iPod: A Genesis - Day 4

by Doina Stefanescu  |  June 5, 2008

Day 4: The iPod stars

On January 11, 2005 Apple released its first flash based MP3 player. It was no bigger than a pack of gum and was just 99$, for the 512 MB version. Such advantages made it a top value on the MP3 player market, since most comparably priced players provided just half the iPod capacity. To keep the factory costs for the device at a low level, Apple scrapped the scroll wheel and LCD display. Without the trademark interface, Apple hyped the device's shuffle mode. The shuffle was also the first iPod not to support FireWire.

By the end of 2005, Apple had its profits roughly quadrupled largely due to revenues coming from the iPod business. According to their announcements, Apple had sold over 28 million devices, which made up for 75% of the market share for digital music players. According to financial giant analyst, Goldman Sachs, Apple has had its best quarter since it peaked in 1995 and predictions are that sales will grow even more.

Since Apple owns shares in ARM, the company that licenses the ARM CPU design to companies like Intel or TI, the newest iPods had built in dual ARM processors and a brand new version of PortalPlayer, the music player, traits which made them very much different from their predecessors.

In September 2005, the iPod nano was introduced to the world and the world marveled at its demure figure. It was designed in less than a year as the successor of the iPod mini and it was meant to mimic the design of hard drive based players but on the inside the iPod nano hold a lot of surprises. It utilized a high capacity flash memory for the file storage and it had a brand new scroll wheel manufactured by Apple. Just like the iPod shuffle, it had no FireWire support, and it was widely criticized for being too vulnerable to scratching. It was available in either black or white, with 2GB or 4GB capacity.

After several weeks, Apple revealed the world the fifth generation iPod. The event proved to be to Apple as significant as the creation of iTunes Music Store in 2002. Because the new iPod was available in 30GB and 60GB versions in either black or white, the fifth generation iPod was capable of playing videos purchased online, using a certain software designed by PortalPlayer.

A year before, Steve Jobs tried to settle an agreement with Disney Ceo Michael Eisner about Apple selling copies of ABC programs over the iTunes Music Store. Things did not work out very well because the technology was still quite expensive so the agreement was postponed to late 2005, when that time's current CEO, Michael Iger, agreed to allow Apple to market ABC programs.

The 5G iPod was up to 30% slimmer than the previous models, although it maintained the other dimensions and it was the first full size iPod model that did not include FireWire support.

At some point, both the nano and the video enabled iPods were equipped so many features that the devices were more like PDAs than just music players. They both had calendars, agendas, address book viewers, but also had a suite of games, screen savers, and screen locks.

In September 2006, Apple updated the "video iPod", which was always a trivial name for the model. Generally known as the 5.5G iPod, the improved versions had a brighter display, longer battery life for playing videos and a total capacity up to 80 GB.

Next articles in this series:

1. Day 1: Let there be iPod
2. Day 2: Separating iPod from others
3. Day 3: The iPod world received colors
4. Day 4: The iPod stars
5. Day 5: iPod flora & fauna
6. Day 6: "Let us make iPod in our image...", Apple said
7. Day 7: And Apple rested..., or not?

Not the info that you're looking for? Ask Tuva and you'll get your answer!

Comments

Your Comment: