In the Fall of 2000, I was busy working on the forthcoming iDVD and the still unnamed, but coming soon, DVD Studio Pro. I certainly had plenty to keep me busy.
SoundJam – The best non-Apple MP3 player
But David, who ran product marketing for hardware, and was soon to take over that role for the new software division, asked me to pinch-hit on another project. He wanted me to expand and polish the initial product marketing briefing document for an application that the rumor site ‘AppleInsider’ thought would be called iMusic. The correct name, of course, was iTunes (although I didn’t know it by that name until a bit later.)
Apple had been searching for a fulltime product manager for this new product for a while, but still hadn’t found the perfect person, so David asked me to help. I had been slightly involved in helping him research available CD recording technology for possible inclusion with the Mac OS, so he was aware of my background in that area.
Perhaps more importantly, he knew I had already embraced the whole digital-music-on-computer-thing wholeheartedly. I had tried pretty much every CD-ripping tool, every MP3 encoder, and every player application out there, both Windows and Mac. I was already on my second portable MP3 player (a Rio 500), having outgrown my original Rio. I suppose I was the logical choice to fill in on the iTunes project.
A ‘product brief’ is a document created for use by the product marketing team as they begin to spread the information about a new product launch to the various departments within Apple. It contains detailed information about the products objectives, including features, functions, target markets, competition, launch dates, potential problems, expected demand, and much more. It also contains statements of the product’s strategy and key messages. When a new product moves towards its launch date, many diverse groups need to get involved: advertising, operations, support, events, sales, PR, and more. The product brief becomes is meant to answer all the questions that each group might have about a new product and get them started on their respective tasks. For example, before Apple’s brilliant advertising group can begin to create advertising concepts, they need to know the features and benefits of the product and how it relates to the competition. The product brief gives them this information, and much more.
In the case of iTunes, my task was to take the rough outline that had been created by someone else, identify what as missing, gather the required information and fill in the many gaps.
To come:
Checking out the competition
Describing the key features in ways that would be understandable to people who hadn’t used other MP3 player software, and explaining why some features that competitors had were not included in iTunes.
Key messages and features
The SoundJam factor
Oh it’s cool that you were working o few projects:)
yea that is awesome! wish you could post some NDA restricted PDFs of some of the original UI concepts.
Wow, perfect. Looking forward for your next post.
Could you tell how the people at Apple respond to those rumor websites? Thank you!
My thought is that it would be kinda nice having a world of free R & D !!! I mean most times, you guys knew more or less what people were going to think of a new product before it is even announced!!!
I echo Jan’s question, how much of Apple’s desicions for things like names, and looks comes from the rumor sites?
Thats so cool. I was a big soundjam user… and then the original iTunes. Does anyone have a copy of the original classic iTunes application?
Ah, I remember SoundJam! It was an elegant piece of software that didn’t crash often and was pretty to look at. I remember being disappointed at the time when Apple bought them out, but also happy for the guys involved.
The first day I ever booted up iTunes, I remember exclaiming, “Oh my God, it’s SoundJam!”