Hey guys it’s Greg with Apple Explained,and today we’re going to explore how the very first iPod was developed, how it wasalmost cancelled before release, and how it caused an actual explosion on Apple’s campus
This topic won last week’s voting poll andif you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, that way the voting polls willshow up right in your activity feed and you can let me know which video you’d like tosee next
Now Apple became involved with digital musicin 1999, but before we get into that, I want to point out that Apple was a much differentcompany back then
They’d just narrowly escaped bankruptcyand were under tremendous pressure to start generating revenue for shareholders
And their biggest money maker was the Mac
In fact, they didn’t really make anythingelse other than Mac computers and had no experience in creating handheld devices like MP3 players
So with Apple in this extremely stressfuland tight financial position, you probably wouldn't expect them to take a big risk andessential bet part the company on a new category of device
But with Steve Jobs at the helm, that’sexactly what they did
And it all started with FireWire, the serialbus standard that transferred files at blazingly fast speeds compared to other standards atthe time
Apple realized that with FireWire, Mac userscould transfer videos shot with their digital camcorders and edit them on their computers
So Steve Jobs decided the next generationof iMacs would feature FireWire ports
The concept was solid, but there was a problem,Apple didn’t have video editing software to include on the next iMac
So they asked Adobe to create a user-friendlymovie editing application, but Adobe declined
That’s when Apple took on the challengethemselves and created the video-editing application called iMovie
This kicked off Apple’s “digital hub”strategy, where the Mac served as the center of a user’s digital media world
So Apple had developed a strong digital videostrategy, but by the late 1990s, it was digital music that had become popular
Illegal file sharing sites like Napster explodedin popularity since it gave users the ability to download music files right from the internet
Despite the legal issues, it quickly becameapparent to most in the tech industry that Internet-downloaded MP3s were the future ofmusic distribution
Around 2000, Apple realized it had a largegap in its upcoming digital hub strategy when it came to music
To fill that gap, Apple bought the rightsto SoundJam MP, a popular Mac MP3 player application, and hired three of its creators to work atApple and further develop the program
The team simplified SoundJam and added CD-burningfeatures to create iTunes, released in January 2001
As iMovie had done with FireWire-attachedcamcorders, the iTunes team naturally sought to allow users to transfer songs from iTunesto their portable MP3 players of the day
And when Apple tested iTunes with some ofthe most popular MP3 players, they quickly realized one thing: They were all crap
Portable MP3 players had been around sincethe mid 90s, but Apple found that everything on the market offered a disappointing userexperience
And this became an opportunity for Apple tocreate an exceptional MP3 player of their own
So what exactly made the MP3 players of thattime so crappy? Well, they generally only held about one CD-worthof songs, although players with larger hard drives could hold more, but they were bulkyand featured unintuitive user interfaces that were difficult to navigate especially whenscrolling through thousands of songs
Also, most portable media players used theslow USB 1
1 standard to transfer music from a computer, which meant you’d have to waitfive minutes to transfer just one CD
And when moving thousands of songs, the transfertime could shoot up to several hours
Considering the dismal state of the portablemedia player market, Jobs decided that Apple should attempt to create its own MP3 player,one that played well with iTunes and could potentially attract more customers to theMac platform
He assigned Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s seniorvice president of hardware, to the task
From the beginning, Rubinstein was sure oftwo things Apple’s mp3 player would have: a speedy FireWire interface to solve slowtransfers, and a 1
8-inch 5GB hard drive from Toshiba that could make Apple’s music playersmaller than any other hard drive-based device on the market
But with most of Apple’s engineers tiedup in Mac-related projects, Rubinstein sought help from outside the company to further determinethe feasibility of an Apple music player
Through personal connections, Rubinstein heardabout a man with the right qualifications and experience to do the job: Tony Fadell
