A walk through iTunes history
Recognize the software above? The brushed steel, the rounded buttons, the liquid digital-style display. If you said SoundJam, you're right. But if you said iTunes, you're right, too -- SoundJam is the app that Apple originally bought to turn into the multimedia/handheld software juggernaut we know today. This is the first (public) iteration of the software, as told in this interesting history of iTunes over at Mac|Life.
The program actually started as a Winamp-style (oh man, remember Winamp? Justin Frankel's now doing stuff with Reaper, which is the app artists will use to release their songs in Rock Band. But I digress...) media management application, and it's really interesting to see how it turned into a real keystone of Apple's media plans over the years, from the "Rip. Mix. Burn." idea to the home base for the iPhone, up into the current iTMS (complete with music, movies, TV shows and even audiobooks) and of course the game-changing App Store.
If you'd told the SoundJam guys that their software would one day revolutionize the music and smartphone industries, not to mention be at the center of a multimillion dollar software delivery system, they'd probably have told you to keep dreaming.
And we're only at version 9. Who knows what we'll see in the next ten years of iTunes?
