WEBVTT - Goodbye to the iPod 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:14.920 Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.560 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive reducer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.600 --> 0:00:21.640 and how the tech are Young. Now, Normally on a Wednesday, 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:24.240 I would attempt to bring to you a tech Stuff 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:29.000 Tidbits episode, which is ostensibly supposed to be a shorter episode, 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.160 but we all know how that goes when you got 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:35.480 chatty Cathy over here yapping into the microphone. But today 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.240 I'm just going to abandon all hope of this being 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:43.400 tid bit ish. And that's because yesterday that being made 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:48.560 tenth two thousand twenty two, Apple brought an end to 0:00:49.000 --> 0:00:53.159 an era. The company announced that it was discontinuing the 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.800 iPod Touch, which is the last model in the iPod 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:02.080 line to be made. All the others have already been retired. 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:08.200 So the iPod was a transformational technology, and now iPod 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.280 as a brand is going away. In fact, we get 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:17.039 the term podcasting from the iPod. Now, the iPod was 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.280 not the first MP three player, but it was the 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.560 model that brought that technology into the mainstream. And moreover, 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:29.000 the iPod played a pivotal role in turning Apple's fortunes around. 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.280 It's pretty easy for us to forget these days that 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.800 just a couple of decades ago, the multi trillion dollar 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.640 company that is Apple today back then was on the 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:44.160 verge of collapse. So I thought we could do a 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:49.080 quick rundown of the history of the iPod and why 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:53.120 I argue it is one of the most important technologies 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.960 to emerge, specifically for me to get real selfish and 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.880 egotistical about it, but one of the most technologies to 0:02:00.920 --> 0:02:03.640 emerge over the last couple of decades. Uh. And I 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:08.120 think this dovetails nicely with Monday's episode about dr M disasters. 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.639 In that episode, I talked about how Apple, under pressure 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.160 from music labels, included DRM or digital rights management on 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:21.160 digital files, that is, songs and albums that it sold 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.000 through its iTunes music store. A few years later, Apple 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.000 would be the company that was able to dictate its 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:32.440 own terms because the tables had turned. And that's how 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.239 much things changed in just a few years. The glove 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:39.120 was on the other foot. I might be getting turned around. Anyway. 0:02:39.160 --> 0:02:42.720 Let's let's roll back the clock a bit. As I said, 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:47.160 the iPod was not the first MP three player, and 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:50.560 it definitely wasn't the first digital music player. There was 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.080 a British inventor named Kane Kramer who came up with 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.280 the idea for a digital music player way back in 0:02:57.400 --> 0:03:01.320 the late nineteen seventies. He filed a patent for his design, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.000 which he called the I X I or X or 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:07.600 maybe it's supposed to be Roman numerals, but anyway, he 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:12.120 he filed a patent for it in ninete and he 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:16.400 received a patent in Because these things take time, that 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:18.880 that device was capable of holding about three and a 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.480 half minutes of audio, which would be about one and 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.760 a half Ramons songs or the bit in a meat 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:28.480 Loaf song just before meat Loaf starts to sing. Anyway, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.760 three and a half minutes is hardly useful. Digital audio 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:36.560 files were really big and storage was really limited. That 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:40.960 combo just meant that the digital audio player technology wasn't 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.120 quite ready for prime time, which is putting it lightly. 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.280 Skip ahead to the early nineteen nineties and the emergence 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.040 of the MP three file format. I did a whole 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:58.080 episode about the creation and evolution of MP three's, so 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:00.520 this is just going to be a short version of 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:04.920 that story. So the MP three format could compress audio 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:09.360 files down to a more manageable size. The format does 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.120 this by getting rid of information that's in the file. Ideally, 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.520 it's information that doesn't impact the experience of listening to 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:22.159 the audio. There's an entire psycho acoustic side to the 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.200 MP three technology that's all about determining