Today, Apple is easily recognizable for its premium iPhones, versatile iPads, and powerful Mac laptops. Before Apple discontinued it in 2022, the iPod was another well-loved innovation in Apple’s lineup of products, and for good reason. Released 22 years ago today, the Apple iPod steered the music industry away from cassette and CD players and paved the way for portable MP3 players and music streaming platforms.

Music systems before the iPod had design issues

Our history lesson begins in 1979 when Sony launched the portable cassette player called the Walkman. While the Walkman was popular among the music-loving crowd, it was bulky and limited by the physical constraints of the cassette format.

By the 1990s, the craze for cassette tapes had started to die down, and CD players began blowing up in popularity thanks to their superior audio quality, higher signal-to-noise ratio, and larger frequency range.

However, the shift to the CD media meant you had to carry the cases for every disc as CDs are prone to damage from scratching and direct sunlight. So, CDs also turned out to be a cumbersome and space-consuming solution for music lovers.

By the start of the 21st century, it became clear that the music industry was in dire need of innovation to escape from its rut. Enter the iPod, a game-changing device that will forever redefine our music experience.

The iPod revolutionized the MP3 player market

On Oct. 23, 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the first-generation iPod, a portable user-friendly music player that was priced at $399. The OG iPod had a sleek, all-white appearance and included a mechanical scroll wheel and a 2-inch display. What truly set it apart from every other music system at the time was its 5GB hard drive, meaning you could store well over 1,000 songs on the iPod.

Besides allowing you to scroll through albums in seconds, the iPod’s intuitive interface made locating specific songs a breeze. The iPod also worked seamlessly with Apple’s iTunes app, allowing Mac users to burn the contents of their favorite MP3 CDs onto their iPods.

The iPod had solved many problems affecting the music industry, and this was just the beginning!

Apple kept making the iPod more accessible with software and hardware updates

In April 2003, Apple rebranded the iTunes app as iTunes Music Store, an online platform where you could legally access an extensive catalog of songs. While it couldn’t completely end music piracy, the new app brought a legal, and more importantly, convenient alternative to pirating MP3 files. Soon, the tech giant deployed the iTunes Music Store on Windows XP, allowing the Windows audience to make full use of the app.

Apple also started experimenting with the iPod’s hardware, and each successive iteration of the portable music player introduced worthwhile additions to the product. Aside from the mainline iPod series, Apple also launched other models with different functionalities, including the iPod mini, iPod shuffle, iPod nano, and iPod touch. With its intuitive design, seamless integration with iTunes, and rich audio quality, the iPod dominated the MP3 player market throughout the early 2000s.

However, what turned out to be the iPod’s biggest nemesis wasn’t Sony’s Walkman or third-party clones. It was Apple’s own product, the iPhone.

The iPod’s reign was cut short by the iPhone

In 2007, Apple released the iPhone, bringing another competitor to the iPod. Since the original iPhone’s game-changing features warrant an article of their own, here’s the short version: The iPhone was a full-on multimedia device capable of more than just playing music. It could run apps, browse the web, make calls, and much more for just $499.

The iPhone’s sales skyrocketed within a year of its release, and in 2011, Apple sold more iPhones than iPods. By 2014, Apple discontinued the mainline iPod series as the popularity of the iPhone and Android smartphones made iPods obsolete.

Soon, the iPod touch was the last one standing, perhaps because its touchscreen interface allowed people to use it as a budget iPhone. On May 10, 2022, Apple put the final nail in the iPod’s coffin by retiring the iPod touch lineup.

Looking back, the launch of the iPod marked a turning point for the music industry. Not only was the iPod Apple’s first fruitful venture outside the world of PCs, but the success of the iPod and iTunes paved the way for the rise of streaming services.