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Let’s take a trip down memory lane. It’s 2001, we’re not in space despite Stanley Kubrick’s efforts and a turtleneck-wearing, healthy Steve Jobs is announcing the very first iPod.
We didn’t quite know how big of an impact on, well, everything, that little box would have, but we wanted it anyway. Does the iPod still have that level of attraction in 2019? Well, one eBayer hopes so, as they have a mint-condition, still-sealed-in-box original iPod up for sale. The price for that nostalgia trip? Just shy of $20K.
Now, you can buy a pre-loved iPod classic 1st-gen for around $100, so what gives with the price tag? Sure, sealed tech from that era is pretty rare but is it worth that premium? Maybe to one of the big-name Apple collectors it will be, or maybe even to Apple itself.
The iPod went on to change the face of the music industry forever, possibly also helping kill off Napster and other illegal music sharing services
Without it, the iPhone might never have been created, removing the influence that it had on the mobile phone market. Would we still be using flip phones without the iPod’s influence? It also paved the way for all the current music streaming services, by getting consumers used to paying for digital media.
The 5GB storage on the 1st-gen iPod Classic that’s up for sale can hold about 1,000 mp3 files. There’s actually a small spinny HDD in there, as this was the time before Transcend made SSD storage cheap and plentiful in 2003. The mechanical scroll wheel was revolutionary on a small device at the time, showing a glimpse of what touch-based navigation could be. It was hell to rename tracks on though.
The mint-condition iPod classic would make a pretty cool museum piece, cause nobody’s going to pay $20K for a media player and actually use it, are they? Then again, with high-res DAPs costing upwards of $2K, maybe it will find a home where it’ll get listened to.
What do you think? Would you drop $20k on a brand new, original iPod? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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