วันพุธที่ 19 กันยายน พ.ศ. 2550

What is Macintosh

Macintosh, commonly known as Mac, is a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. Named after the McIntosh variety of apple, the original Macintosh was released on January 24, 1984. It used a graphical user interface (GUI) and mouse instead of the then-standard command line interface. The current range of Macs varies from Apple's entry level Mac mini desktop, to a mid-range server, the Xserve. Mac systems are mainly targeted at the home, education, and creative professional markets. Production of the Mac is based upon a vertical integration model in that Apple facilitates all aspects of its hardware and creates its own operating system that is pre-installed on all Macs. This is in contrast to most IBM compatible PCs, where one vendor provides the operating system and multiple vendors create the hardware. In both cases, the hardware can run other operating systems; modern Macs, like other PCs, are capable of running operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, etc.

Original Macintosh computers used the Motorola 68k family of microprocessors, but later models switched to Motorola and IBM's PowerPC range of CPUs in 1994. Apple began a transition from the PowerPC line to Intel's x86 architecture in 2006, which for the first time allowed Macs to run native operating system binaries for the x86 architecture. Current Macs use the Intel Core 2 and Intel Xeon 5100 series microprocessors.

All current Mac models come pre-installed with a native version of the latest Mac OS X, which is currently at version 10.4.10 and is commonly referred to by its code name of "Tiger". Apple has announced that Mac OS X v10.5, codenamed "Leopard", is set to be released in October of 2007.

History of Macintosh

Old world ROM

1984 Macintosh 128K, Macintosh 512K
1986 Macintosh Plus
1987 Macintosh II, Macintosh SE
1988 Macintosh IIx
1989 Macintosh SE/30, Macintosh IIcx, Macintosh IIci, Macintosh Portable
1990 Macintosh IIfx, Macintosh Classic, Macintosh IIsi, Macintosh LC series
1991 Macintosh Quadra, PowerBook
1992 Macintosh IIvx, PowerBook Duo
1993 Macintosh Centris, Macintosh Color Classic, Macintosh Performa, Macintosh TV
1994 Power Macintosh
1997 Power Macintosh G3, PowerBook G3, Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh


New World ROM

1998 iMac
1999 iBook, Power Macintosh G4
2000 Power Mac G4 Cube
2001 PowerBook G4
2002 eMac, iMac G4
2003 Xserve, Power Mac G5
2004 iMac G5
2005 Mac mini

Mac use Intel Processor chip
2006 MacBook Pro, MacBook, iMac, Mac mini use Intel Core Duo chip
2006 MacPro, Xserve use Intel Xeon chip
2006 MacBook Pro, MacBook, iMac use Intel Core 2 Duo chip
2007 MacBook Pro use Intel Core 2 Duo and Base on Santa-Rosa Platform
2007 New iMac

New imac 2007


First Macintosh computer

Why peopel use Macintosh

It just Works


If you spend more of your precious time figuring out why your PC crashes than you spend taking out the garbage every week, you need a Mac. Still not convinced? Just ask the millions of people who use and love a Mac why it’s become such an integral part of their lives, and most will tell you the same thing: It just works. Letting them do what they want to do. When they want to do it. All the time.





You can make amazing stuff


To iLife to be exact.1 A suite of stellar applications, iLife consists of iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand, iTunes, and iWeb. Every one’s a winner. And everyone can perform magic with them. What’s that, you say? On the PC, you can find any number of photo applications, music software, DVD authoring packages, jukebox programs, and web creation tools. And if you don’t like the wares of one developer, another one has a package with just as many features. Maybe more.






Everything-ready


Today’s Mac is powered by the latest Intel processors. So, in addition to running the award-winning, super-powerful, super-easy Mac OS X, a new Mac gives you the option to run other operating systems, including Windows XP and the new Vista. All it takes is a licensed copy of the alternate OS and software like VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac.1
With its ability to run additional operating systems, the Mac can run more applications than any PC on the planet.
The Mac also comes with the latest industry-standard technologies for connecting to peripherals and networks, including USB 2.0, FireWire, Ethernet, and Bluetooth. So it’s a no-brainer to connect digital cameras, external drives, wireless devices, you name it.
Though the Mac stands alone in power and simplicity, it’s also the world’s most compatible computer.


114,000 Viruses ? Not on a Mac


By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, 850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac. While no computer connected to the Internet will ever be 100% immune from attack, Mac OS X has helped the Mac keep its clean bill of health with a superior UNIX foundation and security features that go above and beyond the norm for PCs. When you get a Mac, only your enthusiasm is contagious.