what would be 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:31.479 perceivable or perceptible and what would not, and you just 0:04:31.520 --> 0:04:34.400 get rid of all the stuff that isn't. The idea 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.920 being that if a human is incapable of hearing a 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.520 particular sound, there's no reason to include that information in 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:45.320 the compressed file. Now, of course, you can encode m 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.080 P three's so that they are more or less aggressive 0:04:49.360 --> 0:04:53.320 in their approach to compressing file sizes. The more aggressive 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.520 you get, the smaller the compressed file will be, but 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:59.919 the worst it will sound. So this is a lossy 0:05:00.240 --> 0:05:04.200 file format. But if you go easy with your compression, 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.520 then the file size it won't shrink down as much, 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:12.040 but the fidelity the quality of the audio will be better. Anyway, 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:17.000 the MP three format made audio files more practical for 0:05:17.760 --> 0:05:19.880 you know, the average person, like whether you wanted to 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:24.080 just have them on your computer or potentially transfer them, 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.800 say over the internet, by the late nineties, there were 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:30.640 a couple of companies that were experimenting with digital audio 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.720 players that could play MP three files. See before that 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.200 the really the only way to enjoy MP three's was 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.960 to listen to them on a computer. Eventually, you did 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:45.680 have some CD player manufacturers that started to produce compact 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.920 disc players that could read MP three compact discs. So 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.400 in those cases, you could burn a CD with you know, 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:56.880 more than a hundred songs on it in MP three format, 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.599 so they're not being burned in the the the raw 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.520 audio files that you would use to digitally imprint CDs. Instead, 0:06:05.600 --> 0:06:08.440 you're you're just burning MP three files to the CD. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.080 But those weren't commonplace, and there certainly weren't very many 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:19.240 portable solutions around until the two thousand's, so it just 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:22.960 was not a very convenient form factor yet. Then you 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.920 had a couple of companies like Elgar Labs that started 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:29.160 to introduce digital audio players that could play m P three's. 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.159 Uh the Elgar Labs one was the mp man F ten. 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:35.599 I'm guessing they were kind of naming their products so 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:40.039 it was kind of similar to Sony's Walkman trademark, and 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:43.080 the F ten had thirty two whole megabytes of memory, 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.640 and it cost two hundred fifty dollars. There was also 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:51.320 the Diamond Rio p MP three hundred, which was more popular. 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.280 It also only had thirty two megabytes of storage. It 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.440 hit the market not long after the F ten did. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.599 And please keep in mind that these play years didn't 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:05.159 have native connectivity on them. You could not download music 0:07:05.200 --> 0:07:09.359 directly to the device. You could not stream anything to 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:12.360 the device. Instead, you would have to use software on 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.960 your computer to manage your music library. Then you would 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.560 transfer songs from your computer to your MP three player 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.400 using a physical cable that connected the two. This would 0:07:23.440 --> 0:07:27.000 be true for early iPods as well, In fact, true 0:07:27.040 --> 0:07:30.320 for everything up to and including the iPod Touch, at 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:33.440 least in the early stages. The p MP three in 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:38.160 particular helped start to churn up interest in the MP 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:42.000 three format, right Like, there were geeks like me who 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.800 were interested in MP three's back then. But once you 0:07:44.920 --> 0:07:48.560 got to a player that could actually store and play 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.960 that stuff on its own and you could carry it 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.800 around with you, that's when MP three's really started to 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.040 gain some traction. That's also when the music industry really 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.880 got involved. The recording Industry Association of America or r 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:07.360 I double A sued real Port, which was in charge 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:12.760 of making RIO and the software used to manage the RIO, 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.840 because there was a general fear that folks would start 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:20.840 buying compact discs, rip music from the c d s, 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.160 and then share that music online without you know, everyone 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.840 going through the proper process of forking cash over to 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.120 the music labels, and the r I double A lost 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.880 that lawsuit. The court said, no, the existence of this 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.880 saying does not automatically mean what you say. It means. 