The iPhone Duo arrives exactly 25 years after the iPod. How do they compare?
Macworld ·
Macworld Apple unveiled the first iPod on October 23, 2001, exactly a quarter-century ago. Our original reviewer said the device looked great, had a screen that was easy to read, featured navigation that was “the best I’ve ever seen,” and was “definitely” worth $399. But how well has it stood the test of time? Would anyone buy a first-gen iPod today? As a keepsake, a cool bit of vintage memorabilia? Absolutely, and at astonishingly high prices . But as a workhorse portable music player for everyday use? Not so much. Technology has progressed quite a long way in the past 25 years. To demonstrate this, here are a few interesting facts and figures to show how the iPod compares to the iPhone Duo, Apple’s latest handheld device (and music player, among other things). See if you’d be willing to make the tech-spec sacrifices necessary in order to enjoy this piece of history. Processing power The original iPod’s PortalPlayer PP5002 chip ran two 90MHz cores. Totally acceptable for 2001. The iPhone Duo, on the other hand, isn’t even Apple’s most powerful current mobile device. E arly reviews suggest the iPhone 18 Pro runs both a little quicker and a little cooler, but with a maximum CPU clock rate of 4.93GHz, its six-core A20 Pro chip is roughly 50 times as fast. The Duo also has 12GB of RAM, a mere 375 times as much as the iPod’s 32MB. It probably has a bit more processing muscle, on balance. Storage This is always a brutal comparison because storage hardware has plummeted in price over the years, while storage needs have skyrocketed. But here we go. The original iPod offered a maximum capacity of 10GB, enough (according to Apple’s marketing materials) to hold 2,000 songs. The iPhone Duo tops out at 2TB. That’s 200 times as much. Even the first iPod touch didn’t have a camera. Foundry Camera The iPhone Duo has actually come in for some mild criticism over its camera setup, which doesn’t include a telephoto lens. But it still boasts four separate lenses for various situations: 48MP wide and ultrawide as your main shooting option on the rear, 12MP on the cover, and a neat 4MP camera hidden beneath the display for FaceTime. The original iPod didn’t have any cameras at all. iPods wouldn’t get a still camera for another nine years, on the 4th-gen iPod touch. It had two of these, rated at 0.7MP and 0.3MP. Screen This could be painful. The original iPod’s display measured just 2 inches corner to corner, with a resolution of 160 x 128. (It was monochrome, of course.) The Duo has two full-color screens, inside and out; even the smaller of the two is vastly bigger and sharper, at 5.4 inches and 1398 x 2034 pixels. The outer display is 7.6 inches and 1878 x 2670: the same number of pixels as 245 iPod screens. But it does have a slight crease, so there’s that. Apple Water/dust resistance It was considered unwise to drop the original iPod in the bath. The device didn’t have an IP rating and was not water-resistant. The iPhone Duo, by contrast, has an IP rating of IP68, pretty much the highest rating you’ll see on a consumer tech product. That signifies that the device is dust-tight and capable of handling immersion in more than 1m of water. Dimensions & weight The original iPod measured roughly 102 x 62 x 19.8mm. It weighed 184g. (That’s 4 x 2.4 x 0.8 inches and 6.5oz, if you prefer imperial.) The Duo’s dimensions are a little more complicated because they depend on whether it’s folded or unfolded. In its more compact form, it measures 118 x 84 x 11.3 mm, so a little longer, a little wider, and close to half the thickness. And when unfolded, those differences become even more exaggerated: at 117.8 x 165 x 5.2 mm it offers far more real estate, most of which is screen, while being a quarter the thickness. The Duo’s weight is always the same: 254g, or 9oz. It’s a fair bit heavier than the iPod. Price The iPod started at $399 when it launched in 2001. That’s about $750 in 2026 money . But the Duo is way more expensive than even the inflation-adjusted figure, starting at an eye-watering $1,999. 25 years of progress For the price of a single iPhone Duo you could get a couple of original iPods (even adjusted for 25 years of inflation) and still have enough left to buy an Apple Watch or two. But there’s a reason why the Duo costs so much more. It has 200 times as much storage, 375 times as much RAM, 245 times as many pixels on just one of its screens, and the ability to perform a million times as many functions… including taking photos. And folding. But will the iPhone Duo become a cultural phenomenon, upending multiple industries and finding a place in millions of lives (not to mention numerous art galleries)? Only time will tell. Let’s revisit this discussion in another 25 years.