The Latest Intel chips


With an Intel Core Duo, Intel Core 2 Duo, or Intel Xeon processor, plus other engineering leaps, your new Mac will do all those things that only Macs can do — and do so at astonishing performance levels. We’ve measured new Macs to be up to seven times faster than previous generations.1 And it’s not just theoretical performance. You’ll notice the speed for all the things you do: from enhancing the family photos to rendering special effects for a feature film, even launching programs and scrolling long web pages.







No hunting for drivers


When you bring home a new hard drive, printer, or gamepad, it’s probably because you have something you’d actually like to do. Back up your photos. Print the proposal you just finished. Play a few games.

You shouldn’t have to waste your time trying to banish a nasty error message from your screen. You shouldn’t have to restart your computer simply because you connected a new printer. And you shouldn’t have to go off on a scavenger hunt, searching doggedly for device drivers, so that your computer can see and get along with that shiny new peripheral.






Design that turns heads


Apple designers and engineers agonize over every millimeter of every new Macintosh model and every pixel of the user interface. The result: ergonomic products that are the toast of the design world. You can see obsession with detail wherever you look: the space-saving elegance of the all-in-one design of the iMac, the pint-sized perfection of the Mac mini, the anodized aluminum alloy enclosure of the MacBook Pro, even the elegantly simple Mighty Mouse.








No upgrade nightmares


Vista requires a PC with 1GB of memory, 15GB of free hard disk space, and a powerful graphics card. So upgrading to the new OS can require a significant investment of time and money before you even get around to the Vista part. (Which can also be expensive.)
This whole scenario is an alien one for Mac users. While most PCs more than 18 months old will have “issues” upgrading to Vista, Mac OS X runs on Macs built as long as seven years ago.
Getting a Mac is the sure way to get today’s most advanced OS — and have the confidence that you can run it for many years to come.






You can ever run windows software


As Computerworld’s Scot Finnie points out, now you can forget about having “to choose either the Mac for its superior design or Windows for its wealth of available software.” That’s because “you can have both operating systems on the same computer — the best of both worlds.” Mac OS X and Windows XP or Windows Vista side by side. One great computer. Two operating systems. Many, many programs to run.
Talk about a win-win situation. Now you can take advantage of all the benefits of owning a Mac but still enjoy the convenience of starting up your Mac in Windows XP or Windows Vista and running a Windows-only game or productivity application when needed. Third-party software solutions such as VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop for Mac help make it possible.


WHO is Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is the co-founder and CEO of Apple and was the CEO of Pixar until its acquisition by Disney. He is currently the largest Disney shareholder and a member of Disney's Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries.

Jobs' history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the quirky, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design while understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Together with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Jobs helped popularize the personal computer in the late '70s. In the early '80s, still at Apple, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI.[ After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its chief executive officer since his return





Early years


Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955 in San Francisco to American Joanne Carole Schieble and Syrian Abdulfattah John Jandali, a graduate student who later became a political science professor.[ One week after birth, Jobs was put up for adoption by his unmarried mother, who was also in graduate school. He was adopted by Paul and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California. They gave him the name Steven Paul Jobs. His biological parents later married and gave birth to Jobs' sister, the novelist Mona Simpson, whom Jobs did not meet until they were adults. The marriage of his biological parents ended in divorce years later. Jobs dislikes hearing the "adoptive parents" appellation applied to Paul and Clara Jobs and refers to them as his only parents. He attended Cupertino Middle School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, and frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. He was soon hired there and worked with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee. In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester,[ he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy. "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts," he said.

In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak.[16] He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India. During the 1960s, it had been discovered by phone phreakers (and popularized by John Draper) that a half taped-over toy-whistle included in every box of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal was able to reproduce the 2600 Hz supervision tone used by the AT&T long distance telephone system. After reading about it and later meeting with John Draper, Jobs and Wozniak went into business briefly in 1974 to build "blue boxes" that allowed illicit free long distance calls.

Jobs then backpacked around India with a Reed College friend (and, later, first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of philosophical enlightenment. He came back with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them US$700 (instead of the actual US$5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus US$350



Beginnings of Apple Computer


When twenty-one-year-old Jobs saw a computer that Wozniak had designed for his own use, he convinced Wozniak to assist him and started a company to market the computer. Apple Computer Co. was founded as a partnership on April 1, 1976. Though their initial plan was to sell just printed circuit boards, Jobs and Wozniak ended up creating a batch of completely assembled computers and thus entered the personal computer business. The first personal computer Jobs and Wozniak introduced, the Apple I, sold for US$666.66, a number Wozniak came up with because he liked repeating digits.[ Its successor, the Apple II, was introduced the following year and became a huge success, turning Apple into an important player in the nascent personal computer industry. In December 1980, with a successful IPO, Apple Computer became a publicly traded corporation, making Jobs a multi-millionaire.

