Kids react to Apple’s original iPod

Fine Brothers Entertainment has conducted another one of their “Kids React” videos.

This time they gave Apple’s very first, original iPod (which offered a massive 5GB of onboard, torque-inducing storage — we have 8GB on our wrists right now! — and featured a lovely low-res monochrome display with mechanical scroll wheel) to:

• Dominick, age 7
• Jenna, age 7
• Sydney, age 7
• Melanie, age 8
• Brooke-Monae, age 9
• Kelis, age 9
• Maxim, age 9
• Niki, age 9
• Isael, age 11
• Morgan A, age 12
• Dylan, age 1

Watch them react to Apple’s iconic device as they see it for the first time:

Direct link to video here.

MacDailyNews Take: So, how old do you feel?

Note how easily, without instruction, the kids figured out how to use it. Excellent work, Steve Jobs & Co.!

BTW: The way these kids react above will be similar to the way kids 10 years from now react when told that nobody wore Apple Watches before 2015. They’ll be incredulous.

In fact, Apple: That would be a great commercial. It’s the year 2025. Kids of the future, in the style of the video above, react incredulously to a Swatch watch, each with an Apple Watch 7 on their wrists, of course, comparing all they can do* to the anachronistic wristwatches of yore. “What, nobody had an Apple Watch? They used their iPhones for that? No way!!!”

*Today’s Apple Watch’s functions and features will be more than enough, no need for fanciful projections of future capabilities.

27 Comments

  1. And that is how long it takes to take your (fairly) recent experience and turn it into historical novelty for another generation.

    The music with which you grew up has shifted from cutting-edge to mainstream to classic to retro to old fashioned over the decades. The electronic life cycle is much briefer. The original iPod was quite amazing only fifteen years ago. And the iPhone, released only eight years ago, is already taken for granted as simply the way phones should work.

      1. They most likely don’t use computers but iPads.
        Directories, sub-directories, folders, files, file formats, size and date, plus supporting files to be used to create bigger documents are all concepts of the past when using iPad.
        Sadly, as for anything, we need to understand principles of the past to progress the future and better the things we have now. Meaning these kids will have to understand what was built on prior to iPad to create something better than it now.

  2. Their reactions are cute and, really, understandable. My son, who easily falls into the range of these, understands a touch screen far better than he does a mouse. He’s better with a mouse, but at home, he either has touch screens (iPads and iPhones) or trackpads (MacBook Air).

    So, at school, when he had to use a mouse, he wasn’t quite ready and held it like a 79 year-old grandmother might hold it. lol

    These kids are born into a seriously highly advanced technological age. Before the iPhone – Yes, Fandroid lurkers, BEFORE THE iPhone – there were NO GOOD TOUCHSCREEN devices anywhere. There were touch screens on some phones and some tablets, and they were as good and useful as ATM touchscreens.

    Sorry. I digress.

    I had the 10GB iPod, which may have still been considered 1st gen. Got a $700 bonus at work; treated myself to a $400 iPod. It’s a shame I didn’t keep it, ultimately. Loved it, though. That ability to listen to almost every piece of music I had, without making 1,000,000,000,000,000 CDs or tapes, based on my mood, was unprecedented at the time.

    Anyone who gets offended at how these kids react are either old or stupid or both. My mother had an 8-track player like it was the best thing ever. For its time, it may have been and, as much as I liked using it, it just didn’t compare to the ease-of-use of cassettes. What does that tell you?

  3. I’m getting a bit tired of all these videos, they’re all essentially the same. Kids don’t recognise something depending on how old it is, but often can figure it out depending on how similar it is to something now.

    1. Imagine a bowl design, not knowing if it’s designed to eat out of or to sit on and relieve oneself. And so, a rectangle box, with a digital lcd display is either a music player or is it a phone or is it a tablet or is it a wacom digitizer?

      The design principles of, Function following Form, or visa-versa no longer exist in this world of computing. Something to ponder over. Something perhaps we should not forget about. Something perhaps designers can later put back into design to better our experiences.

      The Children, do show they can figure how to work it eventually – yet – remember they have modern day reference to a device branded the same and in a similar form. The Children also, see the form closely a phone and are confused somewhat. Certainly, Ivy’s has simplified the form of these devices to their lowest possible shape; with style still, however the wonderful thing of yester-year devices was… a “thing” somewhat took the shape of how it was to be used or what it was for. Take the rotary dial, that has a visual key to be turned. It has holes in the dial to allow for your fingers to assist the turn; more so, to calculate the rotation entering the numeric value to send a signal. It has a microphone and speaker together on a handle. And in that handle, the measure is typical of the distance of ear to mouth for most people. Two forms to identify how a person is to use a phone. One part for the hand to enter a few numbers and the other part to hold up to a human head. All that may seems foolish and complicated… however, its all apart of ergonomics – or what I love to revert on as being the original Human Interface (HI) predating (UI). Yet those signs of design and human interface are disappearing in many technological items and engineers and developers all focus on the UI – merely the visual interaction. Maybe, one day (HI) will be totally obliterated from the process of design… as items become merely chips, imbedded into our brains and function through voice or thought – meaning no need for visual keys on how something might look and work.

      And so, that my friends is a rather sad thing. No different then the day we all use calculators and depend on electricity for everything. What happens the day when the power is unplugged? We stand on the shoulders of giants, yet we should never forget our past… how we got there and understand how things actually came about in all areas of human endeavours. Knowing the history of computing and how we got to iPad is important for these kids. Basics. tossing the basics out and just continuing shall never improve a thing.

  4. I still have mine and it works perfectly and is in excellent shape.

    I instantly realized how it would change the world. The next day I bought bought 1000 shares of APPL stock. I then took the money I had saved for my kids college education, which wasn’t a lot ($6800), and dumped it into AAPL stock.

    Best investment I ever made. My kids not only got got their college paid for, they also have some good seed money for their future. I still have my original investment plus I’ve added to it over the years. Made another big investment after the crash.

    Let’s just say I’m retiring earlier then most thanks to the “original” iPod.

  5. In 2025 people won’t be wearing watches, just like they don’t do now. Apple has a major turd on it’s hands, and it all stems from Tim “Ballmer” Cook’s incompetence.

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