WEBVTT - The Creation of iTunes 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.080 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:18.040 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.400 How Stuff Works and I Heart Radio and I love 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.200 all things tech. And On June three, two thousand nineteen, 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:30.240 at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference or w w d C 0:00:30.560 --> 0:00:34.519 for those who like initialisms, Apple announced that the company 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:39.479 was going to officially sunset the venerable iTunes program. In 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:43.440 its place will be three Mac desktop apps that are 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.920 pretty similar to what you can find on iOS devices 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.120 Apple mobile devices. In other words, So today I thought 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:53.160 it might be fun to trace the history of iTunes, 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.040 how it came to be, how it changed the music 0:00:56.080 --> 0:01:00.160 industry and helped create the business I'm in, which is 0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:04.040 podcasting in case you haven't caught on yet, and why 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:08.240 Apple decided to finally say goodbye. We'll also explore how 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:13.160 people felt about iTunes, because it's not all sunshine and roses, 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.280 particularly if you ever had to deal with the Windows 0:01:16.319 --> 0:01:19.240 based version of the program. Oh and before I go 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.200 any further, I should mention that when Apple talked about 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.200 ending iTunes, they were really just talking about Max at 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.559 the time of this recording, the company hasn't said anything 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.000 about what it's planning for the PC version. PC mag 0:01:33.160 --> 0:01:35.760 reported that there's no immediate plan for it to disappear 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:41.080 from Windows. So there's that, okay, so iTunes. Let's talk 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.880 about the program and where Apple was when it was 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.200 first announced back in two thousand one, because it was 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.880 a very different company from the one we're used to today. 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:53.440 In fact, it really behooves us to look over Apple's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.720 history leading up to that moment, because the company had was, 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.720 let's call it, it was in a transition, to put 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:07.320 it gently, so really had been through an existential crisis. Arguably, 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:11.560 the crisis began when Steve Jobs inserted himself into the 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:16.160 development process of various products like the Macintosh line of computers, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:20.480 and then complicated a process and alienated many over at 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:26.120 Apple in the same go, and this eventually precipitated in 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.280 his being fired, or at the very least, he was 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.600 pushed aside so far away that he would leave the 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:37.560 company in nineteen Steve Wozniak, the other co founder of Apple, 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.680 also left the company around that time, though he had 0:02:40.720 --> 0:02:44.399 sort of stepped back quite a bit already after surviving 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:48.040 a plane crash in nine. Over the next few years, 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.440 lots of things would change at Apple. John Scully, who 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.679 was the guy who came over to Apple from Pepsi 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:59.600 and had served as the president of the company. He 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:01.799 was also of the man who was responsible for pushing 0:03:01.800 --> 0:03:05.280 out Steve Jobs, would become chairman of Apple in nine 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.720 Michael Spindler would become the CEO. Then just a few 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.320 months later, Scully resigned his position as chairman and he 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:18.240 was replaced by Mike Markula. Markula, in turn, would step 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:21.320 down just a couple of years later. Gil Emilio would 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.519 become chairman and CEO of Apple in nine six. By 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.440 this point Apple was struggling. Son Microsystems had offered to 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.920 acquire the company, but Emilio turned down that proposal, and 0:03:33.960 --> 0:03:37.520 you could call that a great decision, But Emilio also 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.640 made some questionable choices, such as allowing other companies to 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:46.600 sell macclone computers by running Mac operating System software on 0:03:46.760 --> 0:03:50.800 non Apple computers. This gave other companies the opportunity to 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.520 sell computers running Mac operating System at a lower price 0:03:54.600 --> 0:03:58.720 than what Apple was charging. And making matters worse was 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:02.760 that Microsoft had real least Windows, which was a significant 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.120 update to the Windows platform, while the Mac operating system 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:09.080 was looking more than a little dated at the time. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.280 Emilia was also unhappy with the progress or lack thereof, 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.360 on the next version of the Mac operating system, code 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.159 named Copeland. In an effort to solve that problem, Emilio 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.159 led the charge for Apple to acquire a company called 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.919 Next in e x T. That company happened to be 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:32.400 the brainchild of one Steve Jobs, who founded Next after 0:04:32.520 --> 0:04:35.599 leaving Apple in the nineteen eighties, and that set the 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:38.480 scene for Jobs to become the next CEO of Apple. