15 years ago today Steve Jobs introduced the world to the iPod. If you’re an 80s baby then you remember having a Walkman, listening to the radio waiting for your favourite song to come on so that you could record it on tape, making mixtapes, getting excited when a new CD was released and losing your mind when the iPod came out.
The iPod could hold 1000 songs (a CD had about 20) and it changed the way we listened to music. iTunes became a thing and most of us said goodbye to Windows Music Player. You had to use iTunes to add songs to your iPod.
I was in my third year at Varsity when I got a pink iPod mini for Christmas. It was one of the best gifts ever and could hold over 4GB of music. Today most USB flash drives hold 8 or 16GB. 4GB for who?
I loved it so much that I used it to motivate me when I was out running, had it plugged into speakers when I was hanging out in my room, and even used it in my car.
I bought something that connected to the iPod and when you tuned in to a certain frequency you could play your iPod via the radio and car’s sound system. Road trip! (I think I paid about R400 for it all those years ago).
If this sounds weird, then clearly you are a youth of today.
My next iPod (and there was a next because the battery wouldn’t last 5 minutes on the old one after a few years), was a grey Nano. It was so slim and light. And if my memory serves me correctly, is still going strong today. The battery life is terrible, but if you want to plug it in to some speakers and rock out to some 2007 hits, its your go to guy.
After that I decided to splurge and bought myself a 64GB iPod Touch. I had it for about month. I liked listening to music in the bath (mistake 1, I know) and placed it on a towel next to the bath. For some reason the iPod Touch slipped off the towel into the bath.
I grabbed the iPod and tried to dry it. I placed it in rice for a few days and eventually took it to the iStore. It was dead to me. Till this day I still have it in my drawer and check up on it to see if it will turn on. I’m still waiting…
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When did you get your first iPod? What did you like about it? Do you still use an iPod? We’d love to hear from you so let us know in the comments below or on Twitter @TechGirlZA.
RIP: Apple stopped reporting on iPod sales in 2015.
