These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket that can stream and download music, but two decades ago, that wasn't the case. If you wanted to listen to your favorite songs on the go, you needed a dedicated music player.
At the turn of the millennium, these devices either used tens of megabytes of expensive flash memory or pocket-stretching and power-hungry 2.5-inch hard disks. Years before the iPhone, the iPod offered an unbeatable combination of storage size, compact dimensions, and software support, arguably starting a new journey that turned Apple into the company it is today.
Months before the iPod was launched, Apple released iTunes in January 2001, allowing users to transfer songs from a music CD into a Mac computer and create playlists. The real reason for its existence was revealed later that year.
The iPod was developed under the code name "P-68 Dulcimer." In typical Apple fashion, the secrecy around the project was so intense that even many Apple employees didn't know what the team was working on.
CEO Steve Jobs wanted to create a more appealing music player. Apple's head of hardware engineering, Jon Rubinstein, had met with Toshiba who had created a 1.8-inch hard disk that could still hold gigabytes of data.
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