Venturebeat:

Fifteen years ago today, on October 23, 2001, Apple cofounder and former chief executive Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod, nine months after Apple introduced the iTunes music software. Speaking at an event at Apple headquarters, Jobs was his confident self, showing how he thought he had what it would take to outdo other companies with its latest product.

“In this whole new digital music revolution, there is no market leader,” Jobs said. “There are small companies like Creative and Sonicblue, and then there’s some large companies like Sony that haven’t had a hit yet, they haven’t found the recipe. No one has really found the recipe yet for digital music. And we think not only can we find the recipe, but we think the Apple brand is going to be fantastic, because people trust the Apple brand to get their great digital electronics from.”

The 6.5oz iPod, Jobs said, could hold 1,000 songs at a 160,000 bitrate on its ultra-thin hard drive, with 20 minutes’ worth of skip protection, FireWire connectivity that could download songs from a CD in five to ten seconds, and 10 hours of playback. The price: $399.

Younger readers may not realize just how insanely cool the iPod was.