Apple celebrates iTunes’ 10-year anniversary with a tuneful timeline

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of iTunes, Apple has put together an entertaining multimedia timeline of the digital music store.

The iTunes’ formal birthday isn’t until Sunday, but the timeline, which is called “A Decade of iTunes,” is online now in the music section of the store.

“A Decade of iTunes” shows milestones, including notable iPod releases, the top-selling songs and albums from each year of the store’s existence, and other bits of information, such as when iTunes sold its 1 billionth song (that was Feb. 23, 2006).

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Apple’s Eddy Cue, the executive in charge of overseeing iTunes, said the company created the iTunes Store back in 2003 because it believed users wanted an easy and legal way to download music from the Internet.

“Apple was floored, as were the labels, when customers bought over 1 million songs during the first week,” he said in a note to the media. “And now, 10 years later, we continue to be amazed by how much customers love the iTunes Store with more than 25 billion songs sold.”

Among the notable tidbits included in the timeline are the addition of The Beatles collection in November 2010, the release of the Special Edition black and red U2 iPod in October 2004 and the launch of the App Store with 500 apps during summer 2008.

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