The iPod clicked so the iPhone could scroll — why Apple wouldn't be the same without it

I can't say I noticed when Apple released the very first iPod. I was 10 years old at the time, had no real understanding of what tech companies were, and it would take a couple of years before iPods were widespread enough that all the rich kids started bringing them into school to show off.

Looking back at this almost 26 years later, and doing the job I do, it's a little funny how little my younger self knew or cared about what was going on in Silicon Valley at the time. But with the benefit of hindsight, it's crazy to think about how much of an impact that one product had on the entire tech sector.

Without the iPod being the spectacular success that it was, with an estimated 450 million units sold, would we have even had the iPhone? I'm not so sure that we would, and any eventual Apple cell phone would likely be a lot different.

The iPod helped pave the way for iPhone dominance

If you go back and look at the iPod and how the device evolved over the course of its pre-iPhone existence, there are a lot of similarities between the two types of devices. Both are, at their core, portable entertainment devices with a strong ecosystem of Apple-made software around them.

Would the iPhone even exist without the iPod, though? Expert opinion is surprisingly divided on the topic.

Avi Greengart, founder and lead analyst at Techsponential, believes that the iPhone would have still happened. Things likely would have slowed down, due to lower consumer acceptance and reduced R&D budgets, but a failed iPod "would have had no impact on Apple’s eventual decision to build a smartphone. Computing was going mobile, and Apple was going to participate regardless."

Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of client devices at IDC, believes that it would have been unlikely. Jeronimo points out that Apple was still a fragile company at the time and was heavily reliant on the Mac. However, he did agree that Steve Jobs noticed the shift towards mobile computing and beyond the PC at the time. But "without the iPod success," Jeronimo said, "Apple would have lacked the financial muscle and the operational maturity to take on the complexity of the mobile industry."

Greengart notes that there are some rather large differences between the iPhone and iPod, especially since Apple was originally interested in tablet computers rather than smartphones. The iPod Touch was a result of iPhone development, rather than the other way around. Aside from Apple's learned experience in the supply chain and building smaller electronics at a large scale, Greengart believes that the eventual iPhone technology was totally separate from Apple's "tethered music player with a click wheel."

Jeronimo is a little more optimistic, noting that the iPod helped establish Apple's approach to integrating software, hardware and services into one package. "It demonstrated how to pair a device with a digital platform, in this case iTunes, to create ongoing engagement and revenue. This model carried directly into the iPhone with the App Store and later into services more broadly."

So while iPhone development is what caused a radical shift in iPod development, the success of Apple's music player directly put it in a position to launch the iPhone when it did. Which, in turn, helped reshape Apple into the company we know today. Let me explain.

The iPhone changed Apple and the mobile industry

The iPhone has been, without a doubt, an unparalleled success for Apple. Even now, almost 20 years after the launch of the first model, Apple's smartphones make up more than 50% of its revenue. In Q1 2026 alone, Apple's net sales revenue was $143.7 billion, with iPhone sales accounting for $85.2 billion. Needless to say, the iPhone is a pretty important part of Apple's annual lineup.

Without it, both Jeronimo and Greengart agree that Apple likely wouldn't be the industry titan that we know today. Greengart notes that Apple definitely would have been successful in the PC market, at least for a time, but would lack many of the recent advancements that have helped reinvigorate the Mac lineup.

Jeronimo believes Apple would have stayed a smaller and more niche company that specialized in personal computing. This version of Apple would likely still excel in design and software, but would lack the same level of market influence we've come to expect.

Without the iPhone there would be no App Store, no Apple Silicon, no Apple Watch and likely no AirPods. Presumably, without that flagship product to help drive sales, Apple would also be missing key services like iCloud, Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness Plus and so on. There may not even be Apple Music if the iPhone's lack of existence was due to the iPod's failure.

Both Greengart and Jeronimo agree that the pre-iPhone mobile landscape was incredibly fragmented and dominated by poor user interfaces that lacked the level of consistency that people have since come to expect. Touchscreens were basically non-existent, and the mobile carriers were the ones that called most of the shots, especially where software distribution was concerned.

Apple was the upstart that pushed into the industry and forced things onto a different track, focused on software, touch control and an app ecosystem that was a lot more open and freely accessible by users. Yes, I'll freely admit that it is ironic that, back in 2008, Apple's App Store was freer and more open than the alternatives.

The analysts both believe that those changes would have happened eventually, but Apple accelerated the timeline and managed to push the entire industry in a single direction. In other words, Apple did such a good job right out of the gate with the iPhone, that the mobile industry had to start copying that playbook to stay relevant. And companies that tried to be different, like BlackBerry and Microsoft, couldn't keep up.

iPod to iPhone: The bottom line

In a world where iPhones and music streaming reign supreme, it's easy to forget just how important the iPod actually was to Apple. It may not have been a direct precursor to the iPhone from a hardware perspective, but without the initial success, it's unlikely that the iPhone that we all know would ever have existed.

We might have seen Apple make some kind of mobile computing push eventually, maybe in the tablet market. The timelines would have been a lot longer, though, and who knows what might have happened in those extra years. Not only did the iPod likely pay for the R&D necessary to produce an iPhone, it also helped form the early idea of Apple's ecosystem that has become one of Apple's trademark features.

Plus, language fans who know the etymology of the word podcast will know that it directly came from the word iPod. Without it, who knows where the entire podcasting industry might be today?

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