Who built the MP3 player that beat Apple by three years?
The first mass-produced portable MP3 player came from SaeHan Information Systems, a South Korean company almost nobody in the United States had heard of. The MPMan went on public display at the CeBIT trade show in Hannover on March 10, 1998, and Eiger Labs imported it to North America as the MPMan F10 for around $250 with 32MB of memory.
32MB held roughly a dozen songs, depending on the bitrate you encoded at. There was no store, no sync software worth the name, and no way to fill it that did not involve a cable and a lot of patience. It worked, and it proved the category could exist.
Apple announced the iPod on October 23, 2001, three years and seven months later. Steve Jobs never claimed to have invented the portable music player. He claimed something narrower and, as it turned out, far more defensible. "Apple has invented a whole new category of digital music player that lets you put your entire music collection in your pocket," he said in the company's launch release that day. The category he meant was the one where the whole library came with you.
Why did the Diamond Rio matter more than the MPMan?
Diamond Multimedia shipped the Rio PMP300 on September 15, 1998, six months after the MPMan, at $200 with the same 32MB of flash memory. It is the player Americans actually saw in stores, and the one the record industry decided to kill.
The Recording Industry Association of America sued, arguing the Rio broke the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 because it carried no copy-management system. The Ninth Circuit decided the case on June 15, 1999, ruled against the RIAA, and treated what the Rio did as space-shifting: moving files a listener already owned from a hard drive into a pocket. That ruling is why every MP3 player sold in the United States afterward was legal, the iPod included.
Diamond won the case and lost the market. The Rio proved demand without solving the part that actually hurt, which was getting music onto the device. A second wave of hard-drive players followed, led by the Creative Nomad Jukebox in 2000, and they did not solve it either. They held more songs and were still miserable to load.
What did the 2001 iPod actually do better?
The first iPod went on sale on November 10, 2001 at $399 for 5GB in a 6.5-ounce case, and it was Mac only. Apple described it as up to 1,000 CD-quality songs in an ultra-portable design. Three things separated it from everything on the shelf beside it.
The first was the hard drive. 5GB was more than 150 times the Rio's 32MB, which turned the product from a playlist you curated before leaving the house into your entire collection. The second was FireWire. Filling a library over the connections rivals used took hours; the iPod did it in minutes.
The third was the scroll wheel, and it is the one people still bring up. Rivals gave you a directional pad and asked you to click through a thousand songs one at a time. Apple gave you a wheel that got faster the longer you spun it. It was a small thing you did dozens of times a day, and it was the difference between a gadget you tolerated and one you reached for. The Sony Discman it replaced never had that problem, because it only ever held one album.
How did iTunes and Windows support decide the fight?
On July 17, 2002 Apple shipped the second-generation iPod at $399 for 10GB and $499 for 20GB, and for the first time it worked with Windows, bundled with MusicMatch Jukebox rather than iTunes. Windows ran the overwhelming majority of home computers in 2002. Until that day the iPod could only sell to Mac owners, a small slice of the market.
The second move was the store. Apple opened the iTunes Music Store on April 28, 2003 with more than 200,000 songs at 99 cents each and no subscription. Jobs sold it on ownership rather than rental, promising buyers "the revolutionary rights to burn an unlimited number of CDs for personal use and to put music on an unlimited number of iPods". Apple said it sold a million tracks in the first five days.
That combination is the whole answer to why the iPod won. Napster had already proved people wanted digital music, and nobody had yet made paying for it easier than not paying for it. Apple did, and it owned the hardware the music played on. The next year it pushed further down the price list with the iPod mini, announced on January 6, 2004 at $249 for 4GB and the first iPod to use the click wheel.
Is the iPod still made in 2026?
No. Apple discontinued the iPod on May 10, 2022, when it stopped building the seventh-generation iPod touch, the last model standing. There is no iPod in the Apple Store in 2026, and Apple has announced no successor.
The line came apart one model at a time. The iPod classic, the hard-drive model with the click wheel, was dropped in 2014 after the 1.8-inch drives it depended on went out of production and Apple said the parts were no longer available anywhere. The iPod nano and the iPod shuffle, both introduced in 2005, were discontinued together on July 27, 2017. That left the touch alone for five years, unchanged since 2019.
Apple framed the ending as absorption rather than retreat. "Today, the spirit of iPod lives on," said Greg Joswiak, Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, in the company's May 2022 announcement, pointing at the iPhone, the Apple Watch and HomePod. He had a point in the narrow sense, because the iPhone that finished the iPod shipped with an iPod app on its home screen. Microsoft's Zune never got close enough to matter, and Apple's own phone did the job instead.
Where to find one today
Apple has not sold an iPod since 2022, so the second-hand market is the only route. In 2026 a working iPod classic from the fifth to seventh generation typically runs about $80 to $250 depending on capacity and condition, while a clean first-generation unit from 2001 sits closer to $200 to $500, and more with the original box and cable. Sealed and special-edition units go far higher and belong to collectors rather than listeners.
Before paying, check that the battery has been replaced and that the click wheel responds all the way around. Sellers who refurbish these for a living usually list what they swapped. Rebuilt and modified units, including iPods fitted with flash storage in place of the original hard drive, are sold by independent sellers on Etsy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the first MP3 player ever made?
The first mass-produced portable MP3 player was the MPMan, built by SaeHan Information Systems of South Korea and shown at the CeBIT trade show in March 1998. Eiger Labs sold it in North America as the MPMan F10 for around $250 with 32MB of storage. The Diamond Rio PMP300, which arrived on September 15, 1998 at $200, was the first MP3 player to sell in volume in the United States.
When did Apple stop making the iPod?
Apple discontinued the iPod on May 10, 2022, when it ended production of the seventh-generation iPod touch. The iPod classic had already been dropped in 2014, and the iPod nano and iPod shuffle went in July 2017. Apple has not sold a new iPod since 2022 and has named no replacement for it.
How much did the first iPod cost in 2001?
The first iPod cost $399 when it went on sale on November 10, 2001, with a 5GB hard drive and Mac-only support. Apple advertised it as holding up to 1,000 CD-quality songs. Windows support arrived with the second-generation iPod on July 17, 2002, priced at $399 for 10GB and $499 for 20GB.