History

•company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful” so Apple decided to develop its own. Apple's hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein, assembled a team of engineers to design it. The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on October 23rd,2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as ‘only’ Mac-compatible product with a 4 GB hard drive that puts "1000 songs in your pocket. There had been 5 different ipod models consisting of the classic, mini, nano, shuffle and touch which all had a few different designs each. The most important change was when it used USB enabling the ipod to be compatible with the windows computers which are the majority instead of the firewire connection used with the Mac.

Competitors

•Competitors
•The popularity of the iPod has suggested to many other companies that there is a market out there for the taking, if only they can crack what makes the iPod so popular - simplicity, looks and the cool factor. Some of the competitors offer 'iPod clones' but with additional features, while others go in a different direction.
•Microsoft Zune
•Microsoft, not happy with its domination of the PC market, launched its 'iPod killer' in November, 2006. Although slightly bigger and heavier, the Zune is the same price as the iPod, and is packed with additional features, from an FM tuner and a bigger screen with customisable wallpapers to wireless connectivity. The last allows files to be sent from Zune to Zune within a range of 30 feet. the zune has different types like the ipod and get bigger an prices from zune4 to zune 120 relating to memory size. not far behind the attractiveness but has a horrible rectangle look the price is alot more and the interface doesn't seem as creative as the ipod. price range 100 dollars to 250 dollars
•Creative Zen
•Creative offers stiff competition for both iPod and Nano. The standard iPod competitor, the Vision M, is a little chunkier, but has a far superior screen in terms of colour and resolution. It also has a built in FM radio and microphone as standard, and it only slightly pricier. The Zen V is very similar to the Nano, but the Zen V Plus version trumps it with video compatibility. Creatives are generally acknowledged as superior to the iPod in features, but their players tend to be bigger and slightly more expensive. Though their user interfaces are good, they can't quite match the iconic iPod style. the vision m style is big and bulky with the price of £90 for 30gb product which is actually cheap for the size with the 8gb ipod nanos being around £75 and £100 for 16gb which is half of creatives memory but more in price..

New Media Technologies: The iPod

History:
Apple Institution: Owned by Steve Jobs

• Products: the apple cooperation creates numerous products, along with the computer macs which are regularly modified there have been new laptops introduced ranged from £800 - £2000. apple also deals in phones with the iphones which contain the internet and other functions of the ipod whilst being a phone. to increase profits apple has also created apple tv which allows you to interact your ipod weather it be songs photos anything its now connected to a box to a widescreen (HD) where you can get films and television programmes.
  
• Shuffle £32 Ipod nano £130 Ipod Classic £180 Ipod touch £170, the shuffle had no screen but contains just songs in a tiny product, the ipod nano newest product is the smalled of the screened product and the most atrractive with the in the middle price, have the normal attributes of the ipod with a regular up to 16 gb memory. the classic ipod is a bit more expensive than all the other with a bigger size and much bigger memory up to 120 gb containing up to 30,000 songs. the ipod touch is an attractive touch screen with a good quality screen with enables you to watch videos and pictures so on only 10 less than classic.
• International: Apple and it's products are avaliable far and wide, including europe encluding portuagal, spain, france, sweeden, germany and of course great britain. apple being so wide has a base in each country with its largest in the US and all the states.
  
• Applications and uses: Personal video player including music, podcasts and downloaded films or programmes; the ipod can also be used as a hand held games machine with various different games that are improving; the ipod also have small components such as stop watch, world clock, alarm clock and radio receiver. as well as the ipod being able to converge into radio it will also converge into a home stereo system if connected with speakers
• Hegemony: the ipod by far has claimed the hegemony is the personal music player industry passing sony and any other product with its increased sales reaching 100 million, not only does it statistics show it has hegemony in the market also advertising it had become the highlight of music players and is popular with everyone, walkmans and so on have been left behind

How is the technology distributed?

• ipods have numerous different styles of products and prices ranges from £30 - £200, they are multipurpose products sold in any electronic store and especially the newly established apple store, the fact the ipod converges into music player, photo album, games machines and many more is describing it as more than one thing so with the convergence the buyer it getting more for there money. places like amazon.com and carphone warehouse have rights to sell among many others and have a lot of accesories to sell with.

. Designed by Jonathan Ive from chingford. now head of industrial design



STATISTICS

• Profit in 3 months ending june 26 in ipod sales has risen to £33m from £10m seen a year earlier. Ipod sales have surged to just over $2bn.
  

• . Sold over a 100 million ipods since november 2001
  

CONSUMERS

• . Role Models such as Mary j Blige, Lance Armstrong and John mayer are used to be shown as ipod user to the public, this makes more people want to go and buy an ipod, "i take my running shoes and my ipod everywhere" said by lance armstrong, this shows the ipod as a motivation object for someone as heroic as lance, this is a casual but very effective way of apple to advertise.
  

AUDIENCE

• . The intended audience for the first ipods was seen to been aimed at teens, this was seen due to the celeb advertisements, the use of the young peoples role models grasped teens to buy the product. things changed, the audience become a lot broader; it was almost for anyone who didn't want to carry around cds, everyone from hollywood stars, athletes and grandparents started to use ipods. the fact steve jobs broadend his target audience broke the marketers boundries which claims you should have one target audience.
  

FUTURE

• Bluetooth? in a french interveiw it was let slip that the ipod will introduce bluetooth, this would involves being able to wirelessly listen to your ipod through your automobile speakers furthermore users will be able to answer incoming calls without using there mobile which is already an attribute in most cars but will work with the ipod. In 2009 a newer much slimmer ipod touch will be introduced in an effort to convert more people to the interaction of the touch
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