iTunes and iPhone, the birthday of two inventions that changed lifestyles

ROME – iTunes, perhaps the most popular software from Apple that changed the world in which we listen to songs and saved the world of music, turns 20. It was launched by Steve Jobs during MacWorld, the event that the Cupertino-based company organized every year to present new programs and devices, on January 9, 2001. An iconic date since six years later, January 9, 2007 again Jobs from that stage introduced the iPhone as “a phone five years ahead of any other.” Two products that have changed over time but that have traced a revolution in our lifestyles, made even more evident by the pandemic we are experiencing.

To make iTunes, Apple hired the developers who had created SoundJam MP, a program for Mac computers that let you organize music. Initially it was a simple software for listening to songs available only for computers with Mac OS 9 operating system. Over the years, the devices supported by iTunes increased: iPod, iPhone, iPad, macOS X operating system and even Windows (a real revolution in Apple’s market strategies, hitherto reluctant to share its programs with the Redmond company).

In 2003 the iTunes Store arrived, again thanks to an intuition of Steve Jobs who wanted to make the purchase of cannibalized music by piracy and Napster accessible to users. And it gave a big boost in terms of earnings to the music world. ITunes digital songs and the ability to create a music library spelled the end of CDs, in turn iTunes began to become obsolete with the arrival of streaming listening services such as Spotify. So much so that Apple has decided to shut down the platform in 2019, splitting it into three apps that offer three different stages for digital music, movies and podcasts (Apple Music, Apple TV and Apple Podcasts).

The iPhone, launched 14 years ago, has moved more and more to the world of online content and services – fundamental in these months of Covid. For the first time, it contained three functions in a single device (telephone, music player, Internet browsing), made the keyboard disappear in favor of the “touch” now familiar even to children, and paved the way for the world of apps, which became more profitable and more outlook than the iPhone itself which faces competition from so many phones in a saturated market.

In 2019 alone, the App Store ecosystem moved $ 519 billion in payments and sales worldwide. with mobile commerce apps in the lead. And the iOS app economy has created nearly 300,000 new jobs in the US alone since April 2019, opening up opportunities at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic continues to generate challenges and uncertainty around the world.