HardwareZone's 10th Anniversary: The 2001 Refresh

Portable Media Players in 2001

Portable Media Players in 2001

• While Napster was facing the lawsuit that dramatically changed the face of online music distribution, Apple created a stirring presence with its iPod in the year 2001, making it a force to be reckoned with. Starting off with its 1st generation iPod Classic released on 23rd October 2001, the iPod brand came with 5GB worth of storage capacity (and 10GB at a later time) that caters up to thousands of tracks in the device. But what really brought the iPod out into the limelight is its design factor that was ahead of its time, creating a niche market amongst Apple users.

• Winamp and Windows Media Player were predominantly a Windows-based audio player for the PC, and with Apple, it also saw the inception of their very own audio player for the Macintosh platform, iTunes. Undoubtedly, the introduction of iTunes to synchronize with your iPod is one of the main features for the Apple user, but in time to come, the iTunes platform would play a big role with the iPod series.