Rubinstein gave him a call in January 2001and invited Fadell to visit Apple to discuss a potential project, but kept quiet aboutits exact nature
Rubinstein felt that Fadell was an ideal choiceto lead the development of Apple’s music player project because of Fadell’s extensivehandheld computing experience
He had worked at General Magic, where he helpeddevelop an operating system for PDAs called Magic Cap, and later at Philips Electronics,where he led the development of a Windows CE-based palmtop computer called the Nino
At Philips, Fadell had seen the potentialof digital audio players through an encounter with Audible, an Internet audiobook vendorthat wanted to bring its audio library to the Nino
He explored the idea at Philips but foundlittle interest in the ideas among management
After a brief stint at RealNetworks, Fadellleft to form his own digital music company called Fuse Systems
Fuse developed a digital jukebox that couldrip CDs to an internal hard drive, but the company had trouble raising money since rippingmusic from CDs wasn’t a popular concept at the time
Fadell had received Rubinstein’s call justas Fuse ran out of money
Fadell went into initial talks with Applein February 2001, thinking at first that Apple wanted to build a PDA
Apple quickly offered Fadell a six-week contractas a hardware consultant, and just after Fadell signed for the job, Rubinstein revealed Apple’strue intentions
In an interview with Macworld, Fadell said,“Apple thought that they could bring a better MP3 player to market and they asked for meto do some designs, how could one be built, what kind of components, how much would itcost, and to do all the basic research and design for what was to become the iPod
” Apple paired Fadell with Stan Ng, a veteranApple product marketing manager, to help him fit in with the company’s unique culture
During that six week period, Fadell met withalmost everyone he knew in the handheld industry while keeping the MP3 player plan a secret
He studied competitors’ products and settledon the need for a small, ultra-portable device with a large capacity and long battery life
Fadell brewed up three prototype designs fora potential Apple music player, each model crafted from foam core boards with rough interfacegraphics pasted on, and lead fishing weights gave each mock-up the approximate weight ofa final device
Fadell said, “It was all very, very rough,I only had six weeks and it was only me really doing all the work
” When his contract expired in mid April 2001,Fadell presented his prototypes to Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, in an important meeting
Fadell purposely offered his two least promisingmock-ups to Jobs first (one of which would have used flash memory, the other with removablestorage) and hid the third under a decorative bamboo bowl Jobs kept on the conference roomtable
As Fadell predicted, Jobs liked the thirdmock-up best
During the same meeting, Apple’s SeniorVP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, presented mock-ups of a player featuring thescroll wheel
Schiller personally thought of the idea asa solution to a troubling interface problem at the time
You see, other MP3 players used plus and minusbuttons to navigate menus one item at a time
But if you had an MP3 player with a thousandsongs, you’d have to press that button a thousand times just to scroll through eachsong, which would obviously become quite tedious
But with a scroll wheel, a quick flick ofthe finger would navigate through the list at any rate the user wanted, especially sinceApple would make the scroll speed accelerate the longer you spun the wheel
Steve Jobs liked the ideas he saw and offeredFadell a job at Apple to continue his work
After a period of uncertainty, Fadell joinedApple full-time in April 2001
The iPod project—then code-named “P-68”—hadofficially begun
With Apple’s portable music project officiallyin gear, Fadell decided that the iPod would ship during the 2001 Christmas shopping season,which only gave him six months to form a team, develop a product, get it manufactured, andpush it out the door
And like I said before, 2001 was a challengingtime for the company since Apple was just barely breaking even financially
The company’s main focus was on the Maccomputer line, and it had few resources to spare for other projects
Fadell knew he had to finish the iPod quicklyso Apple wouldn’t shut down the project and he had to justify its existence as a financialdrain on the company
To build the core iPod development team, Fadellhired engineers from his startup company, Fuse, and veterans from General Magic andPhilips
Apple placed Fadell’s team in one of theoldest, dingiest buildings on its campus
