Firewire only. First generation did not sync with Windows, though a later revision made it work using Music Match, which was an awful program to use.
Eventually we get a USB cable, but it cannot be used for charging, data transfer only.
It wasn't until 2003-2004 that the iPod actually became something most people could use.
It is however interesting to note that the device was effectively useless for the vast majority of techies unless they switched platforms. Which makes the poor reviews a bit more understandable, they couldn't use it even if they wanted to so it's a classic case of 'sour grapes'.
And switching at that time would have involved paying over the odds for a weird looking computer with non-x86 chips and a half-finished, Frankenstein OS. So as well as the standard not wanting to change and cost reasons there were plenty of perfectly sensible reasons to not switch to a Mac. Indeed if anything, that was clearly stupid. But I did it anyway.
That said, the original iPad was a far sharper vision than the original iPod. it's slowly becoming a dynabook, i think.
What about the iPhone? Launched as a 2G/2.5G (EDGE) only device, no copy & paste in the OS, no native third party applications, etc. Every iteration since then has added 'core' features that would be hard to live without now that we are used to them.
And this is stupid because?
> First generation did not sync with Windows, though a later revision made it work using Music Match, which was an awful program to use.
First generation wasn't intended to sync with Windows. For what it did it wasn't stupid at all.
And because Mac market share when the original iPod was released was very poor.
It was meant for Macs, which already had it, remember?
> And because Mac market share when the original iPod was released was very poor.
Still big enough to create a device to test waters on, and gradually enhance it. Which was kind of the point, remember?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Morris
Jobs cleverly made his pact with the record labels when iTunes worked only on Macs, which in 2002 had a personal-computing market share in the low single digits. Apple's humble position - before iTunes became compatible with Windows, expanding its potential market share to nearly all PCs - was a virtue. This made iTunes an experiment rather than a destructive paradigm shift. "I don't understand how Apple could ruin the record business in one year on Mac," said Doug Morris, the head of Universal Music, according to Appetite for Self-Destruction, a new book about the record industry's ills by Rolling Stone writer Steve Knopper. "Why shouldn't we try this?"
You could be right, but honestly I didn't want to take your position for fear of putting Steve on too high of a pedestal - for it would strain credulity for someone to have had his impact on six industries without the application of strategic thinking.
It would be truly god-like to have stumbled into it all via mediocrity.
Yes, that is precisely my point.
Your original point was
"record labels only signed on because the market looked to be safely relegated to Macs. Little did they know that iTunes would be ported to Windows and FireWire would be supplemented with USB".
and he just told you that Record labels signed LATER when the market was no longer relegated to Mac, and USB iPods and iTunes for Windows already existed, i.e the opposite of your original point.
Your interpretation of his post seems to be that he was claiming that the record labels didn't sign on until after a USB iPod was released, and after iTunes became available for windows. But I have too much respect for ZeroGravitas to think that he was saying something that was not historically accurate.
Wikipedia says that the iTunes store was introduced April 29, 2003, and that the 3rd-generation iPods (the first with USB) were first available on April 28, 2003. Furthermore, iTunes for Windows was announced on October 16, 2003.
So when, in this timeline, do you think labels would have signed contracts allowing Apple to distribute their music? It would be incredible to think that they put pen to paper after the store was introduced, wouldn't it?