IPods

About Apple iPods

Apple introduced the iPod on the 23rd of October 2001, a portable media player with, at the time, impressive storage capacity of 5 gigabytes. Currently the Apple iPod range consists of the iPod Classic which is a hard drive based player, the touch screen iPod Touch. The compact iPod Nano and the ultra compact iPod Shuffle. The iPod Classic models store media and other information on an internal hard drive and the other iPod models make use of a flask memory which enables them to be of small and slimmer size. IPods can also be used as external data storage devices. The storage size depends on the iPod model which ranges from the iPod Shuffles 2GB capacity to the iPod Classics 160GB storage capacity. Apple iPods make use of Apple's iTunes software that is used to transfer music, photos and other data to the iPod from a computer.

Apple iPod History

There where well developed digital cameras, personal organisers and camcorders all with mainstream markets but Apple saw a gap in the market with the lack of compact digital music players and thus decided to develop compact music players with proper interface capabilities. The first iPod was developed in less than a year and announced by Steve Jobs in October 2001 as a MP3 player with a 5GB hard drive that can put "1000 songs in your pocket."

Read more about Apple iPods on Wikipedia.

iPod Shuffle

The iPod Shuffle is the smallest, lightest and cheapest iPod available. It can be easily clipped onto a shirt pants so that you can literally wear your music. It has a simply yet stylish design with a shuffle button and the on/off button on the side and the play buttons on the front. The iPod shuffle comes in an array of the trademark bright aluminium polished colours. The iPod Shuffle has up to 15 hours of audio play time which is more than enough to get a full workout in the gym or go for a long jog. The most recent iPod Shuffles is only available with a 2GB memory capacity.

iPod Nano

The iPod Nano first launched in 2005 has gone through six models or better known as generations. The sixth generation iPod Nano has completely changed the older version shape and size with it being completely touch screen with no more scroll button on the front. The iPod sixth generation supports FM radio, has a pedometer, with multi touch interface and comes in the 8GB or 16GB memory capacity sizes. With the iPod Shuffle you can enjoy up to 24 hours of audio playback.

iPod Classic

The iPod Classic which was known before the sixth generation simply as iPod was the first iPod to be released by Apple. Since then there has been six models/generations of iPod Classic. All the iPod Classic models make use of a hard drive for storage. The iPod classic is only available in black and white. It is the iPod with the largest storage capacity of 160GB which can store music, movies, photos and documents. It has up to 36 hours of audio playback.

iPod Touch

The iPod Touch also called the iTouch is a portable media player, personal assistant, handheld game console with Wi-Fi. The iPod Touch was the first to introduce the multi-touch graphical user interface to the iPod line. You can wirelessly connect to the iTunes store of Apple store and download music or videos. Since March 2011 Apple has sold over 60 million iPod Touch devices. The iPod Touch has features such as Face Time, HD video recording and a powerful A4 Chip. It has up to 40 hours of audio playback time and is, like the iPod classic, only available in black and white.

iPod Accessories

Many accessories have been made for the iPod with not many produced by Apple. Some of the accessories add extra features to the iPod such as sound recorder, wired remote controls and cables to connect to the TV. One of the iPods most unique accessory being the Nike+iPod pedometer. There is a wide variety of iPod docks and speakers available as well as protective cases, armbands, cover and wireless earphones. Car manufacturers soon saw how popular iPod's have become and started to manufacture cars with iPod interface, allowing drivers to control their iPod with the radio unit buttons or the steering wheel controls, with BMW being the first to do so.