In fact, the building was so dilapidated thatApple had to kick the iPod team out after a couple of projects to substantially renovateit
The iPod team’s open cubicle workspace madefor a rowdy and playful environment
Fadell tells of the team members’ attemptto write their initials in wet concrete outside the building, and about the time one of theengineers accidentally stuck a screwdriver through a lithium polymer battery
It exploded, causing a nasty fire that sparkedan internal FBI-like investigation scene with Apple’s Legal department closely involved
With the launch deadline looming, Fadell’steam didn’t have time to develop all of the iPod’s components in-house
While the power supply and display designdrew from Apple’s expertise, the heart of the iPod, a specialized MP3-playing chipset,came from a San Jose company called PortalPlayer
And a company called Fostex would manufacturethe included Apple-designed earbuds
Fadell says earbuds were an obvious designchoice because they’re more portable, harder to break, and don’t mess up your hair liketraditional headphones do
Meanwhile, Jeff Robbin, the programmer incharge of iTunes development, began work on the iPod’s software
With so little time to debug a custom operatingsystem to run on PortalPlayer’s MP3 chipset, Robbin sought the help of Pixo, a Cupertinocompany that ultimately provided the iPod’s basic OS
Both teams put in long hours creating thedevice: 18 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Fadell, which took sucha toll on his personal life that his girlfriend broke up with him
After dozens of prototypes, Jonathan Ive’steam settled on a design: a simple box, the size of a pack of cards, clothed in a whitepolycarbonate front that set into a mirror-finish stainless steel case
Two elements dominated the iPod’s face:a simple rectangular display, and the now-iconic scroll wheel, which physically moved whenyou spun it
Ive intended the iPod’s “shockingly neutral”white and stainless steel case to set it apart from a world of black and dark gray portabledigital gadgets
The iPod would have no removable battery door,no on/off switch, and no screws
Apple would seal the iPod’s inner technologicalaway from the prying hands of the user, silently conveying a simple message: it just works
So much about the iPod was new for Apple
Coming from a company accustomed to sellingcomputers, Apple wasn’t quite sure how to sell a consumer music gadget, which undoubtedlywould be aimed at a different audience than the Mac
Even the label on the iPod’s box demandedspecial consideration for Apple: as a consumer audio gadget, the iPod had to comply withdifferent trade laws regarding warning labels than those for the Mac
To help with those tasks, Apple brought inoutside experts who would assist in crafting the initial iPod marketing campaign
One of those experts, a freelance copywriternamed Vinnie Chieco, gave the iPod its name
In response to Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy,Chieco began brainstorming about what interfaces with a hub
Chieco imagined a spaceship as being the ultimatehub from which a smaller craft, a pod, could come and go
Kind’ve like the “Shuttlepod” in StarTrek
Better yet, iPod wasn’t descriptive of themusic player’s function, allowing the iPod’s capabilities to evolve over time without needinga name change
Steve Jobs liked it, and the name stuck
After considerable work, Apple marketing managedto pull together a campaign that emphasized style and fashion over tech specs, which werefamiliar approaches for personal audio products
And it would turn out to be a winning strategy
After six months of hard work, the iPod beganto come together
The concentrated and well-organized effortsof Apple’s various iPod teams proved that they could finish the product in time, butone tragic event almost got in the way
September 11, 2001, took place during thefinal stretch of the iPod’s development
As the attacks unfolded, an Apple team carryingkey iPod prototypes from Taiwan landed on U
S
soil—just before the U
S
governmentshut down air travel nationwide
Amazingly, the iPod prototypes made it justin time
The tragic events of 9/11 motivated membersof the iPod project even further
Apple employees adopted a mindset that wascommon at the time: If they stopped performing their regular duties and creating productsthey loved, then that meant they were accepting defeat
Fadell says that the iPod group’s perseveringspirit proved essential in preventing a delay that would have resulted in Apple missingthe 2001 holiday season
The iPod team met their deadline, shippingthe first iPod in November 2001 and revolutionizing not only the MP3 player market, but the entireportable media player industry
