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Comment by timcederman | Hacker News Reader

It's funny. I've heard the whole "iPod made MP3 players usable" argument a few times and I don't buy it. iRiver made a batch of very nice MP3 players, which sold very well in Asia, and had more features and were just as user-friendly as the iPod, if not more so.

So what's the difference? You nailed it by mentioning the online store. iTunes was a unified interface backed by a large company with the ability to purchase new music. The iPods themselves, at first, weren't that special. I'm actually quite amazed with how nice the iPods have continued to get over the years, and with the new Nano they provide a compelling reason to continue buying a standalone music player.

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The original iPod predated even the flash-memory iRiver products by at least a year.

When the iPod was released its sole competitors were the Nomad Jukebox and the Compaq PJB-100 -- both of which were HUEG (2.5" hard drives), had shit for battery life, were made of the creakiest plastic, and took several minutes to boot up and index your files (due to not having an index (drag-and-drop has consequences!)).

As someone who owns a hard drive iRiver from when the original ipod was available (with clicky-wheel and all)... I'm not so sure about your statement.

I agree with Blasdel. Think about MP3 players back then and how awful the song management software was. They were afterthoughts and it showed.

The bad experience dealing with those programs negated any benefit from HAVING an MP3 player. I remember messing with my Nike/PSA's player and trying to load my songs onto it, and I simply gave up.

Apple figured out that iTunes needed to be as easy to use as the iPod. That was their win.

iPod launched in 2001 and by the end of 2002 it already dominated US market share. The music store was not launched until Q2 2003. Certainly the store helped Apple solidify their position, but the iPod stood on its own before that. You can argue whether it was design, usability or marketing (clearly all three had an impact), but you can't argue about the iPod's success even before the music store.

Wow, I didn't realise it was verboten here to say anything less than stellar about the iPod.

When the iPod first came out it was Mac only and very expensive. I knew plenty of people with MP3 players many years before getting an iPod. Saying they had "wrapped up" the market is pointless, since it was all early adopters at that stage.

When the iPod started to get REALLY popular (just prior to the Mini) and hit critical mass, there was plenty of good competition out there. So what made the difference for Apple? These original points. Not sure why I got downvoted to -2 for saying so. I thought we reserved downvotes for trolls, not dissenting opinion?

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