iPod for the iWant Generation
In October 2001, Apple came out with its first ever iPod generation of music players. It was white, scroll wheeled with a 5GB hard drive. The scroll wheel moved in conjunction with buttons located around the scroll wheel. It made for easier menu scrolling and accessibility of music functions for instant music play. Impressive during those hefty cd player days of recent yore.
The second generation of iPods released the year after featured an unmoving touch wheel and with FireWire ports near the headphone port, but it was still white, came in 10 and 20GB hard drive options with monochrome display, and thrill-less and unexciting.
2003 saw a third generation of iPods with the same monochrome display and touch wheel with white body ipods, but with a larger capacity, up to 30GB of hard drive. But where it previously had a Firewire port, it now came with a dock connector.
It wasn’t until 2004 when things got pretty colorful for the fourth generation iPod. It came with the click wheel just like the iPod mini, but with full color screen display useful for viewing album art work and slide shows as well as your choice of pastel body colors.
It was around this same time when it Apple released limited U2 editions of the iPod in a black body with red wheel and followed shortly with a Harry Potter edition, featured with a Hogwarts crest on the back casing.
The fifth generation of iPod shuffles was released on January 2005 with limited 512Mb and 1GB flash memory with no display. Later that same year, iPod Nano came out in 1, 2 and 4GB of flashdrive, making use of the usb connector. Shortly after the iPod Nano’s release, Apple came out with the iPod video. Like the iPod Nano, it only came in black and white, no firewire, but with an extra 30 and 60GB hard drive and extra widescreen color display.
In 2006, improvements to the sixth generation iPod weren’t all that much. Display improvements, smaller body with larger capacities, iPod games and basic search applications are expected in most product upgrades. But being nothing special, Apple must have been running out of ideas by then. The iPod nano’s second release saw six color options with slimmer bodies and not much else. But it’s third generation nano has a video feature. The same goes for the second iPod shuffle. Although it had a smaller body and aluminum casing, it still had 1GB flash drive capacity.
In week, Apple unveiled the bigger, brighter iPod classic. With 160 GB hard drive, widescreen color display and a click wheel, the sixth generation iPod is definitely ahead of its class. While still available as black or silver, it is now made of anodized aluminum with a stainless steel casing and uses Cover Flow technology for cutting edge display.
Along with the iPod classic’s unveiling is the revolutionary iPod touch with state of the art Cover Flow and touch screen technology. But with only 16GB, it still has a lot of catching up to do with its predecessors, but in time, when the balance of technology and functionality meets its equilibrium, it will.