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The iPod is long gone now, but it was the product that turned around Apple's fortunes, got PC users to take the Apple brand seriously, established Apple as a player in mobile devices, and went on to revolutionize the music industry and lay the groundwork for the iPhone. And it did all of that in a tiny window of time, from its introduction in the fall of 2001 to the rapid rise of the iPhone beginning in 2007.

Here are 25 things you might not know about how the iPod came to be, and its legacy.

1. Steve Jobs thought he missed his moment

(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty)

In the year before the iPod began development, Steve Jobs introduced a whole new concept in order to sell Macs: the "Digital Hub." The idea was that a proliferation of new gadgets — most notably digital cameras and digital video camcorders — worked best when connected to a computer, and that meant a Mac.…