iPod - an overview
Launched in October 2001, ipod is an extension to the brand of portable media players. It is designed and marketed by Apple. The marketing line up comprised iPod classic, the original style hard drive based, iPod touch, the mid level iPod nano and low end iPod Shuffle. iPod nano replaced the compact iPod mini. Along with being a media player the iPod also serves as an external storage device.
To transfer music to the iPod, iTunes software could be used. This software has also been launched by Apple. It is a juke box application and stores music library on the users laptop or computer and plays and rips music from a CD also. This software can also be used to transfer photos, games etc to those iPod models which support such features.
The focus on the development of iPod was the ease of use and its unique user interface rather than on the technical capabilities. iPod sold over 110 million units all over the world, as of September 2007, making it the best selling digital audio player in the history.
iPod is an discovery as a part of the company’s digital hub strategy, which was to create software for the growing market of digital devices. The company during the extension of this strategy found that the existing digital music player to be chunky or useless with awfully bad user interface, therefore Apple decided to develop its own digital music players. A team of engineers were assembled under the head Jon Rubinstein and the product was launched in less than a year with the tag line “1000 songs in your pocket.”
Contrary to the usual, Apple did not develop the software for the iPod entirely in house. It entered into a venture with another company Pixo to implement and design the user interface. With every model of the iPod launched it only got better.
Filed under: Ipod
