Fergie's Tech Blog

Happy 5th Birthday, Apple iPod

Via Wikipedia.

The iPod came from Apple's digital hub strategy, as the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices purchased by consumers. While digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, the company found digital music players lacking in user interface and decided to develop its own.

Apple's Hardware engineering chief Jon Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design and build the first iPod in less than a year, and it was unveiled by CEO Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001 as a Mac-compatible product with a 5GB hard drive that put "1,000 songs in your pocket."

Uncharacteristically, Apple decided not to develop the iPod's software in-house. Instead, Apple used a Design Chain and contracted with PortalPlayer, who already had a reference design (based on 2 ARM cores) with rudimentary software running on top of a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. PortalPlayer had been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones. Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to create and refine the user interface, under the direct supervision of CEO Steve Jobs.

posted by Fergie @ 10/22/2006 08:45:00 PM