Apple began selling the first iPod, a $399 device holding 1,000 songs on a 5GB hard drive, following Steve Jobs's announcement two weeks earlier. Though initially compatible only with Macintosh computers and dismissed by some critics as overpriced, the device and its successors reshaped how the world purchased and consumed music within a decade.
Steve Jobs had unveiled the iPod on October 23, but Apple began shipping and selling units to customers on November 10, 2001—though early press coverage and initial retail rollout in some markets began circulating around this period as Apple ramped production. The device was engineering hardware wrapped in minimalist white plastic: a 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive, a scroll wheel designed by Tony Fadell's team, and a battery good for about ten hours.
Skeptics mocked the price and the Mac-only limitation—Slashdot commenters famously derided it as overpriced and underwhelming. But the device's true revolution came in 2003 with the Windows-compatible iPod and the iTunes Music Store, which offered legal 99-cent downloads at a moment when Napster-era piracy had gutted label revenues.
Within six years Apple had sold over 100 million iPods, restructured its own identity from a niche computer maker into a consumer electronics and media juggernaut, and set the stage for the iPhone. The compact wheel-and-screen design became one of the most recognizable consumer objects of the early 2000s, a symbol of the shift from physical media to digital, on-demand culture.