My first purchase from Apple was the sublime Macbook Titanium in 2001. Apple, back then, wasn’t popular, and the only people interested in their products were the Apple enthusiasts.
I remember that during the summer of 2001 there was hope amongst the enthusiasts that Steve Jobs was going to reveal a powerful new desktop - but when the reveal actually happened all he demonstrated was ‘a crappy, over-priced music player’.
Everyone lol’d at the iPod and its ludicrous price-tag - but I bought one as soon as the reveal was over because it was such a thing of beauty and also because the pure functionality of it was unlike anything else on the market. When the iPod finally arrived the reaction from my family and friends was the same each time - people would walk away for a half an hour with my iPod in hand and return beaming.
I agree that $5,000 is a lot of money - but I’d rather wait and see what Apple has actually come up with before I shoot this down. They’re capable of hitting it out of the park - it’s just that it’s been a while since that’s happened.
At the time, there were better cheaper MP3 players.
iPod was behind a walled garden iTunes too.
But it seemed to take off as people liked the white shell and U2 was hired to promote it all over the media. Even though they cost a lot, it still sold.
It was a weird thing because Apple always played the rebel card, but then hired in their TV ads the most mainstream music band in the world to promote it. And it worked.
Apple's entire success now can be tied to the tons of iPods they made bank on.
If only they weren't so stubborn in the 80s and 90s with their walled garden computers. It shows the Apple brand can work wonders if you open it up to the masses like iPod, iPhone, and have Macs with mainstream specs like Intel and Nvidia specs.
