Nerve Endings Firing Away

Consider the iPod. It debuted in the fall of 2001 as a Mac-only, FireWire-only $399 digital audio player with a tiny black-and-white display and 5 GB hard disk. The iTunes Store didn’t exist until April 2003. The Windows version of iTunes didn’t appear until October 2003—two years after the iPod debuted! Two years before it truly supported Windows! Think about that. If Apple released an iPod today that sold only as many units as the iPod sold in 2002, that product would be considered an enormous flop.

[Source: Macworld] In describing Apple’s style in innovating and developing consumer products, John Gruber highlights this fact of prematurely dismissing the success or lack thereof of any product. Of course, it doesn’t mean that any product launched by Apple will be a roaring success (pssst, Apple TV) but it might be worth it to wait a while before having a Nomad moment. Real-world consumers have this uncanny ability of making any pundit eat crow.