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:45.720 They're certainly not liable for people taking that that path. 0:08:46.080 --> 0:08:49.439 People might, but it's not the fault of the company 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:53.880 for that, and MP three players and the software needed 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.000 to transfer music from PCs two MP three players were 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.760 deemed to be totally legal. It turned out the r 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.240 I double A was kind of on point with its fears, 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:04.439 even if it didn't have legal grounds to stop in 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.600 P three players, because people did start to share music online, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.640 and then once the peer to peer network technology began 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.600 to emerge, it really took off. It became pretty easy 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:19.360 to distribute music files across lots of computers. So this 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.120 was the birth of napster. In n and the music 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.600 labels went banana. A downturn and media sales sent a 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:31.040 shock way through the music industry, and they went nuclear 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.360 on Napster and its users. Now on the MP three 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:38.280 player side, developments began to push the technology forward. The 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:42.640 remote solutions Personal jukebox MP three player did a big 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:46.600 leap frog over earlier devices because it actually included a 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:50.880 small hard drive from a laptop as its storage device, 0:09:51.640 --> 0:09:55.880 and that pushed the jukebox's capacity to four point eight gigabytes, 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.559 which was leagues better than that thirty two megabyte limitation 0:09:59.679 --> 0:10:04.800 of the earliest MP three players. But generally speaking, these 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:08.719 MP three players were bulky, They were not really attractive. 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.760 The ones with hard drives were also very heavy and 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:15.320 delicate because hard drives have moving mechanical components and if 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:18.520 you were to say, drop your MP three player, you 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.920 could damage those mechanical components and it wouldn't work anymore. 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:26.520 And again, they weren't really stylish and they were really expensive. 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:30.760 But Steve Jobs had an idea to change all that. 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:42.480 I'll explain more when we come back after this quick break. Okay, 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.960 so I had set the stage for the early days 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:48.000 of the MP three player Steve Jobs was in charge 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.880 of Apple at this time, and you know he had 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:53.839 been a co founder of Apple. He essentially got for 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:58.200 style of the company, or essentially pushed aside enough so 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.560 that he left the company all depends on which account 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:04.920 you listened to, then ultimately came back to rescue the 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.960 company when it was on the verge of financial collapse. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.040 He saw the potential of the MP three player space, 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.959 but the devices on the market lacked style, they lacked utility. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.520 No one was knocking it out of the park. The 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:23.280 existing ones were just too big and bulky, and they 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.280 were too ugly. And there were early adopter types who 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.520 met the Venn diagram overlap of computer nerd and music 0:11:29.600 --> 0:11:32.840 nerd who were buying some of those early MP three players, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:36.840 But most MP three players just weren't user friendly enough 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:41.199 or attractive enough to hit mainstream success. So Jobs goes 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:45.280 to his senior VP of Industrial Design, Johnny I've, who 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.000 was not yet a knight of the realm at this time. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:52.320 He is Sir Jonathan I've now, and Jobs laid out 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.760 what he wanted. He wanted definitive MP three player that 0:11:55.880 --> 0:12:02.199 the average person would want to buy. It had to attractive, 0:12:02.360 --> 0:12:04.600 it had to be useful, it had to hold enough 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:09.080 music to make it worthwhile, and this could really be 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.920 Apple's next big thing. It took Johnny i'ves team a 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.760 little less than a year to design, prototype, and finalize 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:20.680 the first iPod, which Jobs himself with debut to a 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:24.760 small crowd on October twenty three, two thousand one, and 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.960 Jobs knew he had to win some skeptics over because 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:30.840 this was a brand new business that Apple was getting into. 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.559 So before unveiling the device itself, he explained that Apple 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.880 was getting into this industry because quote, music is a 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:43.720 part of everyone's life end quote. He made a business 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.199 case for Apple to get into the MP three player business. 