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The Story of Birth of iPod

Nowadays, more and more people are fond of using Apple's products, and one of the most classical products of Apple is iPod. Do you know the story of birth of iPod? We well tell you in this article.

Steve Jobs didn't see the digital music trend at first. The late 1990s, more and more users extracted music from a CD, and then share in the Napster and other sites, while there isn't any music managing software or even a CD burner on Apple's computer. In January 1st, 2001, Apple lost $ 195 million due to the economic downturn, as well as equipment sales decline. This is the first quarter of loss ever since Jobs return to Apple.

"I feel like a fool," Jobs said later, "I feel we lost the opportunity. We must work hard to catch up."

To catch up with the others, Apple authorized from SoundJam MP, a popular music software, and also hire its developer Jeff Roobbins. Jeff Robbins spent a few months to simplify the software. Then SoundJam MP became iTunes.

When Jeff Bobbins modified software, Jobs and his executive team began to explore opportunities to put Apple to market. They found the design of digital cameras and camcorders was pretty well, but the music player was terrible. They decided to start from here.

The manufacturing of iPod is confidental. Among over 7000 people who worked in Apple headquater, there were only 50-100 people know the iPod project. In order to complete the product, iPod's components are basically ready-made products from Toshiba hard drive, Sony batteries, Texas Instruments controller chip. The hardware design was bought from a start-up company in Silicon Valley: Portal Player.

The name of iPod came from a freelance writer called Vinne Chieco. Jobs identified the product as "1000 songs in your pocket, which means that the product name does not have to consider music or songs. The "digital hub" concept proposed by Jobs made Chiero start to consider about the place when things connect.

Chiero thought the biggest center was spacecraft. If you leave the spaceship, you have to take a pod. But you should return to the main ship to refuel, get some food. When Chiero saw the white plastic interface of iPod, it occured to him the movie "2001" - "Open the pod bay door, Hal!".

Chiero placed iPod among a number of other names and gave them to Steve Jobs. Jobs put it in the "abandoned" catagory. At the end of the meeting, Steve Jobs asked the opinion of other four people. Chiero took the card out. "This is a perfect contrast and this is a very logical. In addition, this is a good name." Several days later, Jobs told Chiero, he confirmed the name of the product, which is called iPod.

On December, 23rd, 2001, Steve Jobs introduced the product in a special meeting at Apple's headquarter. "This is a big, big breakthrough." He said. Indeed. iPod not only became the best-selling music player and but also the key step for Apple to enter personal digital device market. iPod mode, which means the whole control of hardware, software and online music store brought functionality, usability and reliability for users.

What's more, this mode will be the key for Apple to enter digital entertainment age.

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