The prototype was that huge two months before it was launched
The iPod wasn’t just an MP3 player – apart from the fact that it preferred to handle AAC anyway. Apple managed to convey a kind of attitude towards life with the product. The player rose to iconic status at breakneck speed and became a bestseller, despite the fact that there was a veritable variety of portable audio players in its day.
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MP3 players were heavy and uncomfortable back then
These included Creative’s Nomad jukebox, which was released before the iPod and which is almost certain to have inspired Apple’s engineers. The Nomad Jukebox works with a hard drive and was quite a heavy device – but it had space for an incredible number of MP3s. Creative didn’t care where they came from.
Apple’s iPod Classic has not been available for a long time. (Photo: Vdovichenko Denis / Shutterstock.com)
Apple knew how to use this and rethink it. The Apple as we know it today has consistently transformed itself into a provider of online services since the introduction of the first iPod. An important building block on the way there was iTunes, the service through which the iPod could be filled with music for sale. ITunes Match was added later, with which users could virtually legalize their existing MP3 collections by synchronizing them with the iTunes library and saving them in the cloud. Today’s Apple Music as a direct competitor to Spotify came much later.
Apple thinks the Apple version of the MP3 player – and it has success
As was Apple’s specialty at the time, the Californian manufacturer took on the MP3 player around the turn of the millennium in order to make an “Apple version” out of it. It should be easy to use – a classy trainer. And the manufacturer managed that very well. Above all, the digital control wheel, which could be used to scroll through menus, but also to select titles and more, set new standards. The sound wasn’t better and the price was higher – but the iPod still created a “want-to-have effect”. The iPod quickly outstripped the sum of its specs.
The original iPods with the click wheel are no longer available. who buys an iPod these days, actually gets a drastically slimmed-down iPhone with a 4-inch display and storage configurations of up to 256 gigabytes and basically has to pay an inflated 450 euros for it. It should be a matter of time before Apple will finally remove the iPod from its range.
To celebrate the twentieth birthday of the cult player the software house Panic Images of an ancient prototype released showing how Apple internally tested the iPod two months before launch. What we see is a rather large plastic block with a tiny screen, a wobbly control ring with a center pin and four physical buttons for the four cardinal points. The little thing that sticks out on the left is a JTAG connector. This makes it easier to troubleshoot the device and of course it disappears in the end when a device comes onto the market.
Exterior view of the iPod prototype from 2001 (Image: Panic)
Anyone who now believes that this gigantic-looking case would be equipped with all kinds of electronics and a thick battery is seriously mistaken when looking inside. Because – there is hardly anything in it.
Interior view of the iPod prototype from 2001 (Image: Panic)
Since the prototype was dated September 3, 2001, and thus only two months before the final market launch, it is clear that we are seeing the innards here, which almost certainly will have been built into the final iPod in at least a very similar form .
Connection to the outside world. (Image: Panic)
In any case, the iPod prototype is a piece of history. Previous versions of Apple products almost never come to light. So it is also a very rare piece of history. Who of you would have bought the iPod if it had hit the market in this form?
