[leoc]

Yes, even if you exclude MP3s of commercially-recorded music as not really personal, it would be very hard to defend the proposition 'iMovie gave birth to the idea of "personal digital media"' or even 'iMovie first made "personal digital media" a reality'. Apple (and MS) had been trying to make consumer video editing a reality since at least 1991 and the launch of QuickTime (an awkward date if you want to centre everything around Jobs and/or NeXT). iMovie and the FireWire iMacs probably were an important step forward in making digital video editing into a mainstream and well-oiled consumer activity though.

[philwelch]

Quicktime circa 1991 was not really "personal digital media"-grade technology. It was pixelated, postage-stamp sized videos even on a 640 x 480 screen. It wasn't until 1998 and the Sorenson codec that Quicktime began to approach what we would recognize today as usable video.