[Cthulhu_]

It was probably the fastest way at the time to build up their initial catalog quickly; for masters or the best quality recordings, they would need some way to get the music from the masters into the software, and I don't believe Apple had any good audio in ports.

I do recall at some point they had a headphone jack that also supported optical, but don't quote me on that.

Anyway, it would have been better if they had an app that accepted .wav files or something like that.

[toyg]

They could have easily hired a specialized company to receive masters and send them digitized versions. They weren't as ludicrously opulent as they are today, but they were still a pretty wealthy and profitable company.

But why pay, when you can get your own vendors to do it for free after a little song and dance by the Jobster? That's much more Apple.

[SyzygistSix]

Not even free. Vendors needed to purchase Apple hardware, did they not?

[rrdharan]

The iPod helped save Apple. IIRC it, even more than the iMac, helped return them to profitability.

[tentacleuno]

> I do recall at some point they had a headphone jack that also supported optical, but don't quote me on that.

They used to on the Macbook Pro laptops (I have one). Not sure if it's still a thing with the new Pro.

[relaxing]

They ditched the TOSLINK port for the 2016 models.