It was October 23, 2001 that the craze officially began. The date marked the day when Apply launched a portable playing device which said to have revolutionized the overall portable media players design and functionality. And this portable device was the iPod. Imagine this; in 2001 most of the high end potable MP3 players had a maximum 128MB storage size for music. But when Apple introduced the iPod it had 5 GB worth of disc space which was practically unheard of in 2001.
Apply designed the iPod to be of many things but it was primarily a digital music player. There are already a couple of sizes and style of the iPod out in the market. The full-sized models are capable of storing scores of media and music files on an internal hard drive. Meanwhile, the smaller iPods called the iPod nano and iPod shuffle are able to store files through flash memory. Because of its potable design, the iPods have been sued as external data storage devices, well pretty much like any other portable media players.
Recent developments in the iPods designs allow the user to enjoy more than just playing music. Apple engineers and designers have already incorporated calendars, contact information options, text files, as well as some games inside the basic iPod design. They are forcing bit by bit the functionality range of the iPod by including all sorts of stuff into the design. For example, the models that came out in 2004 already have the ability to display photos. The 2005 models, on the other hand, are able to play video files. And based on much recent news, Apple has announced that their latest iPod will have cell phone and mobile internet capabilities. Dubbed the iPhone, this latest offering from Apple is said to be released within 2007 or the next year.
The iPods’ mass storage device is formatted depending on the type of platform used. If the unit is formatted on a Mac OS X computer, it uses the HFS Plus file system format but when it is formatted on Windows, the FAT32 format is used. Regardless, unlike any other mobile MP3 players when you simply copy music files from a computer to the iPod, the latter is unable to play the said files. What you need is a third party program, usually the iTunes, to transfer or load audio, videos and photos from your computer to the iPod in order to make them playable and viewable. This process is viewed as inconvenient to some, but did not stop the rise of the popularity of the iPod.
Some other criticisms of the iPod include shorter battery life than advertised, reliability and durability issues. It was, however, good that as Apple came out with new models of iPod they became more reliable and durable. There is still much to be desired, however, when it comes to the iPod’s battery life. Even recent reviews of their 30GB models indicate that the units can only play less than 8 hours of music contrary to the 14hours of playing time that Apple advertised.
For more than five years, the popularity of the iPods cannot be contested. But technology is constantly changing and moving. Even Apple knows it. In ten years or so, despite its popularity and high tech designs it will eventually become absolute.
