iPod

iPod is the worlds most popular portable digital music player and Apple has sold 15 million since it was launched in 2001. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers were flooding the markets, but digital music players weren’t user friendly, had very low capacity and didn’t have a good design until the iPod was created.
The main designer Jonathan Ives led the team (which included Jon Rubinstein, Anthony Fadell and Stan Ng) that was working on the iPod and the iMac when Apple was in trouble, but it was Steve Jobs who made the iPod marketable. Jobs was good at looking at technology and knowing what would sell.
“iWoz (Steve Wozniak) said the iPod has changed the world it was a new revolution is Music “Unlike other MP3 players that were coming out at the time, it had its own software that Apple designed (iTunes) and it treated your computer as the center of things. The computer, your main computer, is where all the music can really be stored. The iPod is really a satellite and that turned out to be the perfect way to do things.” (iWoz, by Steve Wozniak, page 298-299, 2006)
The early iPods, released in 2001 was the 1st generation. They were larger than a deck of cards and the mechanical scroll wheel physically turned. They had from 5-10 GB for $399-$499. The 2nd generation in 2002 had a touch sensitive wheel and the FireWire port had a cover. These were 10-20 GB and cost $399-$499. The 3rd generation in 2003 had a dock connector port that became standard for all future iPods and came with touch sensitive buttons. They were from 10GB-40GB and cost from $299-$499. The 4th generation in 2004 had buttons that were integrated into the click wheel. It would be hard to carry around 500, ten song CDs, but my 20GB iPod does this and it is slightly smaller than a deck of cards. Color display was introduced with a photo viewer. These were 20-60GB and cost $299-$500. In October 2005 the 5th generation was released and it had a slimmer design, larger screen with video player. It was introduced in white and for the first time in black. It has 30-80GB and cost $299-$399. The 2006 revision has brighter display, longer video battery life and a music search function.
The iPod can play MP3, AAC/M4A, protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, audiobooks, MPEG-4, purchased music, TV episodes, some TV movies and as of September 12, 2006 it can play full length movies, with prices ranging from $9.99-$14.99. http://en.wikipedia.org.
I think the future of this technology is here to stay because Apple designed it right and succeeded where other MP3 players did not. One of my issues with MP3 players is the fact that the user is tethered to the computer. This is one of the reasons I still favor mini disc. The mini disc also features an optical input. An optical input allows CD quality recording using a fiber optic cable .They are trying to catch up to the iPod, but in my opinion they will never match the iPod. We can now take music, photos and movies with you wherever you go all in your shirt pocket. Maybe in the future we will be able to download and watch on another TV source, they will improve battery life and have faster recharging abilities, have higher capacity memory and decreasing prices while improving technology. In my opinion, there are some things I think should be incorporated into future iPods like having upgrading ability for older models and the ability to record from any source. A voice command maybe a convenient future option.
Bill Gates doesn’t think the success of the iPod can continue in the long term, but Bill is the competition and he is also basing that on Apples previous business problems. If Apple is smart they will not make the same mistakes they made in the past with the computer business. Steve Wozniak felt that the reason they had past problems were because marketing ran the company not the engineers. In an ideal company the engineers would build what they loved then the marketers would market them. But Wozniak loves his iPod and is happy to see Apple doing well again.
Apple designed the hardware and software to work together and there is consistency which makes it compatible and user friendly. The amount of information you can carry around with you is astounding. The iPod is a good product with a bright future.