GoKawiil
Tech News
Apple unveiled the original iPod on October 23, 2001, with Steve Jobs presenting it as a hard-disk music player holding 1,000 songs for $399. The device offered 5GB of storage and supported MP3, WAV and AIFF formats, entering a market Jobs said lacked a clear leader despite existing players from Sony, Creative and others.
Steven Levy recalls Apple's October 2001 launch of the iPod, which Steve Jobs told him would be 'a landmark product,' and traces its gradual discontinuation through 2014, 2017 and 2022 as the iPhone absorbed its functions. He argues the iPod's death became inevitable once Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January 2007, folding 'the best iPod ever' into a multipurpose device.
A UI engineer who worked at Apple's online store from 2004-2006 shared how he redesigned the 'Personalize your iPod' page to replace a plain form with a rotatable iPod graphic, a live engraving preview, and a shipping-time highlight. The rotation used cycling JPEGs via JavaScript, ImageMagick generated the engraved text overlay, and CSS class swaps produced a yellow-fade effect to flag shipping changes. He notes a working demo of the old feature still exists.