The iPod line of products was introduced by Apple in October, 2001. Ever since then, Apple’s engineers worked hard to improve their original products and bring new features and numerous improvements.
In 2001, the market for mp3 players had just begun to develop and Apple saw a great opportunity and made an iPod, which turned out to be the most accepted mp3 device in the world. The first generation of iPods came with mechanical scrolling wheel and with 5GB or 10GB of storage. In 2001, this was enough for users to pay attention to this model and buy it. Huge sales made Apple to come up with a second generation just seven months later. This model came with a touch sensitive scrolling wheel, reinvented hold switch and some design improvements. As the years were passing by, Apple’s engineers came up with the solution to make slimmer iPods but to improve its capacity from 5GB to 160GB! Year after year Apple was introducing the next generation of iPod Classic, reinventing the case design, expanding storage, improving display quality and battery life. In 2004, those who bought the new iPod were able to store Photos. The next year, the iPod got a video playback option.
Since iPod Classic was somewhat expensive to broad range of users, Apple produced new iPod devices, which were greatly accepted by users and critics. In 2004, iPod Mini appeared on shelves of Apple Stores. This device was much smaller than the original, and came with 4GB of memory and with new “click wheel”. There was also the second generation of iPod mini, which was replaced a year later by iPod Nano. It was the slimmest iPod and came with 1GB, 2GB and 4GBs and today there are two models – 8GB and 16GB. The newest iPod Nano comes with a video camera, the largest screen ever, FM player, built-in microphone, and new aluminum anodized casing.
There is also an entry-level iPod called iPod Shuffle. This is the smallest iPod, and today this is the smallest mp3 player on the market. It comes in 2GB and 4GB of storage, advanced controls on an earphone cord and speech recognition capabilities.
In September 2007, Apple produced the iPod Touch, the fully functional music device, pocket computer and gaming device – all in one. The first generation appeared alongside with iPhone which looked identical. It was the first device of its kind with WiFi and Multi-Touch interface. A year later, Apple introduced a second generation with built-in speaker, volume control buttons and Nike+ functionality. Alongside this, Apple made public new iPod Touch OS 2.0 to all users. For a fee, old iPod users could upgrade their software to new version and “unlock” many new features. In September 2009, a third generation appeared, with new upgraded internals that matched the new iPhone 3GS, and introduced VoiceOver and Genius functionality. Generally speaking, iPod Touch is definitely an all-round device that every PC or Mac user would like to own.
Tags: iPod, iPod Touch, iPod Touch History
