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Apple’s portable digital music player, the iPod, celebrated its 20th anniversary on October 23 (local time). Tony Fadell, who is called the father of the iPod, draws attention by revealing his memories with Steve Jobs about this important product that served as a stepping stone to the revival of Apple, which was on the verge of bankruptcy.
Tony Fadell joined Apple in 2001 as the head of iPod development and served as senior vice president of iPod from 2006 to 2008. Originally, Fuse, a company that developed a portable music player with a built-in HDD, was founded by Fadell and Apple acquired it, which effectively started the iPod. The development of the iPhone was also based on the iPod.
Fadell recalled the days when Fuse, which he founded, was trying to release an MP3 player as his product. His first contact with Apple was also when he commissioned consulting for an iTunes digital music player. And seven weeks later, when he was called to show his proposal to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Jobs threw the papers aside and said he wanted to see the MP3 player Fuse was developing.
According to Apple marketing expert Stan Ng’s advice, Fadell showed the worst model first, then the second model, and finally the model he liked. Then Jobs took it in his hand and said that we are making it too, but why don’t you try making it too?
But Fadell was hesitant to accept this offer. It’s hard to imagine now, but at the time, Apple was at a loss and Mac sales were declining. But Jobs persuaded Fadell with all kinds of promises.
Fadell asked Jobs if he was willing to step into a product family rather than just investing in the first iPod. Until then, Fadell had experienced the agony of stopping the release of the first product after 9 months several times and thought that the third generation was necessary for the success of the product. Then Jobs announced that he would invest in iPod marketing by pulling resources from Apple’s core business, the Mac. Next, the first iPod and subsequent models continued to show sluggish sales for a while, but Jobs said that he kept his promise.
Fadell said he expects Apple to enter a new product category in the future, but doesn’t anticipate what it will be, but said it’s not the only way to innovate. In other words, there is room to improve existing products, create new peripherals, and innovate with all kinds of software and services. Related information can be found here.
Meanwhile, the iPod, a portable music player developed by Apple, was launched in 2001, the year after Steve Jobs took over as CEO, and became a hit product worldwide, and it was an opportunity for Apple to leap forward. This precious prototype, built just before the launch of the iPod, was unveiled for the first time by Panic, a company that develops apps for macOS and iOS.
The first iPod, released in 2001, was only compatible with Macs with a capacity of 5 GB. However, the concept of carrying around 1,000 songs in a pocket was a huge success, and a follow-up model was later released. The first iPod had already been exhibited on eBay, an Internet auction site, and was priced at over 20 million won.
On October 23, 2021, the 20th anniversary of the launch of the first iPod, Panic released photos of the first iPod prototype. There are exposed connection terminals in a huge yellow box, a large wheel-shaped switch, a small display, and four buttons: up, down, left, and right. It didn’t really resemble the original iPod. In addition, although the display size is almost the same as the original iPod, the prototype is several times larger than the real one.
If you look at the prototype, surprisingly, the contents are almost the same, and the volume occupied by the display or substrate is insignificant. It is said that making a prototype with a completely different size and appearance meant hiding the final device from the engineer.
The label on the part was printed as 2001.9.3., suggesting that the prototype was built just before launch in October 2001. The thing that popped up from the top of the prototype is JTAG used for circuit or board inspection and debugging.
In fact, Tony Fadell, who is also known as the father of the iPod and a central figure in the development of the iPod, also admits that the prototype Panic unveiled is real. According to Fadel, the prototype (P68/Dulcimer) was built before the actual form factor design was ready. The exterior is said to have strayed from the finished iPod to keep it airtight, the interior is almost the same, but insufficient, and the wheels are said to have worked. Related information can be found here.
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