So that is the history of the iPod, and ifyou want to vote for the next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you nexttime
This topic won last week’s voting poll andif you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, that way the voting polls willshow up right in your activity feed and you can let me know which video you’d like tosee next
Now Apple became involved with digital musicin 1999, but before we get into that, I want to point out that Apple was a much differentcompany back then
They’d just narrowly escaped bankruptcyand were under tremendous pressure to start generating revenue for shareholders
And their biggest money maker was the Mac
In fact, they didn’t really make anythingelse other than Mac computers and had no experience in creating handheld devices like MP3 players
So with Apple in this extremely stressfuland tight financial position, you probably wouldn't expect them to take a big risk andessential bet part the company on a new category of device
But with Steve Jobs at the helm, that’sexactly what they did
And it all started with FireWire, the serialbus standard that transferred files at blazingly fast speeds compared to other standards atthe time
Apple realized that with FireWire, Mac userscould transfer videos shot with their digital camcorders and edit them on their computers
So Steve Jobs decided the next generationof iMacs would feature FireWire ports
The concept was solid, but there was a problem,Apple didn’t have video editing software to include on the next iMac
So they asked Adobe to create a user-friendlymovie editing application, but Adobe declined
That’s when Apple took on the challengethemselves and created the video-editing application called iMovie
This kicked off Apple’s “digital hub”strategy, where the Mac served as the center of a user’s digital media world
So Apple had developed a strong digital videostrategy, but by the late 1990s, it was digital music that had become popular
Illegal file sharing sites like Napster explodedin popularity since it gave users the ability to download music files right from the internet
Despite the legal issues, it quickly becameapparent to most in the tech industry that Internet-downloaded MP3s were the future ofmusic distribution
Around 2000, Apple realized it had a largegap in its upcoming digital hub strategy when it came to music
To fill that gap, Apple bought the rightsto SoundJam MP, a popular Mac MP3 player application, and hired three of its creators to work atApple and further develop the program
The team simplified SoundJam and added CD-burningfeatures to create iTunes, released in January 2001
As iMovie had done with FireWire-attachedcamcorders, the iTunes team naturally sought to allow users to transfer songs from iTunesto their portable MP3 players of the day
And when Apple tested iTunes with some ofthe most popular MP3 players, they quickly realized one thing: They were all crap
Portable MP3 players had been around sincethe mid 90s, but Apple found that everything on the market offered a disappointing userexperience
And this became an opportunity for Apple tocreate an exceptional MP3 player of their own
So what exactly made the MP3 players of thattime so crappy? Well, they generally only held about one CD-worthof songs, although players with larger hard drives could hold more, but they were bulkyand featured unintuitive user interfaces that were difficult to navigate especially whenscrolling through thousands of songs
Also, most portable media players used theslow USB 1
1 standard to transfer music from a computer, which meant you’d have to waitfive minutes to transfer just one CD
And when moving thousands of songs, the transfertime could shoot up to several hours
Considering the dismal state of the portablemedia player market, Jobs decided that Apple should attempt to create its own MP3 player,one that played well with iTunes and could potentially attract more customers to theMac platform
He assigned Jon Rubinstein, Apple’s seniorvice president of hardware, to the task
From the beginning, Rubinstein was sure oftwo things Apple’s mp3 player would have: a speedy FireWire interface to solve slowtransfers, and a 1
8-inch 5GB hard drive from Toshiba that could make Apple’s music playersmaller than any other hard drive-based device on the market
But with most of Apple’s engineers tiedup in Mac-related projects, Rubinstein sought help from outside the company to further determinethe feasibility of an Apple music player
Through personal connections, Rubinstein heardabout a man with the right qualifications and experience to do the job: Tony Fadell
Rubinstein gave him a call in January 2001and invited Fadell to visit Apple to discuss a potential project, but kept quiet aboutits exact nature
