An iSkin Blast from the Past

The speed at which technology changes and improves never ceases to amaze me. In fact, I'm constantly reminded of it when I sit down to my computer at home - a 2005 17-inch iMac. Once a dazzling spectacle of size and beauty, it now sits dwarfed across the room from my girlfriends newer model that is larger, faster and sleeker.

After recently moving into a new apartment in Toronto, I was reminded once again when sorting through some boxes of "junk that I'll never use again but can't bring myself to throw away", and came across my very first iPod - one of the first of it's kind in fact, the First-Generation iPod 10G Scroll wheel from way back in the day of 2002.

As you can probably guess, it's been some time since I've used a first generation iPod and probably about as long since I've set eyes on one and was blown away by how dated it now looked! When I picked it up, it felt as thick as a Quarter Pounder with cheese in my hand and it occurred to me that it was both heavy and large enough to use as a blunt instrument to fend off an attacker.

Out of sheer curiosity at what songs I had on it's now laughably small 10 Gigabyte hard drive, I plugged it in and couldn't understand at first what I was seeing. Where's the album artwork? Where's any color for that matter? Did I just pull this out of a box of junk or unearth it along with some stone tools and arrowheads? Wait..No photos? No video? Just music?

I then thought about iSkin. Did our first cases for such Apple relics now look as dated as the devices themselves? This morning at work I managed to track down an old case for my first-gen iPod and The answer is yes. Want proof?  Check out the gallery below.  

iSkin was the first company to create a fashionable case for the iPod and as you can see, we've come a long way. Just like your dad's prom picture from highschool, what once was the cutting edge of cool soon becomes dated and forgotten until someone pulls it out of a box years later.