19 years ago today, Bill Gates made an accurate prediction about the fate of the iPod

iPod was first introduced in October 2001, then quickly created a fever and became Apple's trump card in its mission to conquer the music player market.

iPod was first introduced in October 2001, then quickly created a fever and became Apple's trump card in its mission to conquer the music player market. The product's strengths lie in its easy-to-listen sound quality, simple but beautiful design, and extremely compact.

In 20 years on the market, undergoing many changes in design and features, the 7th generation iPod Touch is the last iPod model developed by Apple and launched in 2019. Apple officially stopped all production. iPod line in 2022, leaving behind fond memories of a revolutionary product that had a strong impact on the music and technology industries.

Today, it would be unreasonable for Apple to continue developing and selling the iPod. Simply because the technology giant is selling millions of iPhones every year, and this smartphone does everything the iPod can, and even better. However, 19 years ago, at the golden age of the iPod's development, when the world was still crazy about this technology toy, Microsoft founder Bill Gates once expressed a not very optimistic view. about Apple's future with their music player line. Gates believes that Apple will not be able to maintain the success of the iPod in a sustainable way.

19 years ago today, Bill Gates made an accurate prediction about the fate of the iPod Picture 1 19 years ago today, Bill Gates made an accurate prediction about the fate of the iPod Picture 1

Specifically, in an interview held on May 12, 2005, Bill Gates told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that Apple has achieved remarkable success with the iPod, but that success will not last forever. The head of Microsoft made the following statement, and believes that Apple will lose its position with the iPod, similar to the case of the Macintosh:

No matter how good Apple is, I don't believe the iPod's success can be sustainable in the long run. You can compare it with the computer industry: Apple used to be very strong in this field with the Macintosh and its graphical user interface - much like the iPod today - and then lost its position.

It's reasonable for Gates to say that the iPod was an unsustainable success. Mobile phones have entered the music industry and little by little, they have taken away the market share of compact music players. However, the former Microsoft executive did not anticipate that his assessment would quickly become so accurate because Apple launched its trump card, the first iPhone, in 2007. There's absolutely nothing like it and Google's Android platform doesn't exist either, making the iPhone a technological marvel in the mobile computing space.

While Apple continued to improve the iPhone, Microsoft fell behind with its Windows Phone operating system and decided to discontinue the project in 2015. Apple's Q2 2024 earnings report showed the company generating 90% revenue. 75 billion USD, of which iPhone contributed 50.6% of sales. Interestingly, at one time, iPods accounted for 45% of Apple's total revenue in a quarter.

In this case, the difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple is well aware that the iPod will not be a 'family' product for much longer and they need something completely different to disrupt the market . Thankfully, the Cupertino company has Steve Jobs, who worked tirelessly with his team of designers and engineers to come up with a product that completely changed the way we interact with our smartphones on a daily basis. .