History of the iPod

Today we’re going to explore how the very first iPod was developed, how it was almost cancelled before release, and how it caused an actual explosion on Apple’s campus.

Now Apple became involved with digital music in 1999, but before we get into that, I want to point out that Apple was a much different company back then. They’d just narrowly escaped bankruptcy and 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 anything else other than Mac computers and had no experience in creating handheld devices like MP3 players. So with Apple in this extremely stressful and tight financial position, you probably wouldn't expect them to take a big risk and essential bet part the company on a new category of device. But with Steve Jobs at the helm, that’s exactly what they did.