Until 2001, the portable musicplayer market was in its infancy.Small-capacity players, clunkyand primitive interfaces, poorbattery life. Then in October2001, Apple introduced the iPod.This player boasted of 1000 CD-quality songs packed into anultra-portable device that fitcomfortably inside a pocket. Thefirst iPod had a 5 GB hard drive,10 hours of music playback, anda 160 x 128 pixel display. But it was not these features that set the iPod apart from other players.It was that the iPod introduced the click-wheel, a scroll-wheel tothumb through the music collection. The iPod also came with theFireWire interface, which was much faster than the USB 1.1 speedsavailable to most other music players.
The iPod caught on mainly because it was easy to use, whichwas facilitated by its easy syncing capabilities with iTunes. Justplug the iPod in, and the library was automatically synced viaFireWire. The first generation iPod was a Mac only device.
Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth
The second-generation iPod was more of an upgrade to the firstgeneration. Introduced in March 2002, it offered 10 GB of diskspace and also offered storing of contacts information inside theiPod. The iPod was still a Mac only device.
Then Apple introduced iTunes for Windows—a giant leap forApple as it expanded its customer base. This release also meant therelease of the third-generation iPod, in September 2003, with agiant leap in hard drive capacity with 20 GB / 40 GB models. Thenew iPod also had a facelift, was thinner, smaller and the control buttons moved upwards while introducing a solid non-movingclick-wheel as seen in today’s iPods. It also came with USB 2.0 sup-port for compatibility with the PC.
In January 2004, the iPod mini was introduced. It was thesmallest portable music player ever to hold up to 1,000 songs. Itwas encased in an ultra-portable, lightweight anodised alumini-um body and available in five colours. The mini also incorporatedthe touch-sensitive click-wheel as well as support for the PC.
October 2004, the fourth-generation iPod was introduced witha colour screen with photo display capabilities. iPod Photo createdan entirely new iPod experience in full colour for viewing albumartwork, calendars, contacts, and games. The click-wheel now inte-grated the playback control buttons within its boundaries, givingit a much more minimalistic look.
The fifth-generation iPod, announced in October 2005, intro-duced video playback along with a gorgeous black version movingaway from Apple’s trademark white. This iPod was super-slim, hadup to 60 GB of storage capacity, and 20 hours of music playback.The larger 2.5-inch screen displayed 320 x 240 videos with a limit-ed two hours of video playback time. This coincided with Apple’sannouncement of television show and music video downloads atthe iTunes Music Store.
At around the same time, it also introduced the iPod nano, arazor-thin iPod. The nano incorporated Flash-based storage, andwas available in 2 GB / 4 GB variants of black / white. It featuredthe click wheel as well as a 1.5-inch colour display with supportfor photos
The shuffle was introduced in January 2005, to cash in onthe Flash-drive-based music players. Smaller than a pack of gum,the shuffle integrated with iTunes and updated its tracks usingthe Autofill feature. The shuffle was available in 512 MB and 1GB variants.
In September 2006, Apple updated its iPod, dubbed 5.5Gen, toa brighter screen as well as upping its battery life to a more accept-able six hours of video playback. This coincided with Apple’sannouncement of movie downloads at the iTunes Store. Apple alsointroduced the iPod nano second generation, encased in coloursand upping the battery life to above 25 hours.
Apple also introduced the iPod shuffle second-gen, which wasclaimed to be the smallest portable music player. Super-small witha single 1 GB model, the iPod shuffle 2G is just half a cubic inch involume and boasts 12 hours of battery life.
