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. Early 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.