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.440 He first served as an advisor to the company, but 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:44.400 he began maneuvering with the board of directors in an 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.760 effort to become chairman again. Emilio eventually left the company 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:52.000 after butting heads with Steve Jobs, though to be fair, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.960 Emilio was also at the helm during the worst financial 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:01.440 quarter in Apple's history. June seven was the final day 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.839 of that horrible quarter in which Apple lost fifty six 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:08.120 million dollars. So just let that sink in and just 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:12.120 three months the company lost more than fifty million bucks. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.320 No wonder many people predicted that Apple was not long 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:18.840 for this world. Steve Jobs was named by the board 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.440 as the interim CEO. He would actually refer to his 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:27.360 own title as I CEO. Cute, right, but it was serious. 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:31.520 Business Analysts predicted that Apple was about three months away 0:05:31.560 --> 0:05:34.680 from bankruptcy when Jobs took over, so he had a 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:39.040 huge hurdle to overcome, and he made some really big changes. 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:42.680 Some were seen as cute, like the iMac. Some were 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.599 seen as the deepest of betrayals, like when Apple and 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.839 Microsoft announced a partnership in a five year agreement to 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.040 have office software come over to the Mac. And while 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:54.960 not all his decisions were lauded by the Apple faithful, 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.200 he did get the ship turning around. At the Macworld 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.799 conference in he announced that Apple had ended the first 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:06.600 quarter of ninety eight with a forty five million dollar profit. 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.760 By the end of that year, the company had earned 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:14.200 three hundred nine million dollars in two thousand. Steve Jobs 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.080 made the transition from interim CEO to honest the Goodness 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.280 CEO and behind the scenes at Apple, where it was 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.800 progressing on a trio of big projects that would transform 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.480 the company. One of them was the OS ten operating system, 0:06:28.520 --> 0:06:31.680 which is still the basis of Mac operating systems today, 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.479 one was iTunes and one that would come out a 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.760 little bit after the other two was the iPod. Now 0:06:38.839 --> 0:06:42.000 keep in mind, at this stage Apple had not yet 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:46.120 fully re established itself. Steve Jobs could still fill a 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:49.320 room for a press conference, but this was years before 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.400 Apple would wow crowds with the iPhone or surprise skeptics 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:57.760 like me with the iPad. Apple the company was still 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:01.560 on uncertain footing, though it had been an upward trajectory 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.440 after nearly falling apart in the late nineteen nineties. One 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.039 thing Jobs new to do was to pay attention to 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.480 emerging trends. One of those trends that was just starting 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:16.800 to gain traction involved the MP three audio compression format. 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.600 Early adopters were starting to rip music from CDs to 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:24.160 their computers, and a couple of companies had created portable 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:28.160 MP three players, the digital equivalent of a Sony Walkman 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.840 cassette player, but one that could hold a library's worth 0:07:31.920 --> 0:07:35.760 of music. And a couple of former Apple employees named 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.120 Bill Kincaid and Jeff Robin had created an interesting program 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:44.240 that could turn a computer into a digital jukebox, specifically 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.880 a Mac computer. Now, both Kincaid and Robin had worked 0:07:48.960 --> 0:07:52.760 on Copeland, that Mac operating system version that Emilio had 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:56.440 discarded in favor of the next platform from Steve Jobs. 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.400 Once the decision was made to ditch the work they 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.840 had done on Opland, both Kincaid and Robin had left 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:07.080 Apple and they went on to pursue work at different companies. 