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