What is an iPod?

The iPod is a pocket-sized portable music-playing device produced by Apple and sold across the world.  It's the best-known family of MP3 players and comes in a variety of models.

The various iPod models

• iPod Touch – full-function version with touchable screen controls and up to 64GB of space for music, photographs, apps and video.
• iPod Shuffle – tiny, lightweight clip-and-go model with no screen and just 2GB of space.
• iPod Nano – lightweight iPod with touch-screen controls and up to 16GB of space for audio files.
• iPod Classic – with up to 160GB of hard-drive storage space, plus the familiar 'click wheel' control.

Features and benefits of an iPod

• iPods can store several thousand songs, the exact number depending on the model.
• The iPod Touch and iPod Classic can play video.
• The iPod Touch can hold up to 25,000 photos as well and multiple 'apps' and games.
• The iPod Nano has a radio.
• It's easy to connect to a computer and manage an iPod's music library and playlists via iTunes.
• The  new iPod Touch has 'FaceTime' enabled, a video-calling facility between iPod Touches and various other Apple products such as the new iPad 2 and the iPhone 4.
• iPod Classic models store media on an internal hard drive, while all other models use flash memory, which means the devices can be smaller and thinner.

History of the iPod

• The first iPod was released to the market by Apple in 2001.
• The iTunes Store was launched in 2003, enabling users to purchase music to download and listen on their iPods.
• Introduced in 2004, the iPod Mini used flash memory to save space.
• The familiar click-wheel control that dominated the main iPod models for several years was also launched in 2004.
• The iPod Nano replaced the iPod Mini in 2005.
• 2007 saw the first of the touch-screen iPods, to match the newly introduced iPhone.

Chris Quartermaine is a Digital Unite tutor for Chester, South Wirral and north-east Wales.