iPod

iPod is a brand of portable media players marketed by Apple. The iPod was launched in 2001 as an answer to the digital music players with complex user interfaces prevailing at that time. The iPod journey started with Appleís Hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein who bought together a team of engineers to design and engineer the first Apple iPod, in less than a year. It was launched in 2003 as a Mac-compatible product, with 5 GB hard drive that allowed users to store up to 1000 songs on the move.

Four generations of iPods have been released after the realise of the first iPod and the iPod has gone from playing songs to playing videos, photo slideshows, to anything that can fit on upgraded 20 GB to 80 GB of space. In 2002, the second generation was launched that featured two versions one for Mac users and the other for Windows users. The year 2003 saw the release of the third generation that included a single CD that had a Windows version of the Mac iTunes software along with the Mac one.

The fourth generation iPod got a little slimmer and included the Apple Click/Scroll Wheel with buttons integrated into the wheel and a colour screen. This touch sensitive wheel allowed the user to access functions like menu, select, play, pause, fast forward, fast reverse, skip making it easy to navigate. In 2005, the fifth generation of iPod was released that allowed the user to play audio, photo, video functions on all the models and had a larger colour screen. A number of online sites and stores offer ipod accessories.