Apple Introduces What It Calls an Easier to Use Portable Music Player (2001)

I think there's a law now that you have to post this as well:<p><a href="http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ipod" rel="nofollow">http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...</a>

"[Jobs] predicted that the improvement in technology he said the iPod represented would inspire consumers to buy Macintosh computers so they could use an iPod."<p>While the "so they could use an iPod" part is off, he was so right about the significance of the iPod and its ability to inspire/convince people to purchase Macs, and what that meant for Apple in the decade that followed.

Wolfram Alpha tells me that $399 in 2001 is $498.06 today.

Interesting to compare the prediction of sales made in the article with the actual sales: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ipod_sales_per_quarter.svg</a>

''It's a nice feature for Macintosh users,'' said P. J. McNealy, a senior analyst for Gartner G2, an e-commerce research group. ''But to the rest of the Windows world, it doesn't make any difference.''<p>Who is this Gartner research group? Ok, I do know who they are but it feels like whenever I read one of these "blasts from the past" articles they have an analyst in there making some statement that is way off mixed with terribly inaccurate predictions.

"A hard drive with a headphone jack." -Bill Gates