Rubinstein felt that Fadell was an ideal choiceto lead the development of Apple’s music player project because of Fadell’s extensivehandheld computing experience
He had worked at General Magic, where he helpeddevelop an operating system for PDAs called Magic Cap, and later at Philips Electronics,where he led the development of a Windows CE-based palmtop computer called the Nino
At Philips, Fadell had seen the potentialof digital audio players through an encounter with Audible, an Internet audiobook vendorthat wanted to bring its audio library to the Nino
He explored the idea at Philips but foundlittle interest in the ideas among management
After a brief stint at RealNetworks, Fadellleft to form his own digital music company called Fuse Systems
Fuse developed a digital jukebox that couldrip CDs to an internal hard drive, but the company had trouble raising money since rippingmusic from CDs wasn’t a popular concept at the time
Fadell had received Rubinstein’s call justas Fuse ran out of money
Fadell went into initial talks with Applein February 2001, thinking at first that Apple wanted to build a PDA
Apple quickly offered Fadell a six-week contractas a hardware consultant, and just after Fadell signed for the job, Rubinstein revealed Apple’strue intentions
In an interview with Macworld, Fadell said,“Apple thought that they could bring a better MP3 player to market and they asked for meto do some designs, how could one be built, what kind of components, how much would itcost, and to do all the basic research and design for what was to become the iPod
” Apple paired Fadell with Stan Ng, a veteranApple product marketing manager, to help him fit in with the company’s unique culture
During that six week period, Fadell met withalmost everyone he knew in the handheld industry while keeping the MP3 player plan a secret
He studied competitors’ products and settledon the need for a small, ultra-portable device with a large capacity and long battery life
Fadell brewed up three prototype designs fora potential Apple music player, each model crafted from foam core boards with rough interfacegraphics pasted on, and lead fishing weights gave each mock-up the approximate weight ofa final device
Fadell said, “It was all very, very rough,I only had six weeks and it was only me really doing all the work
” When his contract expired in mid April 2001,Fadell presented his prototypes to Apple executives, including Steve Jobs, in an important meeting
Fadell purposely offered his two least promisingmock-ups to Jobs first (one of which would have used flash memory, the other with removablestorage) and hid the third under a decorative bamboo bowl Jobs kept on the conference roomtable
As Fadell predicted, Jobs liked the thirdmock-up best
During the same meeting, Apple’s SeniorVP of Worldwide Product Marketing, Phil Schiller, presented mock-ups of a player featuring thescroll wheel
Schiller personally thought of the idea asa solution to a troubling interface problem at the time
You see, other MP3 players used plus and minusbuttons to navigate menus one item at a time
But if you had an MP3 player with a thousandsongs, you’d have to press that button a thousand times just to scroll through eachsong, which would obviously become quite tedious
But with a scroll wheel, a quick flick ofthe finger would navigate through the list at any rate the user wanted, especially sinceApple would make the scroll speed accelerate the longer you spun the wheel
Steve Jobs liked the ideas he saw and offeredFadell a job at Apple to continue his work
After a period of uncertainty, Fadell joinedApple full-time in April 2001
The iPod project—then code-named “P-68”—hadofficially begun
With Apple’s portable music project officiallyin gear, Fadell decided that the iPod would ship during the 2001 Christmas shopping season,which only gave him six months to form a team, develop a product, get it manufactured, andpush it out the door
And like I said before, 2001 was a challengingtime for the company since Apple was just barely breaking even financially
The company’s main focus was on the Maccomputer line, and it had few resources to spare for other projects
Fadell knew he had to finish the iPod quicklyso Apple wouldn’t shut down the project and he had to justify its existence as a financialdrain on the company
To build the core iPod development team, Fadellhired engineers from his startup company, Fuse, and veterans from General Magic andPhilips
Apple placed Fadell’s team in one of theoldest, dingiest buildings on its campus
In fact, the building was so dilapidated thatApple had to kick the iPod team out after a couple of projects to substantially renovateit
The iPod team’s open cubicle workspace madefor a rowdy and playful environment