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.960 He said, it's not a speculative business. This isn't something 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.520 where we're placing a bet. This is a sure thing. 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:59.440 Music is important for everyone, and so all he had 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:01.280 to do is in at the history of the music 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.440 industry and say there's your proof. So he was really 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.880 dismantling criticisms before they could even be formed, which was 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:11.520 pretty genius. He was also, by the way, totally right. 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:15.560 So Jobs argued that there was no established leader in 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:18.920 the digital music player space. He called out a couple 0:13:18.920 --> 0:13:22.240 of companies. He called out Creative, which made a model 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.880 called the Zen. Actually owned a Creative Zen way back 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:29.440 in the day, and he said, well, that one has 0:13:29.440 --> 0:13:32.160 had some success, but still a very small company. It 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.959 can't produce these things at scale. Then you had Sony, 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.520 which was a very very large company, but it had 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.360 failed to produce a device that was a hit with consumers. 0:13:44.400 --> 0:13:48.880 So Jobs was saying this gave Apple the opportunity to 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:54.000 swoop in and take the lead spot in a blossoming market. 0:13:54.640 --> 0:13:58.360 And he said that the iPod, the new Apple music device, 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:02.200 could play the four most popular digital formats for music 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.520 at the time, which were MP three, MP three VBR, 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:10.240 Wave or w A V and ai F F H. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:14.199 The wave and ai F formats were for uncompressed audio, 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:19.400 wave being essentially developed for Microsoft machines, and ai F 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:23.280 being an Apple development. That means you you end up 0:14:23.320 --> 0:14:26.360 with better sound quality, but the file sizes are much larger, 0:14:26.440 --> 0:14:31.000 so you're able to store fewer files on your device. Now. 0:14:31.040 --> 0:14:35.040 The original iPod featured a digital screen and had a 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:39.040 mechanical wheel to scroll through options and song choices. That 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:43.680 mechanical wheel was flush with the front of the the 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.280 iPods face so in other words, you would put your 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:49.880 thumb on the surface of this wheel and rotate the 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.720 wheel around in order to scroll through a menu or 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.240 through your music's collection. It had a five gigabyte hard drive, 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.680 which Job said was capable of holding up to one 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:03.440 thou and songs, although he said like for most people, 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:06.160 that would be their entire music library, so you could 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:09.640 just have your whole library in your pocket. He also 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.280 said those one thousand songs could be encoded at a 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.560 bit rate of a hundred sixty kilobits. The hard drive 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.600 in the original iPod had a platter that measured just 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:22.440 one point eight inches in diameter and was point two 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:27.720 inches thick, so very very thin. The iPod itself measured 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:30.960 four inches tall, two point four inches wide, and was 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:35.120 point seven eight inches thick. It was, as Jobs put it, 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:39.040 the size of a deck of cards. Now I realized 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.800 I mentioned just a second ago bit rate and I 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:44.800 didn't really clarify what that was. But I do plan 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.560 on doing a Tidbits episode in the near future to 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.320 explain sample rate and bit rate for digital audio. Those 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.000 two factors play an important part in how large an 0:15:55.040 --> 0:15:58.400 audio file is and the audio quality of that file. 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:01.000 But I didn't want to take up all of this 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:02.680 episode to talk about it, so let's get back to 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:05.840 the iPod now. To connect the iPod to a computer, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.760 which originally was just limited to Mac computers, Apple built 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:14.920 in a FireWire port on the iPod. Jobs said it 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.160 would take ten seconds to load a CDs worth of 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:22.440 music onto the iPod, compared to five minutes if you 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.360 were using an old USB cable between a computer and 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:29.080 an MP three player. He also said it could take 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.880 up to ten minutes to transfer the full one thousand 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:35.440 songs to an iPod, but it would take five hours 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:37.520 if you wanted to do the same with USB, so 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.000 he was really touting the superiority of FireWire over USB 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.120 at the time. Jobs also said that the iPods battery 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:48.240 would supply ten hours of continuous play, and that it 