History

Development of the iPod grew out of Apple’s digital hub strategy, as the company was creating software applications for the growing number of digital devices being snapped up by consumers. While digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established markets, the company found digital music players lacking in quality and Apple decided to develop its own. Apple’s Hardware engineering chief Jon Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design and build the first iPod in less than a year, with Tony Fadell and Michael Dhuey as the principal hardware engineers. It was unveiled by CEO Steve Jobs on October 23, 2001 as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put “1,000 songs in your pocket”.

In 2002, Apple released the second-generation iPod in two versions, one for Mac users and one for Windows users. The only difference though was the bundled software; since there was no iTunes for Windows at the time, the Windows iPods came packaged with Musicmatch software. The actual iPods could work with either system (though to work with Windows, they had to use the FAT32 filesystem, Mac iPods could use either the FAT32 or HFS Plus filesystem). In 2003, Apple released third-generation iPods that included a single CD that included a Windows version of the iTunes software along with the Mac version. As of October 2004, iPod dominated digital music player sales in the United States, with over 90% of the market for hard-drive-based players and over 70% of the market for all types of players. The iPod has sold at a tremendous rate, now past 42 million units since its release. Apple and several industry analysts have posited that the iPod has a "halo effect", encouraging users of non-Apple products to switch to other Apple products, such as to Macintosh computers.

On April 26, 2006, EETimes reported that an Samsung Electronics executive vice president had announced that Samsung had won the contract to provide the media processor for a future model iPod, replacing Apple's previous supplier PortalPlayer. [1] PortalPlayer had announced a week before that their updated processor would not be used in upcoming flash-based iPods.

Patents and patent disputes
In 2005, Apple Computer faced two lawsuits claiming patent infringement by the iPod and its associated technologies: Advanced Audio Devices claimed the iPod breached their patent on a "music jukebox"[3], while Hong Kong-based IP portfolio company Pat-rights filed suit claiming that Apple's FairPlay technology breached a patent[4] issued to inventor Ho Keung Tse. The latter case also includes the online music stores of Sony, Real Networks, Napster and MusicMatch as defendants .

Apple's application to the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a patent on "rotational user inputs", as used in the iPod's interface, received a third "non-final rejection" (NFR) in August 2005.

Also in August 2005, Creative Technology, one of Apple's main rivals in the MP3 player market, announced that it too held a patent on part of the music selection interface used by the iPod, which Creative dubbed the "Zen Patent", granted on 9 August 2005.

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