Fadell tells of the team members’ attemptto write their initials in wet concrete outside the building, and about the time one of theengineers accidentally stuck a screwdriver through a lithium polymer battery
It exploded, causing a nasty fire that sparkedan internal FBI-like investigation scene with Apple’s Legal department closely involved
With the launch deadline looming, Fadell’steam didn’t have time to develop all of the iPod’s components in-house
While the power supply and display designdrew from Apple’s expertise, the heart of the iPod, a specialized MP3-playing chipset,came from a San Jose company called PortalPlayer
And a company called Fostex would manufacturethe included Apple-designed earbuds
Fadell says earbuds were an obvious designchoice because they’re more portable, harder to break, and don’t mess up your hair liketraditional headphones do
Meanwhile, Jeff Robbin, the programmer incharge of iTunes development, began work on the iPod’s software
With so little time to debug a custom operatingsystem to run on PortalPlayer’s MP3 chipset, Robbin sought the help of Pixo, a Cupertinocompany that ultimately provided the iPod’s basic OS
Both teams put in long hours creating thedevice: 18 to 20 hours a day, seven days a week, according to Fadell, which took sucha toll on his personal life that his girlfriend broke up with him
After dozens of prototypes, Jonathan Ive’steam settled on a design: a simple box, the size of a pack of cards, clothed in a whitepolycarbonate front that set into a mirror-finish stainless steel case
Two elements dominated the iPod’s face:a simple rectangular display, and the now-iconic scroll wheel, which physically moved whenyou spun it
Ive intended the iPod’s “shockingly neutral”white and stainless steel case to set it apart from a world of black and dark gray portabledigital gadgets
The iPod would have no removable battery door,no on/off switch, and no screws
Apple would seal the iPod’s inner technologicalaway from the prying hands of the user, silently conveying a simple message: it just works
So much about the iPod was new for Apple
Coming from a company accustomed to sellingcomputers, Apple wasn’t quite sure how to sell a consumer music gadget, which undoubtedlywould be aimed at a different audience than the Mac
Even the label on the iPod’s box demandedspecial consideration for Apple: as a consumer audio gadget, the iPod had to comply withdifferent trade laws regarding warning labels than those for the Mac
To help with those tasks, Apple brought inoutside experts who would assist in crafting the initial iPod marketing campaign
One of those experts, a freelance copywriternamed Vinnie Chieco, gave the iPod its name
In response to Steve Jobs’ digital hub strategy,Chieco began brainstorming about what interfaces with a hub
Chieco imagined a spaceship as being the ultimatehub from which a smaller craft, a pod, could come and go
Kind’ve like the “Shuttlepod” in StarTrek
Better yet, iPod wasn’t descriptive of themusic player’s function, allowing the iPod’s capabilities to evolve over time without needinga name change
Steve Jobs liked it, and the name stuck
After considerable work, Apple marketing managedto pull together a campaign that emphasized style and fashion over tech specs, which werefamiliar approaches for personal audio products
And it would turn out to be a winning strategy
After six months of hard work, the iPod beganto come together
The concentrated and well-organized effortsof Apple’s various iPod teams proved that they could finish the product in time, butone tragic event almost got in the way
September 11, 2001, took place during thefinal stretch of the iPod’s development
As the attacks unfolded, an Apple team carryingkey iPod prototypes from Taiwan landed on U
S
soil—just before the U
S
governmentshut down air travel nationwide
Amazingly, the iPod prototypes made it justin time
The tragic events of 9/11 motivated membersof the iPod project even further
Apple employees adopted a mindset that wascommon at the time: If they stopped performing their regular duties and creating productsthey loved, then that meant they were accepting defeat
Fadell says that the iPod group’s perseveringspirit proved essential in preventing a delay that would have resulted in Apple missingthe 2001 holiday season
The iPod team met their deadline, shippingthe first iPod in November 2001 and revolutionizing not only the MP3 player market, but the entireportable media player industry
So that is the history of the iPod, and ifyou want to vote for the next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe
Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you nexttime
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