The iPod turns 15: Let’s take a moment to remember it

Happy 15th birthday, iPod!

The portable music player unveiled by Apple co-founder Ste🌜ve Jobs on Oct. 23, 2001, changed everything — the way people listened to and bought music and even how they thought of the Cupertino, Calif., company.

It’s hard to imagine toℱday, but the first-generation iPod featured just a 5GB hard drive — enough to hold ꦓ1,000 songs — and a physical scroll wheel. It cost $399.

It was also an ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚinstant hit. In less than two years, Apple sold its millionth iPod. Roughly one year later, sales hit 10 🅰million units.

In January 2007, Apple reported sales in its first fiscal quarter of $7.1 billion — and 48 percent of reve🤪nue came from the iPod. It would never be as important a gadget for Apple again.

In April 2007, total Apple iPod sales hit 100 million. Finally, in September 2009, while the gadg🉐et had been in decline 🍬for years, the company said total sales passed 220 million units.

With the iPhone having long taken the place of the iPod as Apple’s profit engine, the company annou🌄nced in January that it would stop reporting iPod sales.

While yo💞u can still buy a꧙n iPod, the gadget lost its prominent screen-top click-through bug years ago.

The iPod Touch, 🦩the top-of-the-line model now in its sixth generation, is available in sizes up to 128GB — more than 25 times the storage of the original. Its price: $379, twenty bucks cheaper than the original.

Apple also sells an iPod Nano and iPod shuffle.

Apple’s iTunes music software, introduced with the iPod, however, is still going strong — although music lovers mo⛄re often stream their songs instead of downloading them.