Linked by Yoni on Fri 18th Jan 2013 21:56 UTC
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iPod didn't really took off for the first few years, in its original form which you mostly describe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg - until 2005, it was a minuscule player (pun intended); and afterwards, it made an impact mostly just in a few atypical, affluent, and visible markets.
By 2005, most of the world was already starting to leapfrog dedicated portable audio players, going for mobile phones (in 2007 or so I read a report about how ~20% of European mobile subscribers uses their phones for music consumption - that alone already means more people than all iPods ever made)




Member since:
2009-10-22
I would disagree with this. People could rip their CDs easily. The click-wheel interface combined with a larger display made finding a track easy. You could scroll through a large music library easily and find the song or artist you wanted. The same was not true of competing devices at the time. Apple also built in FireWire, which shipped with most Macs at the time. Users could load up 5GB of music quickly compared to USB 1.1.
It's true that iTunes made it easy to manage music and create playlists and such, but the device itself was much more user friendly. Despite the higher cost, comparatively small amount of storage, and the fact it only worked with the Mac at first, it took off.