iPod is a kind of portable digital music player which is designed and sold by Apple. It is a MP3 player with large capacity which is using 1.8-inch disc drive as a storage medium produced by Toshiba. Its capacity is 10 to 40 GB which can store 2500 to 10,000 MP3 music that has CD quality.



All products of iPod series provide easy-to-use user interface, improved management procedures and innovative practices. The products are operated by the central wheel and the external appearance is unique and creative. The iPod series are among the few hardware products of APPLE which can cross PC and Mac platforms. Most iPod products use the built-in hard disk as storage media, but iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle use flash memory. As most of other digital music player, iPod can be used as an external computer data storage equipment. Apart from the MP3 player, the iPod can also be used as a high-speed mobile hard disk which can display contacts, calendars and tasks. You could enjoy reading text book and listening to Audible's audio book as well.

Apple names the digital music player iPod in iMac'S way. Now the digital player on the market is the fifth generation which are iPod shuffle (512 M and 1G), iPod Nano (1G, 2G and 4G) and iPod (the video which can be played are 30G and 60G).They look very fashionable when you are carrying them.

iPod can only be used by Mac users at the very beginning. But the company increased the compatibility with Windows because of the demand. To January 2004, the iPod was the most popular digital music player in the United States which occupied 50% of the market share. By October 2004, the United States? digital music player sales was dominated by iPod which occupied more than 65 percent of all types of players in the market. iPod has been sold at a high speed which has sold more than 10 million during three years. It has a significant impact in culture.

Apple has reshaped itself by iPod and iPod seems to have become the symbol of Apple. So how to develop iPod is the main target of Apple. With the increase in competitors, such as Samsung, Sony, Microsoft and other giant companies, even though iPod can continue to maintain digital music market leadership position, it will not be possible to maintain the growing rate of 68 percent.

Apple has been accelerating the speed of producing new iPod products. It went on to launch the iPod Shuffle, Mac mini, iPod Nano in 2005, as well as new products with video playing function. The pace of new iPod products was faster in 2006.It is no doubt that Apple has been launching a host of new products. The only problem is how cool the products are.

Apple was a new recruit in the consumer electronic field six years ago. But with the launch of iPod, Apple has been occupying an important place in the consumer electronic market. Because iPod has been playing an increasingly important role, Apple certainly will devote it main energy to iPod instead of Mac products. In 2008, more energy will be transferred from the Mac products to iPod by Apple. For example, iPhone can speed up the pace of becoming consumer electronic market.

The report from the market research institute Jupiter predicted that music mobile and music-related services will be a blowout growth by 2010.The product sales will reach 70 million which is more than the quantity of portable MP3 player. With iPod's strong position, Apple will be a strong master of the music mobile market which will accelerate the pace of the transition to the consumer electronic market.