How Tony Fadell made the iPod, convinced Steve Jobs to put it on Windows

Tony Fadell was one of the senior vice presidents at Apple most responsible for shipping the original iPod.

Why does Fadell think the iPod went on to be so successful?

Does Fadell wish he could go back and make any hardware changes to that original iPod?

A good minimal delightful product was important but so was iterating and expanding the line up and down.

They had to take some big risks and make some big bets on components.

Microsoft wasn't a concern back then (but is now), but Sony was. They owned the music pipeline from studio to Walkman.

But Sony was too concerned about protecting their music branch to let their devices branch compete in MP3 players.

Steve Jobs wasn't on board with a lot of the early decisions. Including letting iTunes and the iPod go to Windows PCs.

But the Wall Street Journal's personal technology columnist, Walt Mossberg, helped convince Jobs.

How did Fadell and his team get it all done?

Fadell left Apple shortly after the iPhone and went on to found Nest, which he sold to Google. He's now an investor. You can follow him on Twitter @tfadell

Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.