As Apple continued to expand, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion. In 1983, Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola, to serve as Apple's CEO, challenging him, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water, or do you want a chance to change the world?" The following year, Apple set out to do just that, starting with a Super Bowl television commercial titled, "1984." Two days later at Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium." The Macintosh became the first commercially successful computer with a graphical user interface, although it was heavily influenced by Xerox PARC. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic evangelist for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and tempestuous manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs' working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 – following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs – Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division.


NeXT


In 1986, finding himself sidelined by the company he had founded, Jobs sold all but one of his shares in Apple. Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced, but was never able to break into the mainstream mainly owing to its high cost. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).

The NeXT Cube was described by Jobs as an "interpersonal" computer, which he believed was the next step after "personal" computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve a lot of the problems that "personal" computing had come up against. Jobs had been criticized for not including built-in networking features on the original Macintosh (calling it an "umbilical cord to the company"), and he was determined not to repeat the mistake. During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT's e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his "interpersonal" philosophy. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail.

Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by such things as the NeXT Cube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.

NeXT technology played a large role in catalyzing three unrelated events:

- The World Wide Web. Tim Berners-Lee developed the original World Wide Web system at CERN on a NeXT workstation. Jobs' insistence that average people should be able to write custom "mission-critical" applications formed the basis of Interface Builder, which Berners-Lee utilized to do just that — by writing a program entitled "WorldWideWeb 1.0".
- NeXT computers were used in the development of the computer game Doom.
- The return of Apple Computer. Apple's reliance on ancient software and internal mismanagement, particularly its inability to release a major operating system upgrade, had brought it near bankruptcy in the early-to-mid 1990s. Jobs' progressive stance on Unix underpinnings was considered overly ambitious and somewhat backward in the 1980s, but his choice ultimately became an expandable, solid foundation for an operating system. Apple would later acquire this software and, under Jobs' leadership, experience a renaissance.


Return to Apple


In 1996, Apple bought NeXT for US$402 million, bringing Jobs back to the company he founded. In 1997 he became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March of 1998, in order to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately terminated a number of projects such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs' summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."[ This practice became known as "getting Steved".[citation needed]

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs' guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO, a job he still holds today.

In recent years, the company has branched out. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company is making forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. Most recently, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, iPod, and internet device. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that "real artists ship," by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design.

Jobs works at Apple for an annual salary of US$1, and this earned him a listing in Guinness World Records as the "Lowest Paid Chief Executive Officer." His current salary at Apple officially remains US$1 per year, although he has traditionally been the recipient of a number of lucrative "executive gifts" from the board, including a US$46 million jet in 1999 and just under 30 million shares of restricted stock in 2000–2002. As such, Jobs is well compensated for his efforts at Apple despite the nominal one-dollar salary. This approach reduces his personal tax liability because, under current U.S. tax law, salary income is taxed at a significantly higher rate (currently up to 35%) than the capital gains tax (currently a maximum of 15%) applied to profits arising from the sale of stock grants. Obtaining remuneration through stock instead of salary is a common extrinsic rewarding technique which ties management performance to financial benefits. Furthermore, it acts as a tax minimization strategy.

Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos.

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. When asked by a representative of a liberal investment fund why Apple's programs lagged behind Dell's and HP's, Jobs wound up his critic by calling the advocates' complaints "bullshit." However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve — Don't be a mini-player recycle all e-waste". In 2006 he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any U.S. customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.

Jobs kicked off 2007 with Macworld Expo at Moscone Center in San Francisco. He began the episodic keynote address by reviewing Apple's music business through iTunes music and video highlights, mentioning that rumors of the decline in Internet music business were bogus. Highlights included the long-awaited iPhone mobile device as well as the rebranding and official introduction of Apple TV. After the long-awaited introduction of these two products, Jobs announced on January 9, 2007 that "Apple Computer, Inc" would be now known as "Apple Inc."

Jobs was also involved in 2007 in an attempt to persuade former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, a member of Apple's board of directors, to run for President in 2008.


Managerial style


Much has been made of Jobs' aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune noted that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs." Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz’s The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; Jeffrey S. Young’s unauthorized Steve Jobs: The Journey Is the Reward; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.

