There can be no doubting the impact that the iPod has had on not only the tech industry, but also on the western world. I suspect that the iPod, for example, is responsible for much of the increase in use of London Buses seen in recent years, since people now have something to listen to without the luxury of a car stereo. A video of the announcement of the original first generation iPod is on YouTube, and its quite nice just to look back occassionally and see where we’ve come.

I think the video goes some way to explaining why the iPod has been successful. Steve Jobs makes a big point in his keynote about Firewire; at the time USB 1.1 was still in use, and Firewire was and is far superior to that. Firewire was Apple’s invention, and was thus found on all Macs, but not many PCs. Once USB 2.0 came along, rather than cling to Firewire, they moved on, making the iPod appeal to more users. It’s just a small detail, but I think the whole idea of adapting and not being determined to stay on one line of thinking probably played an important part in getting Apple to the top of the MP3 player market and keeping them there. That and keeping people locked into their system through the iPod/iTunes vicious circle, a method not mentioned in this keynote!

[via Digg, but different YouTube clip so that I could embed it]