By: Steve Wermuth
Centurion Staff
When records were at their
peak, cassettes came into the
music industry and tried to
overtake the throne.
Shortly thereafter, compact
discs, or CDs, were introduced
and blew the competition out
of the water. Little did everybody
know that in a few short
years, files known as MP3s
would come around and obliterate
the sales of any other
music device.
iTunes was introduced in
January of 2001, but was
nowhere close to what we
know as iTunes now. The first
version was available to only
certain kind of computers, but
remember, Steve Jobs was
behind it; he had a plan.
Within years, the iTunes program
was available to every
computer, and nearly every
country on the planet. In April
of 2003, Apple officially
launched the iTunes online
music store, giving music
lovers access to countless
songs. Within one week,
iTunes sold 1 million songs.
iTunes changed music, plain
and simple. In fact, Steve Jobs
and the whole Apple corporation
changed music. Most of
you probably weren’t alive for
the time when our only source
of music was to carry around
cassette or cd players and we
could only listen to that one
album. When a little device
known as the iPod came into
existence, the music world
changed forever.
With this small device, people
could now store thousands
of songs, and have them all at
their fingertips. When it first
came out, the main question
everybody had was, “Do I even
know a thousand songs?”
Years later, as we look at our
iPods now, we see how funny
of a question that was. There
are people who have weeks’
worth of music on the tiny
device that almost everybody
loves…almost everybody.
“I don’t use my iPod or
iTunes or anything Apple really,”
says a laughing Brian
Pentz, a 20 year old travel and
event planning major from
Levittown. “Yeah, I have an
iTouch that I got when it first
came out, but when it comes to
music I generally depend on
internet radios like Slacker or
Pandora.”
Jeff Cadden, a 22-year-old
music major from Perkasie,
brought up a good point by
saying, “(Jobs) made it possible
to get (songs) without piracy.”
Cadden also mentioned
how the iPod stores an endless
amount of music, yet it fits in
your pocket. “I’ve lost countless
albums and cds,” says
Cadden, something that can’t
really happen with an iPod.
Sure, you can lose your iPod,
but at the end of the day, you
still have your iTunes account
on your computer.
Mike McMacken, a 27-yearold
from Washington Crossing,
talked a little bit about the
legacy Jobs left us and the
potential loss we are going to
have. “No-one will get to know
what the world will miss from
him,” says McMacken, a business
administration major, referencing
the amount of ideas
and products Jobs could have
potentially thought of in his
life.
Steve Jobs changed the
world; iTunes changed the
music world.