In iCon: Steve Jobs the authors point out that Paul Jobs, his father by adoption, was also known for his aggressive side: "Paul was soon hired as a kind of strongarm man by a finance company that sought help collecting on auto loans — an early repo man. Both his bulk and his aggressive personality were well suited to this somewhat dangerous pursuit, and his mechanical bent enabled him to pick the locks of the cars he had to repossess and hot-wire them if necessary."

In the documentary Triumph of the Nerds, the reaction to Jobs' famous firing from Apple by CEO John Sculley and the Apple Board of Directors was talked about by various people:

Chris Espinosa:

The grandiose plans of what Macintosh was gonna be was just so far out of whack with the truth of what the product was doing. And the truth of what the product was doing was not horrible, it was salvageable. But the gap between the two was just so unthinkable that somebody had to do something, and that somebody was John Sculley.

John Sculley:

The board had to make a choice and I said look, it's Steve's company, I was brought in here to help. If you want him to run it, that's fine by me. But we gotta at least decide what we're gonna do and everybody's got to get behind it … and ultimately after the board talked with Steve and talked with me, the decision was that we would go forward with my plans and Steve left.

Steve Jobs:

What can I say? I hired the wrong guy. He destroyed everything I spent 10 years working for; starting with me, but that wasn't the saddest part. I would have gladly left Apple if Apple would have turned out like I wanted it to.

Larry Tesler:

People in the company had very mixed feelings about it, everyone had been terrorized by Steve Jobs at some point or another, and so there was a certain relief that the terrorist would be gone. And on the other hand I think there was incredible respect for Steve Jobs by the very same people, and we were all very worried what would happen to this company without the visionary, without the founder, without the charisma.

Andy Hertzfeld:

He took it as a personal attack, started attacking Sculley, in which, you know, backed himself into a corner. Because he was sure that the board would support him and not Sculley … Apple never recovered from losing Steve; Steve was the heart and soul and driving force; it would be quite a different place today; they lost their soul.


Personal life


Jobs married Laurene Powell, nine years his junior, on March 18, 1991 and has had three children with her. He also had a daughter named Lisa Brennan-Jobs with Chris-Ann Brennan, whom he did not marry. Lisa (born May 17, 1978) is a journalist who wrote for The Harvard Crimson.

In the unauthorized biography The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan." In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time meant it was unlikely the couple could have children. Baez included a mention of Jobs in the acknowledgments of her 1987 memoir And A Voice To Sing With.

Steve Jobs is also a devoted Beatles fan. He has referenced them on more than one occasion at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. He also enjoys Bach and other classical music.

Jobs is not a vegetarian or vegan as is often claimed. Although he does not eat mammalian meat or fowl, he eats fish from time to time. This is known as pescetarianism.

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 frontman Bono. Jobs had never moved in.
In 1984, Jobs purchased a 17,000 square foot, 14 bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California, also known as Jackling House. Jobs lived in the mansion for ten years, it was, reportedly, in an almost unfurnished state; he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. He allowed the mansion to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes." On October 6, 1997, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market cap rose above Dell's. The email read:

“ Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve." ”

In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from the Apple retail stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.

When Jobs spoke at the Stanford Commencement, he spoke frankly about his opinions on entrepreneurship, work, and life. He reflected on what kept him going through challenging times: "I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going is that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love." He continued to stress the importance of "finding something you love" and "following your own inner voice." (The full podcast of his speech can be found at stanford.edu.)

In May 2007 Jobs proposed Al Gore for President.

Portable media from Apple

iPod is a brand of portable media player designed and marketed by Apple and launched in October 2001. The line-up currently consists of the original style hard drive-based flagship iPod classic, the premium iPhone-like iPod touch, the mid-level video-capable iPod nano, and the low-end screenless iPod shuffle. Former products include the compact iPod mini (replaced by the iPod nano) and the high-end spin-off iPod photo (re-integrated into the main iPod classic line). The current iPod classic models store media on an internal hard drive, while all other current models use flash memory to enable their smaller size. Like many digital music players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices.

Apple's iTunes software is used to transfer music to the devices. As a jukebox application, iTunes stores a music library on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. It also transfers photos, videos, games, and calendars to those iPod models that support them. Apple focused its development on the iPod's unique user interface and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability. As of April 2007, the iPod had sold over 100 million units worldwide, making it the best-selling digital audio player series in history.

iPod Classic


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iPod mini




iPod shuffle


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iPod nano



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iPod touch







Units sold over 110 million units worldwide,as of September 2007