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:12.040 They were separated and working on individual opportunities. Now, the 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:16.560 origins of what would become iTunes should be pretty relatable 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.920 to anyone out there. One day, Bill Kincaid was driving 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.840 up to a race track to practice driving his race 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:28.040 car at super high speeds. I mean, we've all been there, 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:32.040 right Anyway, he was listening to NPR when he heard 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:36.320 a bit about the Diamond Rio MP three player. Kincaid 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:38.120 wrote that this was actually the first time he had 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:40.959 even heard of the MP three file format, which is 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.120 kind of interesting because it was definitely in the news 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:47.800 because of file sharing. But I'll get into that more 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:52.199 than a bit. Toward the end of the report on NPR, 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:55.280 the person on the radio said something like it won't 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.880 work with Max, and Kincaid, being a former Apple employee, 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.640 thought he could do something about that, and he ended 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:05.120 up in listing his former co worker Robin in the effort. 0:09:05.200 --> 0:09:08.760 So Kincaid built the back end of the program and 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.120 enlisted Jeff Robin to work on the front end, the 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:15.360 user interface side, and the result was software called sound 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:18.600 jam MP and it worked on Max and it was 0:09:18.679 --> 0:09:23.199 interoperable with the Diamond Rio MP three player. Jobs somehow 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:26.319 heard about this software and was impressed with the work 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:30.360 done by the former Apple employees, so he had Apple 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:34.640 purchase the application. They also hired Kincaid and Robin to 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.760 come back into the fold at Apple, and Robin, by 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:40.079 the way, was in charge of iTunes all the way 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.520 up to its dissolution. Kincaid and Robin joined a team 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.840 that took sound jam MP and they began to transform 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:52.000 it into something new, something belonging to Apple. And this 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:55.640 leads us up to January nine, two thousand one, when 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.760 Steve Jobs took the stage at the back World conference. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.400 He started off talking out O S ten and he 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:04.120 moved on to talk about hardware for a while, and 0:10:04.200 --> 0:10:08.440 about an hour into the presentation, somewhere around fifty five minutes, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:12.680 he segued over to talking about music. Now, this was 0:10:12.840 --> 0:10:15.679 months before the company would reveal the iPod that was 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.079 still a secret. So at this stage, Jobs was talking 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.120 about the process of taking music CDs and ripping the 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:25.679 music to your computer. Jobs talked about stuff that I 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.720 think we all take for granted these days. He talked 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.920 about the opportunity to take a music collection, rip it 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.280 to a hard drive, and then create playlists from that music. 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:38.000 You can mix and match anything you like. You could 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:41.000 have a playlist with two songs from the New York Dolls, 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.320 three from Iggy Pop, half a dozen from David Bowie, 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.200 four from the Talking Heads, and gosh, I'd really like 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:49.679 to listen to a playlist like that. Anyway. You can 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.079 make the digital equivalent of an old mix tape on cassette, 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.439 or you could turn your computer into a digital jukebox, 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.000 but unlike a cassette, you could reorder those songs any 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:04.559 way you liked, any time you liked. You would never 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.600 be stuck in one particular configuration. The beauty of having 0:11:08.600 --> 0:11:11.160 your music in a digital format is that you have 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.040 tons of options, so you can shift things around, or 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.200 even listen to your entire music library on shuffle, so 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:19.760 that you never have the same listening experience twice in 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.000 a row. Beyond that, you could use the program to 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.880 burn your playlist to a c D. Now, in this case, 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:29.880 you'd be stuck with whatever order you decided upon when 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:32.640 you made the CD, unless you were using a rewriteable 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:34.600 c D, in which case you could wipe it and 0:11:34.640 --> 0:11:37.240 start again. But back in those days, burning a c 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.400 D could take several minutes, and most of us didn't 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.280 have the patients to do it again if we realized 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.600 we had fudged the order of the songs. Jobs then 0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:48.000 went on to talk about portable MP three players, again 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:50.280 without hinting that Apple was making one of their own. 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.319 He talked about how it was necessary to have software 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:55.600 on a computer that could interface with m P three 0:11:55.640 --> 0:11:59.360 players to transfer music from computer to player. This was 0:11:59.440 --> 0:12:03.240 necessary because back in those days, MP three players required 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.320 a wired connection to synchronize with a host computer. There 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:10.880 really were no WiFi MP three players in the early days, 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:13.800 so you had to pair your MP three player with 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.640 a computer using a cable. I know, it's like the 0:12:16.679 --> 0:12:21.320 Stone Age, right. Steve Jobs finished his introduction before actually 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:25.679 unveiling iTunes, by talking about internet radio stations. These were 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:28.880 pretty young in two thousand one, but we're growing in popularity. