FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

iPod is Forever

Look at the devoted lining up to get their new iPhones lately. Go ahead and laugh. I remember chuckling, rolling eyes at the people who had iPods — the people who, single-handedly but by the millions, by the thousands of songs, were fracturing the...

Look at the devoted lining up to get their new iPhones lately. Go ahead and laugh.

I remember chuckling, rolling eyes at the people who had iPods — the people who, single-handedly but by the millions, by the thousands of songs, were fracturing the record, were destroying the preciousness of the record-listening experience by bringing music everywhere they went. Not only were they ruining music, they were turning into oblivious citizens, trapped in their own pods on the subway, on the street, jogging, at their desks.

Advertisement

Those lame-os, with their one thousand songs in their pocket, with their skip-less listening experience, their sleek, weird-looking devices, lording it over us awkward Discman and Walkman users with their silly white headphones, screaming out for attention with hipster cool. After decades of black, did we really need white headphones?

That seems all terribly naive now. The many concerns about Apple's influence on our digital lives are in proportion to the reverence for Steve Jobs and a vision that revolutionized our own ideas of what a computer could be. The revolution may have started in 1984, with the advent of the Macintosh, which convinced millions that computers could be easy-to-use and accessible to the masses (“1984 won't be like 1984,” intoned the famous ad), could be domains of personal expression.

But it wasn’t until another cultural touchstone year that Steve Jobs kicked that revolution into dizzyingly high gear. 1984 was a milestone for Apple, but our present relationship with technology (among other things) started, for various reasons, in 2001. One set of monoliths fell, signaling the end of a few eras; another set of monoliths arose, and, with their promise of pleasure, ease and solace, they looked like the future we were eager for.

The gadget would become popular across the board, and would gain customers across industries, including the military. In 2009, Newsweek reported on how the iPod had become popular at the Pentagon:

Advertisement

“Software developers and the US Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a “ballistics calculator” called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight’s Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.’"

But before we knew what it could do, what was it? It might have been a phone, or a tablet? In 2001, Apple sent out a paper invitation to reporters with the following text:

“This coming Tuesday, Apple invites you to the unveiling of a breakthrough digital device. (Hint: it's not a Mac)."

Speculation swirled. But ZDNet poo pooed the idea it would be an MP3 player. They had some other prescient hopes:

I would like to see an “iPhone,” a Smartphone with the Apple typical user interface, something like Microsoft's Stinger – but this time from Apple. But I don't believe that we will see something like this. Maybe it's the revenge of the Newton, the father of all PDAs."

Of course, Apple would get there eventually, and no doubt Steve Jobs already had similar visions. The iPad might have preceded all of these things in Jobs’ mind. But the failure of the Newton was still fresh in mind, and phones would have been too expensive, bulky, and in need of a seamless cooperation with a service provider (see Apple and AT&T).

Advertisement

Music seemed just as unlikely. But as Jobs explains at the start of his speech, it's also the most obvious way into the hearts and minds of the world.

Key Notes

In the understated keynote address he gave on October 23rd, 2001, Steve Jobs (looking heavier than we remember him) introduced iPod. Not the iPod mind you. Jobs had the gall – the genius – to get rid of the "the" completely. Even if we haven't followed suit yet (I haven't heard anyone refer to their iPhone as simply "iPhone," have you?), Jobs wants to get us closer to our computer, and we can't do that if we keep calling it "the computer." It has to have a proper name, something like Steve or Sally. HAL. This was simply "iPod," named for the ships that connected to the mothership, and for a scene in which Hal refuses to open the pod bay doors.

It wasn't the first portable MP3 player. But the others were bulky, slow, and ugly. The iPod was from space, some kind of pure computer magic.

  • With an ultra-thin hard drive (5GB, 1.8 in diameter, 0.2 inches thick), it "fits in your pocket." That was never before possible. "The iBook is really portable. This is ultra-portable."

  • “1,000 songs in your pocket.”

  • 20 minute skip protection. Say what.

  • Firewire connection ("we invented" that, says Jobs), which meant it took 10 minutes to put a CD on your player, not five hours. "It's 30 times faster than any other mp3 player."

  • Extraordinary battery. A "remarkable" new technology.

Advertisement

  • A revolutionary charger, in a design that's been used on every Apple device since then. As Jobs says, "Huge win."

But what's the big deal? Jobs asks at the end, falsely modest. He returns to ultra-portablity.

To demonstrate its size, he uses a magician's trick, and even a familiar prop: the playing card case. It's all part of Jobs' brilliant slight of hand. He draws out the flourish, the reveal, with that showmanship – part visionary, part huckster – now familiar, and loved, by the Apple faithful. He shows the sleek silver side, the shining back. And then the front.

It was white, and in the context of decades of beige, grey and ugly personal computers, it looked like an artifact from some other place.

It was just One More Thing.

In retrospect, it all seems obvious. And the iPod, like the iPhone and the iPad, are far from perfect. My own break with Apple came after my iPod broke for the 3rd time, for no apparent reason, and with no idea from the Genius Bar gurus, other than "you can upgrade to a new one for $300." After a failed stint with the Zune, I borrowed a friend’s iPod last year and haven’t returned it. It’s terrible; I’m hooked.

And Steve Jobs and the lot of them at Apple are geniuses. Not at design of the product, but of the whole shebang: the brand, the show, the look. The showmanship of Jobs left such a mark in Silicon Valley in part because it was designed not to be showy. Its information was designed to be simple and understated and intuitive – the word often used to describe Apple products. What Jobs said didn’t simply make sense: it was destined to be. The oracle delivering word from on high. Forging a similar path to the brain is also the objective of advertising. Put aside the products for a bit and consider that famous “1984” ad, by Ridley Scott and Chiat Day. It’s considered by TV Guide to be the greatest TV ad in American history. It aired only once, adding to its mystique.

Advertisement

And then in 2004, without fanfare, Apple posted an updated version on its website. It was identical to the first, but now the heroine is listening to her iPod. It was an ironic touch. Once the rebellion, Apple was now the state, rewriting history. Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field” as the Ministry of Truth.

The iPod’s success was not about quality necessarily. IT has a terrible technical record, between bad batteries to faulty hard drives. But that may just be the result of high expectations. These were high: the success was in its magic and beauty. (Increasingly in Silicon Valley it seems like pure alchemy.) At the time, who would have thought that that a gadget could be magical or beautiful? Or that listing to our entire music collections could be such a transformative experience? And who could have guessed Apple would destroy the music industry and revolutionize it too?

Or the phone business? Tablets.

The iPod has proved its technological function: ceremoniously, in the same month that its creator died, it too has passed on. But not before passing on its DNA to posterity. There’s a little iPod inside every iPhone and every iPad. We’ll be listening to our iPods for awhile, and they’re still a leading low-cost gateway drug for Apple’s customers, but Apple doesn’t seem to be paying much attention to them anymore. But everyone who knows knows that the iPad is a big iPhone, which itself is an iPod with a phone. Steve Jobs dream of an actual Apple iPad-like television may or may not come. But as the first salvo in its raid on the civilization’s toolbox, Apple’s sleek iconic monolith has become as permanent and significant as anything it or anyone will make.

Advertisement

Sure, 1984 wasn’t like “1984.” But now 2001 looks a little bit like “2001.”

Laugh at the Apple faithful, but they won’t be able to hear you. We have our ear buds in now. We’re wired in.

Connections:

Photo

via