[Documentary] The iPod Revolution
From what I could research, on December 27, 2006, Discovery Channel aired the documentary “The iPod Revolution: Inside Story of the Apple iPod and Steve Jobs.”
This documentary is very well produced — in 40 minutes it summarizes Apple’s history from 1997 to 2006, covering almost a decade from Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, to the launch of the iPod and the huge success of the iTunes Music Store. And that’s only half the story since the iPhone would only be revealed in January 2007, which means the story is even bigger.
I always recommend researching this story because it’s very interesting and engaging. For more details, read the books:
- The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture, and Coolness — by Steven Levy.
- The Cult of the iPod — by Leander Kahney, who also appears in the documentary.
- iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business — by Jeffrey Young and William Simon.
Since I always show this video to my friends who get interested, I decided it was past time to subtitle it (not everyone I show it to is in the tech area, and English is a problem, but that’s another subject). If you’re interested in the subtitle file, I created a Gist with it. To subtitle I used Miyu. To render the subtitle on the video I used Submerge and finally uploaded it to my account on Blip.tv. Watch it below:
Of course, the video is the private property of Discovery Channel, which has all its rights reserved. This material should not be used for commercial purposes. It’s already available on several other sites, but if necessary I’ll take the video down. If by chance I do take it down, there are still other sources, for example, on YouTube:
- The iPod Revolution – Part One
- The iPod Revolution – Part Two
- The iPod Revolution – Part Three
- The iPod Revolution – Part Four
- The iPod Revolution – Part Five
But the story is much more interesting than that. I’ve already read and watched all available material on the subject since 1983. Searching, I found some pieces of this story on YouTube too, so here are more links to videos:
1983 — In this keynote, a young Steve Jobs, who had just turned Apple into a superpower, talks about his plans for a new computer to be launched in 1984. It’s an epic speech. And at the end he presents the most famous commercial in the world, 1984, which was directed by Ridley Scott and was shown only once during the following year’s Super Bowl.
Boston Macworld 1997 — Steve Jobs was banished from Apple in 1985 and returns more than 11 years later to a devastated Apple, losing $1 billion every year, with people like Michael Dell saying If I were Apple, I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders. He exposes the problems, explains Apple’s still-strong points, and lays out a strategy for how to get back up — totally contrary to all the “analysts.” I recommend it to anyone who cares about management: how to get up from a fall.
Macworld 1998 — A year after his return, Steve had already modified all of Apple and launches the first product that marks that reboot: the colorful iMac. It was a computer dedicated primarily to the nascent consumer internet market — remember, it’s still the beginning of the first internet bubble.
iPod Introduction 2001 — Excerpt from the presentation where Steve presents the iPod for the first time. It was a closed event inside Apple’s campus for invited journalists only. The first day of a revolution as none of those present could ever imagine.
iTunes Store Introduction 2003 — With software like Napster, Limewire, etc., allowing people to download music for free, how would you sell a system where you need to pay for music? This video demonstrates how Steve managed to do it. Remembering that the most important thing was how Steve managed to bend the Big 5 of the music industry into standardizing a single flat price for individual songs and albums, and also convinced artists to break up albums and sell individual songs.
“iPhone Introduction 2007” — This is genius. After 2 and a half years working in secret, with all the growing rumors about an iPod-phone, how Steve managed to redefine the smartphone market. Remembering a fundamental point: phone control was always with the carriers, but Steve negotiated an unprecedented contract with Cingular (today AT&T) where the phone remained under Apple’s control — meaning no pre-installed marketing apps on the phone and other things like that. This year the exclusivity contract with AT&T ended and they just announced the availability of the CDMA iPhone for Verizon’s potential 93 million customers!
“iPad Introduction 2009” — Here he reveals the iPad, which everyone said would be bad, wouldn’t catch on, wouldn’t be cool, etc., and today has become a sales record and elected product of the year.
“The Fall and Rise of Apple” — This is a summary of the story of the fall and how Apple got back up, in the general context of the market and its products:
And to close: in the documentary, Apple starts 1996 in terrible shape, losing $1 billion a year, with shares falling to $17 each. Now, at the close of the last quarter of 2010, it sold 16.24 million iPhones in that quarter alone, as well as 7.33 million iPads, 19.45 million iPods, and 4.13 million Macs. Repeating: in the quarter alone!
So far Apple has sold more than 14 million iPads since the launch, which was in April of last year! And Apple’s share price is now $340. Whoever bought in 1996 and held saw their capital grow almost 80 times in 15 years — this because Apple did share splits in 2000 and 2005 (via @cassiozen’s comment below). An excellent investment.