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.600 Audio compression had allowed stations to stream radio over the Internet, 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:35.880 giving them the ability to reach many more listeners than 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:41.520 terrestrial radio, particularly for radio stations that had lower powered transmitters. 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:46.600 Now this leads us up to the actual introduction of iTunes, 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.280 which I'll talk about in just a moment after we 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:59.319 take this quick break. Now, I know all those features 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.400 are news to us today. It's been nearly twenty years 0:13:03.520 --> 0:13:06.560 since Steve Jobs gave that presentation. And let's be fair, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.160 iTunes would not be the first program to help people 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:14.479 organize a digital music library. There were others that already existed, 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.040 but Apple always had a certain style to it, and 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:21.440 Apple designers are genuinely really good at what they do 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:25.800 and typically create intuitive, powerful interfaces. So it wasn't just 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:28.360 that iTunes could do these things. It's that it could 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.160 do those things and look good at the same time. 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:35.920 It was easy to understand. It wasn't so cluttered or 0:13:36.120 --> 0:13:40.240 complex as others, and Jobs took opportunity to really hammer 0:13:40.280 --> 0:13:44.480 home how iTunes, unlike most of the popular digital music 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:47.840 applications that were on the market, already, was much easier 0:13:47.840 --> 0:13:51.280 to use and to understand. He contrasted iTunes with other 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.280 media software. He criticized how the competition made everything to 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:59.040 cluttered and confusing. He said that companies just had confused 0:13:59.080 --> 0:14:03.600 options with operability. Jobs also said that the competition put 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:07.240 in arbitrary restrictions in their programs in an effort to 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:11.880 convince users to upgrade to the paid version of those programs. 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:14.920 He said that the software would throttle the ripping and 0:14:15.000 --> 0:14:18.800 burning speeds for CDs, as well as use lower quality 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.920 settings to encode music into MP three files. So yeah, 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:26.040 you could download one of these applications and it technically 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:31.040 would work, but it would purposefully hinder itself and give 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:35.120 you a substandard experience. And this was all done in 0:14:35.160 --> 0:14:38.520 an effort to upsell the user to a pro version 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:43.200 of that software, which would remove those restrictions, so said Jobs, 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:46.920 these companies weren't offering an improved piece of software for 0:14:46.960 --> 0:14:52.480 a premium. Rather, they had purposefully downgraded their software's capabilities 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.600 to create the incentive for people to cough up cash 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.560 for the full version. It seems like a backwards way 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:03.160 to go about it now. In a demonstration, Jobs ripped 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:06.120 love Shack off, an album by the B fifty two, 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:10.720 so you know, good choice. He explained that the program 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.760 that his iTunes would read the data off the c D, 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.240 then searched the c D database and retrieved the track 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:21.040 titles to match with the actual tracks, because that information 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.360 was not encoded on the compact discs themselves. And then 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:27.800 it would allow you to listen directly from the CD, 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:31.400 or you could rip it to the computer. Jobs showed 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.240 off how the user could build a music library and 0:15:34.360 --> 0:15:38.680 browsed through that library and play stuff easily. Interestingly, he'd 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:42.280 include a few examples by the Beatles. I say interestingly 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.200 because it would take a long time before the Beatles 0:15:45.240 --> 0:15:48.720 discography made its way to Apple. But this is before 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:51.520 the iTunes store. Anyway, there was no way to buy 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:54.080 music on iTunes at this point. It was all about 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.360 ripping music off c d s, So at the stage 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:01.680 iTunes was really only a music management application. So iTunes 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.800 debuted in two thousand one as a way to build 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:09.280 and organize a music library, and there was no music 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.160 story yet. To put songs on iTunes, you would either 0:16:12.280 --> 0:16:14.520 do one of two things. You would rip songs off 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:18.120 a c D or you would use some other means 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:22.720 to get the music files. So that could include peer 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.840 to peer sharing networks where you are technically pirating music 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.680 that would become a big part of jobs is discussion. 