Last week, I drove down to Cupertino to attend a press conference at Apple, although no one from the company would tell me why I was going or what I would see when I got there. All I had was a cryptic piece of paper telling me that Apple was launching some sort of product that wasn't a computer.

I have to admit, the air of mystery surrounding the announcement was both annoying and intriguing. I picked up my badge and walked into Apple's town hall meeting room a little late. A scruffy Steve Jobs was already talking about the device, which we now know as the iPod, a portable MP3 player with a 5GB hard drive (see our First Take preview).

The iPod was the first Apple product that I've ever covered, and I was looking forward to seeing whether the company's employees were really as loyal to Jobs as I had heard. Sure enough, when a fellow journalist asked when the device would work with Windows, I got my wish: an Apple employee snorted with derision, as if to say, "Why on earth would we want to lower ourselves to selling to just anyone when we could pick the elite 4 percent of people that are Mac users?" (Jobs said that Apple would add Windows support at some point in the future, but not before the holiday season.)

I know that Mac-only compatibility is just one of the things that people will complain about in reference to this device. But the naysayers have it wrong, and I'll tell you why: The iPod is revolutionary in a number of ways, and its descendents will replace the PC.

To find out how the iPod is the next step in the digital revolution, read on.