iPods Dominate Portable Music Player Market
In the first four years, following their introduction in 2001,
consumers purchased more than 15 million iPods. By January 2005 Apple had
unveiled four generations of iPods plus the iPod Mini and iPod Shuffle,
causing sales to increase more than 600% per year!
The
iPod and iPod Mini feature hard drive memories. The largest of these tiny hard drives will
hold 60GB, or up to 15,000 songs. The pack-of-gum
sized iPod Shuffle was Apple's first solid-state
flash memory mp3 player, with 512MB or 1GB of storage for up to 240
songs.
In case this wasn't enough, in September 2005 Apple introduced the iPod
Nano. Another flash memory player, the Nano stores both music and photo files. With
2GB or 4GB, the Nano will play more than 65 hours of
no-skip music or hold up to 25,000 photos.
October 2005 saw the birth of the newest slimmed down iPod with video
capability. The 30GB version is just under half an inch thick with the 60GB just
over. Improved battery life plays up to 20 hours when fully charged. The 2.5"
color screen displays up to 150 hours of video including your favorite TV
episodes (downloadable from iTunes the day after they air).
The i-Generation is Born
In April 2003 Apple opened its online iTunes Music
Store. In spite of the fact that downloaded songs can only be played on iPods,
more than 500 million tunes were sold in the first two years.
An entire industry of iPod accessories adds to the mp3 phenomenon. Besides
Apple, dozens of other companies offer an incredible array of player add-ons.
Plug-in devices allow us to listen to music saved on our player through a home
stereo, car radio, or even powerful portable speaker units.
Just about anything
imaginable is available, including designer carrying cases, high-tech
headphones, Bluetooth wireless, multi-purpose docking stations and much more.
There are more than 1,000 iPod authorized accessories available. Now accounting for nearly 40% of revenues, Apple must be very happy with the
iPod line.
For more portable music player information see
How Do MP3
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