Apple, and the Macintosh, once were the envy of the home computer manufacturing world. But the rise of Microsoft and the Windows-based PC very nearly put Apple on the garbage heap, and when Steve Jobs brought his company back from the brink he did it not with a Microsoft competitor, but with a handheld, digitally-based mp3 which was to the mp3 world what he had hoped Macintosh would be to PCs. Why?

Because Apple knew its future was resting on the tiny back of the iPod, so when it decided to introduce an mp3 player, it did not rest until it had the best mp3 player in history. And Apple has continued to improve on the iPod, which through its not quite six years of existence has come through five generations, each of them more spectacular than the previous, to the latest iPod video with its 80GB memory.

And Apple has done very smart things, beginning with making the iPod compatible with Windows-based systems. It has created a series of iPod accessories and licensed the rights to manufacture and sell them to various entities, so that consumers can distinguish iPod compatible accessories from those whose makers are merely trying to capitalize on the IPods craze.

Another stroke of genius from Apple was to start iTunes, a digital media application which allows iPod users, for a fee, to transfer songs and movies from the Internet to their iPod hard drives via a USB cable. Not only have iPods users rid themselves of the need to carry backpacks full of tapes or CDs around, the iPod user can decide in which order his or her favorite songs will play, and what information about them will show on the iPod screen. iTunes can be downloaded free to both the Mac OSX, and Windows XP, Vista, and 2000 versions. It comes pre-installed on all Macintoshes and a few Dell and HP PCs.

The iTunes software allows users to connect to the iTunes store on the Apple website, where iPod users can purchase music, television shows, films and music videos, and even games. By January of 2007, iTunes had accounted for more than two billion song downloads, or about one for every three people on Earth, and over 80% of all music downloads.

Apple ensured the success of the iPod by signing deals with Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, Universal, BMG, and EM to offer their recordings on the iTunes service, and when it opened the iTunes store in 2003, had over 200,000 songs ready for downloading. Its library now numbers over 5,000,000.

The iPod is not just any digital media player; it's the digital media player from the company which is known for innovation and for finding ways to put its products in the "must-have" category. The more than two billion songs on untold millions of iPods can testify to the effectiveness of their approach.

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