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.320 What's the iTunes music store would debut a couple of 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.120 years later. Now you could use iTunes to port songs 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.360 over to an MP three player, and you could use 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:40.720 it to listen to internet radio stations, and you could 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:43.080 use it to burn your own CDs. But that was 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:47.360 about it. Oh, except the one more thing. Apple included 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.640 an option to run a graphics application that would create 0:16:50.680 --> 0:16:53.160 trippy visuals as you listen to music, sort of a 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:57.040 kaleidoscope effect as you're listening. And then they played about 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.360 two thirds of love Shack So as a Georgia native 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.600 and B fifty twos or from Georgia, I approve of 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.159 that music choice, but at that point they should have 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:07.879 just played the whole darn song. I mean, if you're 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:09.399 gonna play that much, might as well let it go 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.600 all the way through. Jobs boasted that iTunes wouldn't brattle 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:15.680 c D speeds, it would allow users to encode MP 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.760 three files at a higher quality than competitors were allowing, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:22.800 and most importantly, it would be free to download for 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:27.320 Mac users. The tagline for iTunes was rip mix burn, 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:30.199 and Jobs announced that it was available right then and 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:34.360 there for any Mac running OS nine, and the crowd 0:17:34.680 --> 0:17:39.679 went banana. A week after the presentation, Apple reported that 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:43.640 the iTunes software had been downloaded two hundred seventy five 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.880 thousand times. Remember it was only available for the Mac 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:52.439 computers at that time, Matt computers running OS nine for 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:56.200 that matter, and the Mac had a very small market share, 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.720 so topping a quarter of a million downloads in a 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.560 week was actually pretty ppressive. Apple gave a quick update 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.520 a few months later in March two thousand one, with 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.600 iTunes one point one. The major part of that update 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:13.120 was making iTunes compatible with Mac OS ten systems. Now 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.879 skip ahead ten months. Steve Jobs appeared at a special 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.280 Apple Music event. He took a different approach at this 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.760 event and talked about value see The first version of 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.880 iTunes would burn CDs as normal music CDs, not as 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.480 MP three c ds. A normal c D can hold 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.440 a little more than an hour's worth of audio, and 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.680 m P three CD can hold more than one hundred 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:42.199 songs as data, but it could only be read by 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:46.359 special CD players with MP three capability. Those were slowly 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:51.080 becoming more prevalent, including in vehicles, so it was something 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.040 that was worthwhile, and then you had MP three player options, 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:59.359 the newest of which would be the iPod. Jobs talked 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.480 about how the iPod would hold a thousand songs on 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:06.000 it while fitting in your pocket. Again, it's old news 0:19:06.040 --> 0:19:08.240 to us, but at the time it was a sweet 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.000 sales pitch. Never mind that other MP three players had 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.919 been on the market for quite some while. Jobs had 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.040 even alluded to them back in the initial iTunes announcement. 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.320 And this isn't an episode about the iPod, so I'm 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.600 not going to dwell on it for too long. But 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:27.159 at that same event, Jobs announced some updates to the 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:31.600 iTunes software. Now iTunes two point oh could burn MP 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:35.320 three files to CDs rather than creating a new audio CD, 0:19:35.800 --> 0:19:38.400 and that would allow users to put way more songs 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:41.000 on a single disc. As long as they had a 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.680 player capable of reading MP three files, they'd be good 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.800 to go. Apple added a couple of other options to 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.560 iTunes at that stage as well, namely cross fading and 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:54.600 an equalizer. While Steve Jobs was setting things in motion 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.360 to blast Apple off into the stratosphere, iTunes continued to evolve. 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:02.800 When i Tunes three released in July two thousand two, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:07.360 it was with a few new features. Now, users could 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:09.960 assigned songs of star rating, which allowed them to sort 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:12.959 their music library by how much they liked particular songs. