Journalist: The iPod Remains a “Perfect Gadget” That Smartphones Haven’t Replaced
Apple launched the iPod music player on October 23, 2001, 25 years ago this month. In an essay for Wired, tech journalist Steven Levy and iPod hardware chief Tony Fadell argue that such a dedicated device is still missed.
This month marks 25 years since US technology company Apple launched the iPod, its portable music player. Wired has published an essay by technology journalist Steven Levy arguing that the iPod was a “perfect” gadget, and that its disappearance left a gap smartphones have not filled. Levy received one of the first units and later wrote a book about the device.
Beginning and end
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unveiled the device on October 23, 2001, a little over a month after the attacks on the World Trade Center. He pulled the player from his jeans pocket and said it held an entire music library. Levy, then working at Newsweek, received his unit in New York by Apple courier, and Jobs told him by phone that the iPod would be a “landmark product.”
Officially, the iPod era ended on May 10, 2022, when Apple discontinued the iPod Touch. The author does not count it as a real iPod, since it was essentially an iPhone without cellular connectivity. Apple dropped the Nano and Shuffle models on July 27, 2017, and the classic iPod with a hard drive and click wheel in 2014. A key turning point was January 11, 2007, when Jobs introduced the iPhone.
Why it is still missed
Levy says the iPod was a single-function device that did its job superbly, while smartphones absorb attention, including through social media apps. Apple also redesigned the iPod every year, changing its size and shape.
Tony Fadell, often called the father of the iPod, who headed its hardware team, says there was little hand-wringing at Apple over its fate: the iPhone’s success and new products such as the iPad made iPod sales less relevant. In his view, the iPod’s value lay in not being connected to the internet, so nothing distracted the listener. “This thing should still exist,” he said. He also believes that without the iPod there would have been no iPhone and no Apple as it is known today.
Levy notes that communities on Facebook and Reddit modify old iPods, adding larger flash storage and Bluetooth. He recently pulled out his own iPod Classic again. He suspects that new Apple CEO John Ternus has no incentive to revive the product.
