That's... also what I'm saying, yes. I think we agree?
iPod was not successful because it was the only thing offering high storage capacity. It wasn't the only one. iPod was successful because it offered a touch wheel, iTunes, and Apple's brand recognition. As you point out, it also had very good build quality. None of these things have to do with some exceptional storage capacity.
Apple’s brand recognition wasn’t anything special at the time. The iPod was essentially their first meaningful entry into consumer music. Compared with say Sony, they were nobody - a recently failing maker of outdated computers.
But compared to the brand recognition of Remote Solution? The Remote Solution Personal Jukebox beat iPod to the punch by 2 years on offering a high capacity 5GB portable MP3 player, but it was not some runaway success. Apple's brand recognition was far higher than Remote Solution, which certainly was a factor in helping iPod to succeed where Personal Jukebox did not. (Not the only factor, of course, but one factor.)
Apple's brand may not have been as good as Sony in the music space, but Apple was still a very well-known brand, even if they were struggling at the time.
As has been said elsewhere - it didn’t beat apple to anything because it was giant, had a poor UI and no meaningful companion software. It was a prototype that wasn’t ready for the market. Nothing more.
Comparing the iPod to junk that happens to match on one spec or another tells us nothing.
Elsewhere... as in the comment that I replied to? Which you then replied to me?
I was literally in agreement with the "elsewhere" that you're referring to. Your comments are confusing to me. Storage capacity was not the thing that made iPod successful, even though the anecdote at the top of this thread is trying to make that argument. There were a number of other factors that were more important. That's what I said and that's what the "elsewhere" also appears to have said. That's exactly what you just said too, so you're literally agreeing with me, but you want to argue for some reason.
Still, "Apple" was a much better brand than {someone no one has ever heard of}, which matters for something like the Personal Jukebox.
> Now imagine it the other way around - if apple had released the jukebox, and ‘remote solution’ had released the iPod.
They probably would have both failed, in that case. Apple for delivering a product that wasn't good enough, and Personal Solutions for having no brand recognition and no retail partnerships/network.
> Startups with no brand succeed all the time, if they have a great product.
Launching a physical product back then wasn't as easy as launching a Kickstarter and eventually transitioning to an Amazon listing. Just having a good product didn't mean you knew how to get it into the hands of customers. Things are much easier these days, and even so... lots of good products still fail to reach market for reasons that have nothing to do with the product itself.
iPod was not successful because it was the only thing offering high storage capacity. It wasn't the only one. iPod was successful because it offered a touch wheel, iTunes, and Apple's brand recognition. As you point out, it also had very good build quality. None of these things have to do with some exceptional storage capacity.