Natasha Vargas-Cooper did a great job pulling together a Reddit-unearthed MacRumors thread from the day the iPod was released, a video of Steve Jobs pitching the iPod at a music event back in 2001, and the very first iPod commercial.
This is incredibly entertaining. The comments on the MacRumors thread are just awash with prescient comments like:
All that hype for an MP3 player? Break-thru digital device? The Reality Distiortion Field is starting to warp Steve’s mind if he thinks for one second that this thing is gonna take off.
Delicious!
The iPod commercial is embedded below. Remarkable how much Apple’s advertising changed. This ad is effective, but it feels almost amateurish when compared to the commercials that would appear once the iPod gained some traction.
The “meh” response to iPod is pretty funny to think back on. But then again, I had the same reaction. Then I ended up buying the original the day it came out. So long, MP3 CDs.
Plus it didn’t really start to dominate the culture until they made it available for Windows. Wasn’t that an argument that Eddie Cue won? Maybe the most important victory over Steve Jobs’ objections in Apple history?
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I completely remember that commercial.