How Apple accidentally destroyed the record business — and why I wish we'd stuck with iPods

We're celebrating Apple's 50th birthday with a week of content about the tech giant. It covers everything from personal recollections from our writers to the greatest — and worst — Apple gadgets as voted by you, and you can read it all on our 50 years of Apple page.

In 2001, Apple completely changed music with three products: Macs with built-in SuperDrive CD burners; the iTunes music app; and the iPod. We didn't know it at the time, but those three products lit a fuse that would burn down the record business.

That used to be a very big business. In 2001 US consumers bought 762.8 million albums on vinyl, CD and tape. In 2025 that was just 82.2 million, a drop of almost 90%.

Apple didn't invent the CD drive for computers; that was Philips. It didn't invent iTunes; it ...