When Steve Jobs announced the iPod in 2001, he justified this decision in detail in his presentation. He presented all of the competitor’s offerings in the form of disc players and optical discs, pointing out that they were too large or heavy and had a dismal user experience. The iPod has become a compact and simple alternative capable of keeping “1,000 songs in our pocket”.
It may sound ridiculous now, but 20 years ago it was outrageous. And now that the iPod is gone, Apple can prove that his original intentions are more alive than ever: We continue to look for ways to play as many songs as possible in the easiest way possible and on devices that are as compact as possible.
From choice to self-choice, from music player to connected watch
2001: 1000 songs in your pocket.
2022: 90,000,000 songs on your wrist. pic.twitter.com/2KVyPoUT9K
— Javier Lacort (@jlacort) May 11, 2022
The first is the aspect of getting the music we want to hear. The iPod appeared two years before the iTunes Store, and so storing songs on it was entirely dependent on us scanning our music CDs and importing the songs in MP3 or AAC format. From there, we synced it to the iPod, and that was it (even Steve Jobs did it with the first press iPods). It was either that or download the MP3s unofficially, and so the message on the iPod packaging still appeared: “don’t steal the music“.
So we went from digitizing our CDs to being able to buy music online, on the iTunes Store. And from there to Apple Music in 2015, which urged us to stop collecting songs and just subscribe to Apple’s entire music catalog. Listening to what we had purchased or letting a service’s algorithms discover new artists and songs for us. In exchange for a monthly subscription, we can now forget all about organizing our favorite music and limit to ask Siri to play what we want.
The easiest way to access a list of songs in 2001 was the click wheel. In 2022 it’s Siri
And it’s Siri that now plays into this minimal interaction user experience. The HomePod mini can react to our commands in rooms where there is one nearby. And if we’re looking for an experience similar to what we had with the iPod, we have the Music app on our iPhones. The interface has changed and we may like it more or less, but the essence of this interface it still has little nods to what iPod firmware was before.
But while the iPhone is where we most remember how we used iPods, we also have to consider the Apple Watch. By combining this watch with the AirPods, we obtain a user experience that responds very well to what Apple was looking for: the maximum number of songs possible in a device as small as possible. And it’s perfectly done.
Silhouette 2003, equipment 2022. pic.twitter.com/m4bqDRH94D
— Basic Apple Guy (@BasicAppleGuy) May 5, 2022
The future: reducing effort is difficult, but not impossible
And then what comes next? Hard to think of ways to improve this experience. The fact that you now only need a connected Apple Watch and wireless headphones is already a huge step up from the original iPod of two decades ago.
Perhaps we could think of smart AirPods with an internet connection capable of managing Apple Music on their own, at the touch of our fingers or Siri commands. Although there will always be users looking for a graphical and visual interface, to be able to choose what they want to play more comfortably. It will depend on what we get used to.
Whatever happens, it looks like it will be governed by a subscription model and increasingly discreet devices. The best technology is the one that does its job while remaining unnoticed, after all. But there will always be that trace of the iPod as a memory, we will always have some remnant of what it was like to listen to our favorite songs twenty years ago.
Picture | Plural cartoons