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:15.399 So if you wanted to just listen to songs you 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.920 really loved, you could choose the max rating and include 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:21.960 all those other, you know, songs that you had said 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.119 were fantastic, and exclude all the ones that you know 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:29.280 aren't really your groove at that moment. Notably, that was 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:33.480 a feature supported in an earlier digital media player application, 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:38.840 a different one one called Audion. Now. According to Cable Sasser, 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:41.959 who was co creator of Audion, he had met with 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.240 Steve Jobs and had a back and forth about the 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:49.640 differences between iTunes and sound Jam and the Audion digital 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:52.600 media player, and he had pointed out how Audion had 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.440 some features that iTunes did not, which would give their 0:20:56.480 --> 0:21:00.359 software a chance in the market against the giant tunes. 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.159 Jobs actually pointed out that the version of iTunes that 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.399 Sasser was talking about was just version one point oh, 0:21:07.600 --> 0:21:12.040 and that subsequent versions would add features features like the 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.000 ones Audience had. Sasser also said that he found out 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:22.199 Apple had allegedly originally intended on purchasing Audion and turning 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.880 Audion into iTunes, and that sound Jam was technically Apple's 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:31.080 second choice, but Audion at the time was in negotiations 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:33.840 with a different company and it kind of put Apple 0:21:34.440 --> 0:21:37.720 on hold and the opportunity passed them by. And on 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.840 a side note, today Audion is no more. It was 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.399 actually discontinued in two thousand four. And whether this was 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:48.120 another example of one of Steve jobs favorite quotes frequently 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:52.680 attributed to Pablo Picasso that being good artists borrow, great 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:57.080 artists steal, That's beyond my knowledge, but it does seem 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:01.520 plausible that Apple might have taken some inspiration from Audion 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.680 after having that meeting in two thousand one. Another new 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:11.360 feature in iTunes three was the introduction of smart playlists. Essentially, 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.160 a smart playlist allowed iTunes users to set certain rules 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.879 that the program would follow moving forward in order to 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.200 automatically create playlists. So let's say you're a big fan 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.080 of the band The shut Ups. You have a playlist 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.440 of all their songs, and you could just keep adding 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.199 to that playlist as new albums come out from The 0:22:32.200 --> 0:22:35.080 shut Ups. But with smart playlists, you could set up 0:22:35.080 --> 0:22:37.680 a rule so that every time you added new songs 0:22:37.720 --> 0:22:40.840 to your library from the shut ups, those songs would 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.280 automatically get added onto that particular playlist. iTunes also had 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.719 a play count for songs added in iTunes three, so 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.040 you could create a playlist of the songs you listen 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.159 to the most frequently. That list would change dynamically the 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:58.800 more you used iTunes to listen to stuff. So maybe 0:22:58.840 --> 0:23:01.880 one month you find and you're just really fixated on 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.800 the classic song Come a little Bit Closer by J 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:08.000 and the Americans, and because you've listened to it a 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.320 billion times, it pops up on your most played playlist. 0:23:11.680 --> 0:23:15.719 But over time you get out of this whole fixation 0:23:15.960 --> 0:23:18.919 on the song, and eventually it gets swapped out for 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:21.959 some other song that now you are totally focused on. 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:26.520 iTunes three also added a feature called sound check. The 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:28.880 purpose of sound check is to act as a sort 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:33.040 of level izer for volume. And maybe you've experienced this 0:23:33.119 --> 0:23:36.000 kind of thing where you're listening to digital music and 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:38.640 one song it's pretty quiet, so you're turning the volume 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:40.520 way up so you can hear it properly, and then 0:23:40.560 --> 0:23:42.440 the next one comes on and it's way too loud. 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:46.080 It's blasting your ear drums. To minimize that kind of experience, 0:23:46.240 --> 0:23:49.080 sound check would attempt to bring the volume of different 0:23:49.119 --> 0:23:52.280 songs closer together to the same level to avoid a 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.359 jarring experience. One last thing that iTunes three added was 0:23:56.440 --> 0:24:01.040 support for audible dot Com audio books. Back then, audible 0:24:01.080 --> 0:24:04.520 dot Com was its own standalone company. It would actually 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:07.920 be a few more years before Amazon would acquire it now. 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:10.359 I add this because I imagine Apple and Amazon are 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:14.240 kind of competitive with each other on most occasions. Audible 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:17.280