iPod came from Apple's digital hub strategy, when the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful".
The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on 23 October 2001. It was a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive. On 21 March 2001 the capacity was expanded to 10 GB. Originally, a FireWire connection to the host computer was used to update songs or recharge the battery, The next generation began including a dock connector, allowing for FireWire or USB connectivity.
Uncharacteristically, Apple did not develop iPod's software entirely in-house. Apple instead used PortalPlayer's reference platform which was based on 2 ARM cores. The platform had rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to help design and implement the user interface.
The name iPod was proposed by Vinnie Chieco, a freelance copywriter, who (with others) was called by Apple to figure out how to introduce the new player to the public. After Chieco saw a prototype, he thought of the Kubrick's movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and the phrase "Open the pod bay door, Hal!", which refers to the white EVA Pods of the Discovery One spaceship. |
