink and blue.”

July 14, 1995: The MP3 file format receives its official name as the new .bit file extension gets changed to .mp3. The technology allows the compression of a standard CD .wav file to one-tenth its original size, courtesy of some smart algorithms. The format will revolutionize the music industry — and put Apple on the road to world dominance with the iPod.

The MP3 enables easy sharing of music tracks online and makes music more portable than ever. Within a few years, Apple’s iPod will become the world’s best-known MP3 player, quickly capitalizing on the new format.

May 30, 2013: Apple marks the sale of the 100 millionth iPod touch by launching a new, stripped-down model with a budget price of $229.

The 16GB music player lacks some features of its high-end siblings. However, the smaller price tag makes it appealing to new customers.

May 12, 2005: Longtime Apple frenemy Bill Gates tells a German newspaper that Apple may have hit it big with the iPod, but that its success isn’t going to last forever.

The reason? Mobile phones are going to steal the iPod’s market share. The good news for Gates is that he was right on the money. The bad news for Microsoft is that Apple cannibalized itself by making the iPhone. And Apple’s smartphone became even more successful than the iPod.

April 9, 2007: Apple sells its 100 millionth iPod. Coming five-and-a-half years after the portable music player went on sale, the landmark event confirms the iPod as Apple’s most popular product of all time.

Until the iPhone arrives a couple months later, that is!

March 3, 2014: With the CarPlay launch, Apple introduces iOS functionality for iPhone users behind the wheel via the car’s in-dash screen.

Showcasing the new car infotainment platform at the Geneva International Auto Show, Apple calls CarPlay “a smarter, safer and more fun way to use iPhone in the car.” Vehicles from Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo are the first off the line to incorporate it.

February 12, 2012: Months after his untimely death, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is honored with a Special Merit Grammy Award in recognition of his contributions to the field of music with the iPod and iTunes Music Store.

Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of internet software and services, collects the Grammy on behalf of Jobs’ family and “everyone at Apple.”

Ah, the magic of Christmas. Even a grownup can get deliriously excited about unwrapping a rich haul of computer gear that turns a Charlie Brown Christmas tree of a setup into a powerful workstation that would intimidate Ebeneezer Scrooge.

Today’s user had a decent MacBook Pro and iPad Pro to begin with, but ended up with a proper, highly functional setup. And commenters had further suggestions for additions, too. Hey, the more the merrier!

If Apple made a turntable, would it cost $60,000? Almost certainly not, but that’s the lofty price tag on the new 50th anniversary Linn Sondek LP12-50, sketched out by former Apple chief designer Jony Ive and his firm LoveFrom.

It’s his first hardware design project since leaving Apple in 2019. And he did it for free.

Not every computer setup flaunted and much-admired on social media is an Apple silicon powerhouse with an ultra-fast M1 or M2 chip. Today’s featured setup leans on a 6-year-old iMac and a MacBook Air almost twice as old as that.

But with the help of an impressive-yet-affordable audio gear list and a trio of gaming systems, the rig gets the work and play done. And don’t miss the beefed up iPod classic in the mix.

Some computer setups are more Apple-ish than others. Apple-y. Apple-centric. Today’s featured M1 Max MacBook Pro outfit welcomes a new Studio Display to replace a recently “retired” 20-inch Cinema Display, and that’s just the start of the Cupertino madness.

Almost everything else in the setup is Apple, too. The input devices, the audio gear — even some of the wall art. And what’s in the book collection? The Cult of Mac hardcover book.

Surely you already know that the newly redesigned MacBook Air is super thin. But you might not have realized just how  very sleek it is. It’s actually slimmer than the original iPhone.

In fact, the macOS laptop is much, much thinner than a lot of other classic and recent Apple devices.

Photographer and writer Chris Denbow puts an interesting twist on his computer setup. He credits its “Dark Mode” — which is obvious in the photographs of the desk and the room, but extends to the machines and the software he uses — for boosting his focus and creativity. He said the dark theme gives him a “space dedicated to creativity.”

“Introducing ‘Dark Mode,’ a minimal, monochromatic home office/workspace that helps eliminate distractions, [and] allows focus and productivity,” Denbow told Cult of Mac.

The following is from the introduction to The Cult of iPod, my 2005 book about the massive impact of the tiny music player. Introduced in 2001, the iPod quickly became one of the most important gadgets of all time. It transformed Apple and it brought a lot of joy into people’s lives. All told, Apple sold about 400 million iPods before officially pulling the plug on the device Tuesday.

I hope this intro captures why I loved the iPod, as did millions of other people.

Excerpt from The Cult of iPod

Fire, the wheel, and the iPod. In the history of invention, gadgets don’t come more iconic than Apple’s digital music player. The iPod is to the 21st century what the big band was to the ’20s, the radio to the ’40s, or the juke-box to the ’50s — the signature technology that defines the musical culture of the era. And what a marvelous technology the iPod is. Inside Apple’s little white box is magic, pure magic, in the guise of music.

Soon after Apple officially killed the iPod on Tuesday, users flooded Twitter with remembrances of the little music player that changed the world when it barged onto the scene in 2001.

From tech influencers to industry analysts to garden-variety music lovers — you know, the folks whose ears lit up when Apple gave them a device that put 1,000 songs in their pockets — it was a genuine iPod lovefest.

Here are some of the finest tributes to the iPod.