iPod a history – Idea

Since its introduction in October 2001, Apple has sold over 100 million iPods making it the most sought after digital media player on the planet. It was created by a company whose board just five years prior to iPods launch seriously thought of closing the campus gates forever and a man who was fired from the same company 16 years earlier. Its meteoric rise in popularity and cult like following has marked a generation. From its white ear buds to its click wheel, iPod has become a status symbol worldwide.

iPod story starts on December 20, 1996 with return of Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs back to the company’s helm. He was replacing marketing guru and one time Silicon Valley top-paid executive John Sculley. At that point Apple was losing $1 billion per year and the stock has fallen from it $60 highs to about $6. Apple, once regarded as a frontrunner in the tech industry, at that point was at the margins of consumer technology. Even the most faithful followers of the brand, began switching to PC’s.

His first decisions were to cancel Apple Newton, a rudimentary PDA, and cut research and development from 50 projects to just 10. Apple campus was fear stricken. Nobody was safe at that point. The stories started to go around that people went into the elevator with Steve Jobs and came out unemployed. Steve Jobs started MacJuvenation with the simple theory: “Don’t ask consumers what they want because they don’t know. They’ll know it when they see it!” With this theory in action, the rise of new Apple begun. A large media campaign was launched that had to change the image of the whole company. Think Different campaign made a small unpopular computer company a new unique computer brand that promoted difference and originality. This company on the margins of technology became a cool, original, different, made for unique individuals.

The first representative of this “think different” philosophy was iMac. This colorful all in one computer came out in May, 1998. In first 45 days it sold in over 300.000 units. Apple was slowly coming back People wanted their products. Jobs once stated: “They look so good you kinda wanna have one!”

Around the same time file-sharing program Napster emerged from the North Eastern University’s dorm rooms. With this small piece of computer software Shawn Fanning changed the music industry forever. In just one month Napster already had a 100 000 users worldwide. People have spoken, they wanted digital music. Software that took 60 hours to develop sent the music industry to its knees.

Steve Jobs saw digital music as a new business opportunity. He saw Napster and a popularity of mp3 downloads as Apples chance to develop new products. iMac was on the right track with its ability to digitally process photos and videos, and burn CDs, but it was missing music playing capabilities. Developing a jukebox software wasn’t enough, he decided to expand to enter music arena on the grand scale. It took him and his team of developers eight grueling months to develop a media wonder they decided to call iPod and forever change Apples image worldwide.