"We have something really exciting for you today."

The world wasn’t watching when Steve Jobs took the stage 10 years ago with "the promise of unveiling a breakthrough digital device." There was no raucous applause break when he slid what he called the iPod out of his pocket, and none of the invited attendees hooted or hollered during the flawless demo.

And yet, Steve was like a kid on Christmas morning. He could have commanded an entire expo keynote with the unveiling of Apple’s first non-Mac device in nearly a decade, but he chose the intimate Town Hall, his energy and excitement making the room feel twice as big. His enthusiasm could barely be contained as he deftly built anticipation for a gadget so small no one noticed it hiding in his jeans:

“A thought occurred to us late last year. ... What if somebody built a device that could take advantage of knowing all about of those iApps and get a level of integration that no one’s ever achieved before?”

He went on to talk about how consumers “trust the Apple brand to get their great digital electronics” and how the “ultra-portable” iPod is “lighter than most of the cell phones that are in your pockets.” He demonstrated “a breakthrough in user interfaces” and how “Apple’s legendary ease of use” had been applied to a consumer electronics device. He played music, told jokes, watched with pride as some 220 songs loaded in just under 2 minutes. Boom.

The iPod was his baby, and he was giving it to us.

Steve might have known that most everyone would be wrong about the iPod, that it would one day spawn a generation of devices smart enough to talk back to you; that iTunes would become the iTunes Music Store, with a catalog of 20 billion songs, movies, books and TV shows; that Apple would ride a string of successes to battle Exxon as the most valuable company in the world.

What he didn’t know was how precious little time he had to do it.

On that day there were no signs of the disease that would ravage his body and force him to relinquish large portions of future keynotes to his executive team. The very thought of Apple without Steve at its helm was ludicrous--about as ludicrous as Apple transforming the music industry with a pocket-sized mp3 player.

But those in attendance can be forgiven for failing to see the iPod as more than a high-priced niche gadget that filled a limited need. No one in that room could have possibly grasped the enormity of what they had just seen. Except Steve.

“I don’t think there’s another company that could do this--to bring the hardware design, the industrial design, the application software design ... everything under one roof together to be able to create a product like this. It’s pretty amazing.”

There will surely be other breakthroughs by Apple. But none will be as unexpected and extraordinary as when we were introduced to the iPod, a portable digital music player that opened our minds and pockets to fantastic possibilities.