iPod turns 9 (and a day)
Well, I missed it by a day, but happy 9th birthday iPod!
Here's a story in Business Insider that includes video of a comparatively chubby looking Jobs springing his game changer on an unsuspecting world.
And here, for endlessly fascinating historical reasons, is the legendary Slashdot thread that includes the will-live-forever-in-infamy-probably-the-most-famous-thing-he'll-ever-do "Brown Fury" comment "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
The thing that strikes me about reading some of that thread is how closely it mirrors the reaction to each and every subsequent Apple release-- there are other, cheaper products that do "the same thing" (as long as you're willing to ignore the things that Apple emphasized, in this case size and battery life), it's too tied to Apple's ecosystem, Apple is making niche products for rich posers, it's a triumph of packaging over functionality, and a lot of dick waving over "hackable" esoteric fringe products that have since vanished form the earth, despite various posters certainty that their obvious merits would win out.
Of course, the most recent product to follow this trend is the iPad. The only thing that has changed is your savvier nay-sayers have figured out that they need to throw in "This isn't like the iPod because...." at some point.
Remember thinking that "iPod" was sort of a peculiar name, and some discussion that it suggested that Apple might have plans for the form factor beyond music.
I wonder if Jobs had any inkling of what was to come, on the day he presented his "1000 songs in your pocket" wonder thing? How much of what happened was already mapped out?
Here's a story in Business Insider that includes video of a comparatively chubby looking Jobs springing his game changer on an unsuspecting world.
And here, for endlessly fascinating historical reasons, is the legendary Slashdot thread that includes the will-live-forever-in-infamy-probably-the-most-famous-thing-he'll-ever-do "Brown Fury" comment "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."
The thing that strikes me about reading some of that thread is how closely it mirrors the reaction to each and every subsequent Apple release-- there are other, cheaper products that do "the same thing" (as long as you're willing to ignore the things that Apple emphasized, in this case size and battery life), it's too tied to Apple's ecosystem, Apple is making niche products for rich posers, it's a triumph of packaging over functionality, and a lot of dick waving over "hackable" esoteric fringe products that have since vanished form the earth, despite various posters certainty that their obvious merits would win out.
Of course, the most recent product to follow this trend is the iPad. The only thing that has changed is your savvier nay-sayers have figured out that they need to throw in "This isn't like the iPod because...." at some point.
Remember thinking that "iPod" was sort of a peculiar name, and some discussion that it suggested that Apple might have plans for the form factor beyond music.
I wonder if Jobs had any inkling of what was to come, on the day he presented his "1000 songs in your pocket" wonder thing? How much of what happened was already mapped out?