| iPod is a digital mp3 / mp4 player developed | | | | Hold button is provided for accidental button |
| and marketed by Apple Inc., an American | | | | pressing prevention, and it can reset the |
| consumer electronics multinational | | | | iPod if it has frozen or crashed. Functions |
| corporation. During their research, Apple | | | | such as volume control, scrolling are handled |
| found that in comparison to available | | | | by the usage of the rotational click wheel. |
| camcorders, digital cameras, and organizers; | | | | Later models have some minor changes in the |
| digital music players recorded poor sales, | | | | functions of the buttons but overall the |
| primarily due to their awful user interfaces. | | | | number of buttons has remained at five. |
| Apple wanted to do something about it and so | | | | |
| Jon Rubinstein, Apple's hardware engineering | | | | To market this path-breaking mp3 / mp4 |
| chief brought together a team comprising of | | | | player, they needed a suitable futuristic |
| Tony Fadell (who dreamed of a hard disk based | | | | name and so they hired a freelance |
| music player), Michael Dhuey (hardware | | | | copywriter, Vinnie Chieco, and other writers |
| engineer), Jonathan Ive (design engineer), | | | | to give a name. Inspired by the movie 2001: |
| and Stan Ng (marketing manager). In less | | | | A Space Odyssey and the dialogue "Open the |
| than a year, they designed a hard disk based | | | | pod bay door, Hal!" with reference to the |
| music player, that had a 5 GB hard drive and | | | | context of the Discovery One spaceship and |
| capable of storing 1000 songs. | | | | its white EVA Pods, Vinnie Chieco proposed |
| | | | the name of the product as iPod. The |
| Apple's iTunes software is utilized to | | | | management of Apple accepted the proposed |
| operate the iPod (m3 / mp4 player). The | | | | name and on 23 October 2001, the iPod was |
| software is compatible with all Mac systems. | | | | officially launched. The rest they say is |
| The operating system is stored on its hard | | | | history. |
| disk. A boot loader program is contained in | | | | |
| a NOR flash ROM chip (either 1 MB or 512 KB) | | | | To enable customers to access songs of their |
| which instructs the device to load the | | | | choice, Apple opened up an online media store |
| operating system from the hard disk. The | | | | The iTunes Store on 29 April 2003, where |
| iPod has a 32 MB of RAM, a portion of which | | | | individual songs could be downloaded at |
| is used to hold the operating system from | | | | prices less than a U.S. dollar per song. The |
| firmware, and the rest is used to cache songs | | | | purchased songs can be played only on iPods. |
| from the hard disk. Apple also invented a | | | | Subsequent versions of this iPod (mp3 / mp4 |
| technology whereby the hard disk of iPod | | | | player) also featured video capabilities, and |
| could spin up once and about 30 MB of | | | | thus iTunes Store started selling short |
| upcoming songs could be cached into the RAM. | | | | videos from 12 October 2005. From 12 |
| This did not require the hard disk to spin up | | | | September 2006, full-length movies were also |
| for every song and thereby saved battery | | | | available at the iTunes Store.iPods have come |
| power. Apple also introduced a Windows | | | | a long way from their inception, and now the |
| version of iPod, at a later stage. | | | | latest fifth generation iPods possess |
| | | | multimedia capabilities and are available in |
| The audio files that iPod (mp3 / mp4 player) | | | | both Mac OS and Windows OS versions. |
| supports are MP3, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, | | | | Usually, if a new iPod is plugged into a Mac |
| AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple | | | | OS computer, then the hard disk of this mp3 / |
| Lossless audio file formats. MIDI and WMA | | | | mp4 player is formatted as per the HFS+ file |
| files can be played only after a convertor | | | | format, and if it plugged into a Windows OS |
| accomplishes conversion, for non-Digital | | | | computer, it is formatted as per the FAT32 |
| Rights Management (DRM). Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, | | | | file format. From being a digital music |
| and other open-source audio formats are not | | | | player, the iPod has now transformed into a |
| supported at all. | | | | digital media player. |
| | | | |
| Apple wanted an extremely user friendly | | | | Roberto Sedycias IT Consultant |
| interface and thus adopted the minimalist | | | | |
| interface, which features only five essential | | | | This article is under GNU FDL license and can |
| buttons, namely, Menu (to access functions | | | | be distributed without any previous |
| and to toggle the backlight); Center (for | | | | authorization from the author. However the |
| menu item selection); Play/ Pause (this also | | | | author´s name and all the URL´s (links) |
| works as an off switch when held for few | | | | mentioned in the article and biography must |
| seconds); Skip Forward/ Fast Forward; and | | | | be kept. |
| Skip Backwards/ Fast Reverse. An additional | | | | |