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.320 would have fast charge capability to regain eighty percent of 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:54.760 its capacity in one hour of charging, and that the 0:16:54.920 --> 0:16:58.320 FireWire cable would provide not just data transfer, but also 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:04.000 provide power, so you could plug your iPod into your 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.920 computer using the FireWire cable and you could charge your 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.960 iPod while you're also transferring music to it, and all 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.200 this for the low, low price of three dollars. If 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:19.919 we were to adjust for inflation today, that would be 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:25.600 about the same as six hundred fifty bucks yells them. Now, 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.440 by the time Apple unveiled the iPod, the company had 0:17:29.480 --> 0:17:33.439 already launched iTunes. They launched iTunes at the beginning of 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:36.400 two thousand one, and the iPod was announced in October 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.160 of that year. Now, at that time, iTunes was strictly 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.879 a digital music management program. You could put a CD 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:48.199 into a Mac and you could rip music from that 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.440 c D and make digital files of it and use 0:17:51.480 --> 0:17:54.160 iTunes to organize your music collection, but it would live 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.119 on your computer. iTunes would then become the software component 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.719 to manage iPods, at least on max, and connecting an 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.320 iPod to your computer with iTunes would allow for automatic synchronization. 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:10.920 So if you had added new music to your computer, well, 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.680 the next time you plug your iPod in, those new 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.280 tracks could transition seamlessly to your iPod, so you'd have 0:18:17.320 --> 0:18:21.600 them ready for when you're on the go. The iPod 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.879 was a pretty big departure for Apple, and it was 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:30.800 a success. You know, Apple had experimented with some uh 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:34.280 consumer electronics outside of computers a bit in the past 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:38.879 and had had let's say, mixed success. The Newton is 0:18:39.000 --> 0:18:43.720 a an infamous flop for Apple, right, but the iPod 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:46.880 was not a flop, and the following year, in two 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:50.400 thousand two, Apple updated the iPod. It would ultimately offer 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:53.400 two models of the iPod, one that had a ten 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:56.840 gigabyte hard drive, so twice of the size of the original, 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.639 and the second would have a twenty gigabyte hard drive. 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:04.199 They also replaced the old mechanical scroll wheel, so you 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:06.120 no longer had a wheel that you could physically turn 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:09.400 around on the face of this iPod, and they replaced 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.919 it with a capacitive sensing touch wheel, so kind of 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:16.040 like a touch screen in a sense, except it wasn't 0:19:16.040 --> 0:19:20.119 a screen. It was just this round, rounded section of 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:22.880 the surface of the iPod, so you are no longer 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:26.640 physically turning a wheel to scroll through stuff. The new 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:31.280 iPods were also compatible with Windows PCs, which dramatically expanded 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.040 the potential customer base for Apple in the process. Now, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.440 at the time, there was no iTunes for PC for 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.080 for Windows, so PC users had to rely on software 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:47.160 called Music Match Jukebox in order to organize their music 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.960 collections and send music over to their iPods. The new 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.960 iPod also had a thirty pin dock connector, and then 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.119 you could use a dock that had FireWire or a 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:02.760 dock that had USB. That was good because FireWire was 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:07.280 pretty much unheard of on Windows PCs. There were some 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.800 that had FireWire reports, but it was not a standard. 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:14.800 It was far more common to run into USB connections. 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:19.080 In two thousand three, Apple introduced iTunes for Windows and 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:25.359 thus migrated away from Music Match, Jukebox and UM. iTunes 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.000 for Windows was pants, meaning it was not good, at 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.720 least in my opinion, at least back in those days. 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:39.639 It felt bloated and unwieldy. It had massive processor demands. 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.560 It took up too much of your computer memory. At 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.840 least in my experience, I really didn't like using it. 