[Samuel_Michon]

You mean a compact music player with a 2.5" HDD, room for 5GB of music, with 20 minutes of skip protection, a FireWire port for 50MB per second transfer, a click wheel for navigation, and a user friendly interface?

Yes, that was pretty novel in 2002.

[msbarnett]

1.8" HD. All of the other MP3 players on the market until then had been using 2.5", which was why the iPod seemed so much smaller at launch.

[Samuel_Michon]

You're right! I remember it being one size smaller than the other HDD players at the time. I thought it was the 2.5" that had just come out, but it was 1.8".

[cma]

My iPaq had a 1.8" HD sleeve, played mp3s, and browed the web (with a different wifi sleeve..). Plus it had a sunlight readable display.

[coob]

And where is it now?

[Turing_Machine]

Yes, Apple is more about "making the first one that doesn't suck" than "making the first one".

[antidaily]

The first ipod kinda sucked.

[rbanffy]

Yeah... No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

[jfoutz]

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

[acangiano]

http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...

[zacharycohn]

I had an Archos before the iPod came out. A tiny bit bigger than the iPod would be, but a 30gb hard drive, usb 2.0, and a much better way to find music than a wheel.

[kenjackson]

Archos killed the iPod. The iPod was one of the first times I distinctly recall thinking that actual fashion (like Vogue magazine) could trump pragmatics and technology in the tech sector.

A lot of people try to compete against Apple in design. Wrong. Apple isn't doing design, as much as they're doing fashion.

[polycom]

If they were doing fashion, they would change to a new look every year. Remember the disappointment when the iPhone 4S kept the iPhone 4 design? Apple doesn't care about fashion, they care about good design.

[BHSPitMonkey]

The first generations used what's called a touch wheel and buttons. The click wheel wasn't introduced until the 4th generation iPod.