Comment by jandrese
2 days ago
Also less space than a Nomad.
The killer feature of the iPod was the iTunes music store. Everybody was sick of the hoops the companies made you jump through to buy songs. Singles were basically out of fashion thanks to the domination of the CD, but most bands only released one or two good songs on a CD meaning each song cost like $5 and you had to rip it yourself and transfer it to whatever device you had, which was a lot of work. Apple realized people would buy a ton of music if you cut out the bullshit and price it reasonably, a strategy that had been previously untried in the market and no doubt caused a lot of CEO heartburn.
> The killer feature of the iPod was the iTunes music store.
That wasn't launched until 2003, two years after the iPod, and it took a while for all the big music labels to sign on. (Hell, it took until 2010 for the Beatles to show up.) The iPod was a success even without the music store; while it wasn't the only portable digital music player on the market, or even the first, it was the first good one.
The first couple of generations of the iPod were a modest success, and then more as a fashion accessory than as a practical device. Lots of cultural cred, but the sales figures were pitiful compared to the subsequent generations.
It took Apple 2 years to ship the first million. It wasn’t successful at all until it came to Windows