iPod 20th anniversary tale reveals the true genius of Steve Jobs

iPod 20th anniversary tale reveals the truthful genius of Steve Jobs

(Image credit: Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images)

Twenty years ago today, Apple released the first-generation iPod. While it seems like a home run with the do good of hindsight, the MP3 actor was actually an enormous gamble for a visitor that was, in 2001, about equally far from being a trillion-dollar powerhouse as it'southward possible to be.

To marker the 20th ceremony of the iPod, CNET spoke to Tony Fadell, the "male parent of iPod" to talk about his memories of the fourth dimension, and information technology provides an interesting look into the late Apple founder Steve Jobs' decisiveness.

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Fadell, at the time, was running his startup Fuse Systems, which had the goal of creating an MP3 player. But creating a market from null is difficult for any company — and doubly so for a startup — and in the year 2000, total sales of MP3 players was around 500,000 units: the definition of a niche tech product.

With that in heed, when Fadell was invited to visit Apple tree with image digital music players, he saw this as a gamble to go along his startup adrift, but wasn't necessarily optimistic. Nonetheless, he built three prototypes out of styrofoam and weighed them down with his granddaddy's fishing weights to give each one a realistic heft.

Ahead of the coming together, Fadell says he worked with former Apple employee Stan Ng to piece of work on a stack of papers to present — it was 2001, so information technology wasn't the slideshow era — and was also warned of Jobs' "reputation for an explosive temper."

A master negotiator

Fadell presented the 3 prototypes in contrary order of preference, and that psychological trick — recommended past Ng — worked. "Steve picked it up and he'south like, 'we're building this and y'all're now going to join us to build it,' and I was like 'whoa whoa,'" Fadell said.

In 2021, this would audio like a no brainer. But yous accept to remember that in 2001, Apple was a company that had just posted a loss of $195 million. And the last thing Fadell wanted was for his baby to be abandoned when it failed to instantly brand waves.

In his negotiations with Jobs, he managed to get a delivery to digital music players which was unusual for an unproven product. The Apple tree CEO pledged an enormous marketing upkeep and to bring in resource from the core Mac concern to assistance the iPod fly. Even when the beginning 2 generations didn't do much, Jobs kept his promise. "He held up his side of the business, and the balance is history," Fadell said.

That wasn't the last claiming Fadell faced, as the rest of the excellent feature explains, simply it was a major hurdle, and a huge step in Apple's journeying to profitability, pointing the style to the iPhone and everything that followed.

What side by side for the iPod?

Twenty years later, and the iPod is no longer the jewel in Apple tree'south crown, merely information technology is still around — albeit in a land that a younger Fadell would no longer recognize, with the iconic click wheel replaced past the familiar iPhone touchscreen. The iPod touch on is hidden away on Apple's site, essentially a dated iPhone without cellular connectivity.

Could information technology come dorsum? One leaker posited that Apple would refresh the iPod Affect with an iPhone 12 manner look this year to mark the 20th anniversary, but that seems unlikely.

But at that place's still a caste of nostalgia for the iPod Archetype, click wheel and all. If you want to imagine what such a device would look like in 2021, take a wait at these renders and dream.

Just don't get likewise carried away, because even the artist in question concedes such a device isn't feasible present. In 2021, it'south just likewise niche. But this story goes to show just how confident Steve Jobs was in his vision and how good he was at recruiting the all-time possible talent to brand information technology a reality.

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Freelance contributor Alan has been writing about tech for over a decade, covering phones, drones and everything in between. Previously Deputy Editor of tech site Alphr, his words are found all over the web and in the occasional magazine besides. When not weighing upwardly the pros and cons of the latest smartwatch, you'll probably find him tackling his ever-growing games excess. Or, more likely, playing Spelunky for the millionth time.