On January 10, 2001, Steve Jobs went on the stage at Macworld Expo in San Francisco and presented a new app that would change the course of Apple. iTunes would become Apple’s most important app, not only because it was the companion of the iPod that would be released later that year, but also because it would become the framework for all of the company’s future online stores. (Watch the original presentation: part 1, part 2.)
iTunes was far from the first app of its kind; during the presentation, Jobs showed a few competing music player apps, and said “We’re late to this party and we’re about to do a leapfrog.” Apple’s late catch-up would prove to be one of their best decisions.
Jobs explained the process of ripping and burning CDs, since, for many, this was new. He ripped a CD – the B 52s’ Time Capsule – then he imported a folder with 1,000 songs to his library. He then showed how to play music, how to sort the library, how to search for songs, and how to create a playlist; all of these were techniques that were new for most people.
Most important, iTunes was free.
Read the rest of the article on The Mac Security Blog.