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:47.879 I'm sure I would have felt differently if I had 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:51.119 owned a Mac computer instead of a Windows PC, but 0:20:51.240 --> 0:20:54.639 on Windows it was a shore. Oh. In two thousand 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.560 three was also when Apple launched the iTunes music store, 0:20:59.560 --> 0:21:03.280 that that you could actually purchase digital music directly from Apple, 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:07.680 rather than rip it from c D s uh. That 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:11.440 was the other way you could really get music. There 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.600 were some other independent and and studio owned digital music 0:21:15.640 --> 0:21:19.480 stores out there, but none of them had really taken 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.399 off in popularity. And of course there was the black 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:29.000 market piracy trading culture out there. Napster was gone by 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.400 two thousand three. It had been sued out of existence. 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:35.760 But it's not like piracy just went away after that. 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.680 But this is when Apple introduced the legit iTunes music store. 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:43.800 It's also when Apple would introduce the fair Play Digital 0:21:43.880 --> 0:21:48.240 Rights Management or DRM solution, which restricted iTunes purchases to 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:52.320 play only on authorized devices. So this was again back 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.399 when music labels had a lot of leverage over Apple. 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:58.440 All Right, we've got a lot more to get through 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:02.720 with the evil of the iPod and its eventual demise. 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:05.400 But before we get into any of that, let's take 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:16.520 another quick break. Okay, we're up to two thousand four. 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:20.640 That's when Apple would expand iPod line again. So earlier 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:24.080 years had seen iPods with you know, larger hard drive 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.159 sizes and that kind of thing, like modest improvements, but 0:22:28.280 --> 0:22:33.040 two thousand four saw entirely new iPod models. Apple introduced 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:35.680 the iPod many in two thousand four, and as the 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:40.120 name suggests, it was significantly smaller than the standard iPod 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:42.320 and it had a hard drive that could hold up 0:22:42.320 --> 0:22:46.439 to one thousand songs, similar to the original iPod. Apple 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:49.760 also introduced the iPod Photo, which was an iPod with 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.320 a color digital screen that could display photos on it. Obviously, 0:22:53.359 --> 0:22:57.240 you would transfer the photos from your computer to your iPod, 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.199 you could scroll through them, and there was also a 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:04.040 fourth generation standard iPod as well. Two thousand four was 0:23:04.119 --> 0:23:09.040 also when the term podcasting began to catch on. Now, 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:13.000 the practice had been around for a while, right There 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:17.399 had already been cases of serialized digital audio content that 0:23:17.400 --> 0:23:20.639 people could subscribe to that dated back a few years 0:23:20.840 --> 0:23:25.320 from before two thousand four, But two thousand four was 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:31.040 where podcasting as a word really emerged. I would argue 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:34.639 that that really drove home how Apple had nailed the 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.880 MP three player technology and the marketing for digital audio 0:23:38.960 --> 0:23:43.080 players because it had become the de facto leader in 0:23:43.119 --> 0:23:47.399 the space and had to find the technology. You know, 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:51.159 it didn't it didn't invent it, but they refined it 0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:54.880 to a point where that was the standard, so much 0:23:54.920 --> 0:24:01.080 so that an entire medium was named after the iPod podcasting. 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:04.720 Then in two thousand five, we got the iPod Nano, 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:07.800 which was an even smaller iPod than the iPod Mini. 0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:11.120 It used flash storage rather than a hard drive, and 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:14.960 in the early days of digital audio players, flash storage 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:18.800 was a real limitter and it was really expensive. It 0:24:18.800 --> 0:24:22.480 couldn't hold very much, and it cost a lot to produce. 0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:25.960 That's why Apple chose to go with physical hard drives 0:24:26.119 --> 0:24:29.280 for its early iPods. But by two thousand five, the 0:24:29.320 --> 0:24:31.639 capacity was starting to go up and the price was 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:34.639 starting to come down, so the Nano was available in 0:24:34.800 --> 0:24:38.879 two gigabyte and four gigabyte capacity models. It had a 0:24:38.880 --> 0:24:43.240 color screen, and it was smaller than the iPod Mini was, 0:24:43.280 --> 0:24:46.840 which in turn was smaller than the standard iPod. A 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:49.639 few months after it debuted, the Nano would replace the 0:24:49.680 --> 0:24:54.439 Mini and Apple would just discontinue the Mini model entirely. Also, 0:24:54.480 --> 0:24:57.160 two thousand five was when the iPod Shuffle came out. 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:02.119 The iPod Shuffle h is an odd little thing. Most 0:25:02.160 --> 0:25:05.480 models don't have any display at all. Uh In fact, 0:25:05.480 --> 0:25:08.439 it has a pretty simple interface. It's got a power button, 0:25:08.760 --> 0:25:12.480 a play pause button, and controls that allow you to 0:25:12.640 --> 0:25:15.360 change the volume and skip a song or go back 0:25:15.400 --> 0:25:19.040 to a song. And the Shuffle could play songs you know, 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:22.600 in whatever order was organized on the device, or as 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:26.720 the name suggests it could shuffle them randomly, so the 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:30.280 shovel was even smaller than the nano. It maxed out 0:25:30.359 --> 0:25:33.800 with a one gigabyte hard drive model when it launched, 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:36.680 or I guess I should say flash drive model one 0:25:36.680 --> 0:25:40.800