You will be amazed to find that the first iPod was invented in 1979. This is a true fact and the inventor was British and his name was Kane Kramer. He developed the idea of a plastic digital and portable music player. Since he didn’t have a lot of money, he couldn’t renew the worldwide patent on his idea. So the patent expired and he didn’t make any money from the original idea.
Now you know who really made the first iPod and we will tell you that its name was given by Vinnie Chieco. He was a freelancer copywriter because he was inspired by a movie in 2001. Chieco wasn’t an Apple employee and his idea was accepted by Apple.
Everybody knows that Apple is creating its hardware and software in-house. This means that Apple isn’t partnering with any other companies. That didn’t happen with the iPod because it was based on a design of a company called PortalPlayer. This company had created a prototype by using an embedded operating system.
This didn’t stop here because Apple did another unusual thing. You will be surprised to find out that Apple didn’t design first iPod interface. For that part, they made a contract with another company called PIXO (now it’s a part of Sun Microsystems).
But how did the idea of creating an iPod reappeared? It all happened with the help of Tony Fadell, a former employee of General Magic and Phillips. His idea was to deliver to the public a small hard drive that was linked to a system. This system could let the users to download legally music. At first, Fadel mentioned the idea to RealNetworks in 2000 but they didn’t thought they needed this small device. Real was very profitable and they thought that this was only a waste of time. Also, Phillips refused Fadell’ s idea.
When no one wanted to help Fadell, Apple did. The executives were very interested in his idea and they hired him. He was given a team of almost thirty people and a one year deadline to finish the product. The most important five people in this team were:
- Jonathan Ive (senior vice president of design at Apple)
- Tony Fadell (former senior vice president of the division that created the iPod)
- Jon Rubinstein (he was then Apple’s vice president of hardware engineering)
- Michael Dhuey (an engineer who’s working now at Cisco Systems)
- Steve Jobs (Apple’s CEO)
Now, you know when was really the first iPod invented and especially, who made the first iPod. Even though Apple didn’t create all “home” we are sure you are satisfied with the iPods that Apple offers to the public and to its users.