iPod (3rd generation)

The third generation is the one that looks like a design exercise and behaved like one. Apple moved the four buttons off the wheel and into a row of touch-sensitive controls above it, glowing red, which looked wonderful in photographs and was harder to use in a pocket without looking. The body got thinner. It also lost FireWire for a new 30-pin dock connector, which is the connector every iPod and iPhone then used until 2012. iTunes for Windows arrived alongside it in October 2003, properly this time, and the iTunes Store opened to Windows users with it. That combination is what turned the iPod from a successful product into a phenomenon. Capacities ran to 40GB and the price started at $299.