January 9, 2001: Apple Sings a New Tune

Apple missed the beginning of the Napster-fueled, music-swapping craze that swept the nation. While other computer makers were selling computers with CD burners, the execs at Apple were sure that users would prefer to watch movies on their Macs. Hence Macs shipped with CD ROM/DVD drives.

The difference between earlier Apple omissions and the lack of CD burners was Apple's reaction to its mistake. Apple acquired the rights and the code to the most popular Mac mp3 playing program, SoundJam mp3 from Cassady and Greene, and began work on an Apple branded mp3 player and file management system. The new program was known as iTunes and was Apple’s first attempt to get with the mp3 swapping times.

iTunes 1.0 was OS 9 only, featured playlists, the cool visualizer and could import and burn CDs. Mac users were instantly enamored with iTunes and downloaded the program 275,000 times in the first week of its release. As popular as iTunes was, few could have imagined what it would become in later years when it was introduced on January 9, 2001.