Who Invented the iPod

Many people have a misconception that an iPod is a general name given to any MP3 player available in the market. However, they need to know that iPod is exclusively a brand of Apple, Inc. You just cannot refer to a music player made by another company as an iPod.

The Apple iPod

The 'iPod' is a name given to a series of music players manufactured by Apple, Inc., which are considered the best media players available in the market today. The Apple iPod has been through several modifications since its debut around a decade ago; and it certainly has advanced in features, style, and more importantly the memory storage capacity. The best thing what attracts musicians and music lovers to the iPod is the sound quality and the storage capacity. iPods come in many different types which differ in physical characteristics, features and functionalities, storage capacities, and so in price. There are many people who use iPods everyday, but do not even have a general idea as to who invented this player. Some believe that the inventor of the iPod was none other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Read more on what does the iPod stand for.

Who Invented the iPod?

Inventor of the iPod
You will be surprised that the original concept of the iPod was created by an Englishman named Kane Kramer. In the year 1979, when he was 23 years old, he made a rough sketch of a small hand-held player which he thought would enable the user to load music and video onto it. Referring to the design, he and his friend James Campbell manufactured a similar device for which they registered a patent in England. The music player was named 'IXI', which had a screen and a button for four-way navigation, much like what is found in today's iPods. However, it did not have the capacity to hold music of over a few minutes. Both these inventors experimented on various versions of the music player. Finally in 1988, they were not able to pay the amount for renewal of the worldwide patent for that device, and so the patent expired. The patent of that device belonged to no one now, hence, Kramer was not legally eligible to receive any payment for the generation of the idea.

The iPod at Apple
Before the launch of the iPod music player in October 2001, there were many MP3 players that were already in the market. So, we cannot say that MP3 players were invented by Apple. This company just came up with their own music player, the iPod, which proved to be a success worldwide as no other audio or video player ever did.

As new concepts of MP3 music players were developing in the market, in the year 2000, Apple's CEO made a team of the best designers and engineers to make an MP3 player which would be the king of all music players. The team members were Jonathan Ive, Jon Rubinstein, Michael Dhuey, and Tony Fadell with Steve Jobs as CEO who was handling and managing the whole project.

Apple has had the reputation for manufacturing products on its own and by not taking any help from other companies. However, the case of the iPod was an exception. The design of the iPod belonged to a company named PortalPlayer, and the music player's interface was taken from a company known as Pixo.

The name 'iPod' was suggested by a non-Apple employee, Vinnie Chieco, who was a freelance copyrighter. He recommended the name keeping in mind the white EVA pods from the movie 2001: A Space Oddyssey. Later, Apple found out that the name I-Pod had already been trademarked by an Internet kiosk manufacturer. However, Apple bought the trademark name to themselves, changing the name 'I-Pod' to the present 'iPod'.

Till now, there have been many versions of this music player; such as iPod mini, iPod photo, iPod video, iPod shuffle, iPod nano, iPod classic, and finally the iPod touch which is also called the iTouch. I hope, by now you might have got a fair idea regarding who invented the iPod. You can say that the invention of the IXI was a kind of an inspiration for the invention of the iPod.