iPod at 25: Apple's 2001 Launch, Specs, and Sunset

Apple's first iPod reached customers 25 years ago, on October 23, 2001, when Steve Jobs introduced it as "a breakthrough digital device that's not a Mac." The player held a music library in a pocket for $399.

The device shipped with 5GB of storage, enough for about 1,000 songs encoded as MP3s at 160Kbps. "For most people it's their entire music library," Jobs said. The iPod played MP3, WAV and AIFF files with CD-quality sound.

Jobs positioned the product against four categories on the market: CD players, MP3 CD players, flash players and hard-disk jukebox players. He noted that Creative, Sonic Blue and Sony already sold portable players, but said "none of them has really found the recipe yet, for digital music." The launch came as Apple's iMacs and iBooks were selling well, and Jobs predicted that the "Mac could become the center of your digital lifestyle."

Apple built the iPod around Toshiba's new 1.8-inch hard drive, which measured 0.2 inches thick. The finished device came in at 2.4 x 4 x 0.78 inches and 6.5 ounces, which Jobs described as "lighter than most cell phones." A lithium-polymer battery ran 10 hours on a charge, and Apple said an empty unit could reach 80% in an hour.

Transfer speeds marked a second selling point. A single FireWire 400 cable handled both charging and file movement, and Jobs said it copied a full CD in five to 10 seconds against roughly five minutes over the USB connections of the era. Filling the device with 1,000 songs took about 10 minutes, he said, rather than five hours. The hardware also carried a scroll wheel with a piezoelectric clicker for tactile feedback, plus controls meant for one-handed use; the first track played on stage was Sarah McLachlan's "Building a Mystery."

The software arrived the same day. iTunes 2 launched on October 23, 2001, adding MP3 CD burning and support for syncing the new player, so libraries curated on a Mac matched the iPod when it connected. The device could also work as a FireWire hard drive.

The first iPhone followed in early 2007, more than five years later, and both products remained in Apple's lineup for over a decade. The last iPod model was the seventh-generation iPod Touch, released in May 2019, and Apple discontinued the line in May 2022.