When Apple released the first iPod in late 2001, it flopped. The MP3 player was expensive, and it worked only with the Mac via a Firewire connection, which was both rare and weird. All of this limited its appeal. But I loved it.

“The iPod is a trendsetting product that Apple's competitors are destined to copy again and again,” I wrote of the review unit that Apple sent me that December. “The iPod is easily the most usable and elegant portable digital-audio player on the market.”