Noticing a growing market for mobile MP3 players, Apple released the original iPod in late 2001, and it was quickly destined to be a huge success. It was exactly what people wanted.. It had a simple interface, it had a large storage capacity, and it was extremely attractive and recognizable. It was only compatible with the Apple Macintosh though, which extremely limited their sales possibilities.

The iPod did end up driving up Apple Macintosh sales though, since a small percentage of people actually migrated over to the Macintosh computer just so they could use an Ipod. It wasn't enough to drive sales of the iPod up though, Apple needed a bigger market, they needed the Windows market, which was (and still is) much larger than the Macintosh market.

In 2003 Apple released a new iPod that came with iTunes, which was compatible with both Macintosh and Windows systems. This was when the real explosion of sales occurred, since so many more people could use them with the Windows platform.

The iPod Keys to Success

# Simple Interface - The Apple iPod has an extremely simple interface, needing only a few seconds of use to be able to master it.

# Large capacity - The current regular ipod has a 30 or 60 gigabyte storage capacity, which 30 gigabytes equals about 6000 songs. Even the smaller versions have a larger than normal capacity.

# It's visually attractive - They made it look very sexy, appealing to just about everyone, and is now extremely recognizable.

# Windows and Mac compatibility - When they crossed over to the windows market, they more than tripled their market, literally reaching anyone that owned a computer

These are the things that really make the Apple iPod dominate the mobile MP3 player market, reaching over 70% of the market share. Apple never simply wanted to dominate the market with one product though, they're still releasing new products at an alarming rate, each of which are doing extremely well.

# iPod Mini - This was Apple's first iPod spinoff, attempting to appeal to a younger market, being the first to come in different color, and it was much smaller than the original iPod. It didn't have as large of a capacity as the original, but it was still large enough to hold a lot of songs.

# iPod Nano - Apple retired the Mini, and came out with the Nano, which was even smaller than the Mini, at about a quarter of an inch thick. The nano has exploded onto the market with it's extremely small size, and has capacities of 1, 2, and 4 gigabytes.

# iPod Video - This was a replacement for the basic iPod, and the most recent addition to the iPod family of products. the iPod Video not only plays songs like the original, but plays video files as well, and they bumped up the capacity to 30 and 60 gigabytes.

# iPod Shuffle - The iPod Shuffle is Apples first attempt at the flash drive market, since all of their other products have spinning hard drives. The shuffle replaces the user interface with just a few buttons, and prides itself on the "shuffle" feature, after it's name. It is the smallest of the iPod line, at about the size of a usb memory stick, and has capacities of 512 megabytes and 1 gigabyte, appealing to those that don't need much space and want something extremely small.

The iPod has created a whole slew of other markets as well, from audio companies implementing ipod connectivity support in car radios, clothes companies creating ipod pockets, and other third party companies creating tons of ipod accessories, like carrying cases, protective sleeves, docking stations, the list goes on and on.

It's no wonder why the iPod dominates the market, with Apple's ingenious marketing strategies, great features, and appealing looks of their products, the iPod is destined to dominate the MP3 player market for some time.

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This article taken from Computer Discounts Guide - Apple iPod Guide. View the website for more helpful guides.

Donny Duncan, the author of Computer Discounts Guide has been in the computer field for over thirteen years.