Happy 10th birthday, iTunes!

“Apple’s iTunes application turned 10 years old on Sunday,” iPodNN reports. “First launched on January 9, 2001 some nine months ahead of the launch of the first iPod on October 23, 2001, the application has seen a number of major milestones as it has evolved over the past decade. First available as a Mac OS 9-only application for organizing people’s digital music collections, its functionality has expanded significantly.”

“It was in 2003 that Apple launched the iTunes Music Store with 200,000 songs at 99 cents each,” iPodNN reports. “Last year, the iTunes store achieved its 10 billionth song download, just after its ninth anniversary.”

iPodNN reports, “When one looks back at the milestones that iTunes has clocked up over the past decade, it is no coincidence that its arrival was critical in helping to kickstart Apple’s amazing comeback over the past decade under the guidance of its genius CEO Steve Jobs.”

Read more in the full article, which includes video of Apple CEO Steve Jobs introducing iTunes, here.