Author zheng ini
In 2001, jobos pulled his ipod out of his pocket, which is undoubtedly the light of apples, and for which the senior “polls” are still visible. It was the age when global music digitized was about to change, the time when jobs was leading apples out of the valley, and the time of the music walk-in。
In recent days, apple has officially announced that the ipod line has stopped, that the existing ipod product will cease to be sold and that new products will not be introduced. This means that ipod is the last portable music player model that the company is selling。
As soon as the apple announced that the ipod had been cut off, in just one day, the ipod touch of the apple chinese official network had been sold out, and even the 32-gb version of the “puerper's edition”, which was rarely consulted, had been looted。
Apple announced the ipod shutdown, and in just one day, the apple chinese official network, the ipod touch, was sold out. It's from apple officer. Network
It is well known that ipod is a defining milestone product of a few categories in the science and technology industry, including ipod mini, ipod nano and ipod touch, in addition to ipod and ipod shuffle. A simple design, representative white headphone, with a cumulative global sales volume of over 400 million, is likely to be the best digital music player in history。
The existence of ipod has long gone beyond its very meaning as a consumer electronic product to become a common memory of the development of the industry and the growth of a generation. In more than 20 years, ipod has sold 450 million globally, and its shutdown also means the end of the ipod era。
This is the classic ipod-classic. Image from cnet
According to apple's financial report, the first decline in ipod sales was in the third quarter of the fiscal year 2009 and its quarterly sales peak was set at 12 million. By the second quarter of fiscal year 2011, iphone sales exceeded ipods for the first time, which fell by 50 per cent. In september 2012, apple released the seventh generation of ipod nano, at which time the profits of ipod to apple were negligible。
According to the loup ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in scientific and technological research, in 2021 the ipod sold only 3 million of them, which was dwarfed by 250 million sales from iphone. Opod, iphone. The ipod shutdown is just a logical thing。
A snapshot of apple's website on 23 october 2001 was published on the same day by ipod. Photo by wayback machine
Back on 23 october 2001, apple released its initial ipod, the white look, polished steel shell, weighing about 184 grams. The ipod used custom month gray to store 1,000 songs with marked white headphones。
This type of player has an old name -- mp3. Jobs could have filled this last ring with an existing mp3 on the market, but his aesthetics stopped him. He found these mp3s not only ugly, but also difficult to use。
According to the jebbs legend, “as apple company, which produces top-end computers, it was to produce a large road load of mp3 players. This is similar to ferrari's announcement of the production of baby carts and the installation of a computer program (itunes) prior to their use. Everyone can't see what jobos wants.”。
The original goal of apple for ipod was therefore modest, and the company was simply trying to build a music player and attract people to buy more mac computers. Over the years, however, it has not only changed the consumer electronics and the music industry, but has also led apple to the path of the world's most valuable companies。
The ipod product series presentation. Image from unsplash
For the digital product market at the time, high-end prices limited market demand, resulting in sales of less than 400,000 in the first year. Three years later, apple released the ipod mini, which uses aluminium casings weighing about 102 grams, with five colours of silver, gold, pink, blue and green, to store 1,000 songs at a price of $249. The volume of ipod sales surged; by the end of the fiscal year in september 2005, the volume of ipod sales had reached 22. 5 million。
In the following years, the ipod became rapidly popular and, together with sony, created a “stand-by generation”. Jobs demands that ipods be smaller and more powerful. As a result, the apples stopped producing ipod mini and replaced it with thinner ipod nano. Opod nano helped apples to almost double their sales to 40 million for the second year。
The classic image of the old ipod. Image from the web
In 2015, ipod dominated 80 per cent of the mp3 player market, surpassing sony's 30-year record of selling 200 million players, making it the largest electronic product on earth。
"the cd player ended the tape and the ipod ended the cd player." jon rubinstein, who was in charge of apple's ipod project, said confidently, "you don't have to do any market research, everyone loves music."
Until 2014, ipod classic first declared the shutdown. For the youth of the arts, this is a very high design and colorful ipod, which is the "blank light" in their hearts, which in any case has to be owned, leading to the second-hand market of 90 per cent of the new ipod crassic being fired to a multi-fold price of 2000. In 2017, ipod nano and ipod shuffle also declared their operations closed. Today, only the ipod touch type left on the market has been declared out of production. The official curtain of ipod is already 10 years behind everyone's expectations。
It's hard for the next generation to imagine how hard it was to listen to music。
The first digital music players began to appear in the late 1990s. Those who have just gained access to computers and the internet were initially looking for some music resources online to write in blank cds. In those years, the united states sold 320 million blank cds, while the total population of the united states was less than 300 million。
After 00, little sister played millions of apple's most classic ipod as a clip. Image from the web
Later, people started using digital music players. They copy the cd songs on the computer, then transfer them to digital music players and put them in their pockets. Most of the original music players on the market at that time could only contain about 20 songs。
“1,000 songs in the pocket” was the idea of jobos in the year of his famous ipod, which became the largest selling point for his first generation. Technically, this figure left the other brands at the time out of reach and enabled ipod to quickly seize the status of walkman, former mp3 giant sony。
When the original ipod was launched in october 2001, it was the world's first mp3 player to install 1,000 songs and 10-hour removable batteries in 6. 5 ounce devices. The wheel is designed to actually rotate and the control buttons (play, menu, next, previous) are around the wheel. It's this little thing that totally changes the way people listen to music。
In 2003, apple launched the itunes digital music net store, where users legally buy music and download it to ipod for listening. In addition to being able to buy music at any time or place, one can buy a single song at a low cost of $0. 99, which is no longer limited to the need to buy a whole album. Through itunes, people are also able to access and recognize music from around the world, different tunes, mainstream or non-mainstream。
Unlike the song-ordered albums in the past, ipod changed the album-by-choice habits. The ipod shuffle function allows users to “jump” at random an album or all the songs in the ipod, and allows users to add a surprise when listening to the song。
There were many brands of mp3 on the market, but there were many reasons why ipods could still be global: whether they were small sizes, oversized capacity, very simple looks, easy to buy digital music through itunes, and a unique “click wheel” touch。
So, like the iphone, apples recreate the music player。
Jobbs was at the appleipod launch in 2001. It's from apple officer. Network
Charles l. Mauro, a senior product manager in new york, said, "the ipod is out of production, and it is worth asking why ipod is a pioneering product in the history of interactive design. The answer is simple: it is the first interactive device that matches the speed control and rhythm of human and brain interactions when selecting content packages. That means when you first pick up the ipod and use the rotation wheel, when browsing through your music inventory, it makes you feel like your behavior is driving the interface, rather than the behaviour of the single key pressed, which is common on the mp3 player at that time.”
Charles remembers clearly that, after the advent of ipod, the top mp3 player manufacturers came to their company to conduct a study comparing their mp3 player with ipod, focusing on usability and client preferences. Charles ' research team provided a final product comparison summary for senior management in the company producing the world's best mp3 player。
Charles said, "the summary we're presenting to our clients can be summed up in two words: ipod will destroy your entire market in five years. It is a revolutionary product based on the best available performance so far'. Later, it proved that our predictions were wrong, and that ipod had destroyed the mp3 market in just three years and achieved its revolution.”
Jobos used to say, "the apple is a music company." and ipod proved it with his strength。
It was argued that the most important contribution of ipod was its role as a catalyst for the birth of the ipod。
At that time, many mobile phone manufacturers started rolling out devices that could play music, and many apple executives feared that ipod would be replaced. In order to avoid this situation, jobs launched the “project purple” project, later the “iphone”, stating that “if it is to be replaced, then the apple should do it”。
The iphone was officially launched at the end of june 2007. It's a smartphone, a touch screen, a phone, an internet, and an ipod, and soon becomes apple's hottest product。
