lineage
iPod

A first-generation iPod and its wheel, photographed in 2004. Photo pvera (Flickr), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

iPod

17 traced influences · 8 sources

dig iPod

What it took directly

  1. statedThe iPod took from Toshiba's 1.8-inch hard drive, which Toshiba had no use for yet"We went into Toshiba, and at the end of the meeting, they showed us the 1.8-inch hard drive. They didn’t know what to do with it." Jon Rubinstein, Apple's senior VP of hardware engineering, in Fast Company's oral history of Apple design (Max Chafkin)
  2. statedThe iPod's hardware took from PortalPlayer's reference platform for MP3 players"The original iPod hardware was based on a reference platform Apple bought from a company called Portal Player." David Shayer, the second software engineer on the iPod project, TidBITS (17 August 2020)
  3. statedThe iPod's operating system took from Pixo, a cell-phone operating system written by ex-Apple engineers"Apple bought the higher levels of the iPod OS from Pixo, a company started a few years earlier by ex-Apple engineers trying to write a general-purpose cell phone operating system" David Shayer, the second software engineer on the iPod project, TidBITS (17 August 2020)
  4. statedThe iPod's wheel took from Phil Schiller's call for a jog shuttle wheel, in a one-hour meeting"It had a navigation control, and [marketing chief] Phil Schiller said, “You should do a jog shuttle wheel.” And that was it." Tony Fadell, later senior VP of Apple's iPod division, in Fast Company's oral history of Apple design (Max Chafkin)
  5. documentedPhil Schiller's wheel idea took from a Bang & Olufsen home phone that scrolled with a wheel"B&O did a phone, like a home phone, and they used a wheel to scroll. [Apple marketing SVP] Phil [Schiller] had seen it, and said, 'Well, we should do that.'" an unnamed Apple insider, to Austin Carr, Fast Company Co.Design (November 6, 2013)
  6. statedThe name "iPod" took from "2001" and its pod bay ("Open the pod bay door, Hal!")"As soon as I saw the white iPod, I thought 2001" Vinnie Chieco, the freelance copywriter who named it, to Leander Kahney, Wired (Oct 17, 2006)
  7. documentedThe iPod answered Creative's Nomad Jukebox, then the most popular hard-drive player"Apple's team knew it could solve most of the problems plagued by the Nomad." Leander Kahney, Wired (Oct 17, 2006)

What it learned to do

  1. statedTony Fadell learned from building a rack-mounted MP3 player for home stereos at Fuse Systems"At Fuse Systems [Fadell’s previous company], we were creating this MP3 player for home stereos. It was rack-mounted because there was no storage that was small enough." Tony Fadell, later senior VP of Apple's iPod division, in Fast Company's oral history of Apple design (Max Chafkin)
  2. statedJonathan Ive, the iPod's designer, learned from Dieter Rams's design philosophy (not, he says, Rams's T3 radio)"Because there was no connection. But the connection is that Dieter Rams’ philosophy and principles translated into actual products that so resonated with me when I was studying design." Jonathan Ive, interviewed by Gerrit Terstiege for the rams foundation
  3. statedThe iPod's white learned from Jonathan Ive's art-school habit of working only in white"Almost without exception all my work at art school—I just worked in white. White is recessive, very clear and very strong and also deferring to form." Jonathan Ive, interviewed by Gerrit Terstiege for the rams foundation, answering a question about the iPod's whiteness
  4. inferredThe iPod's white plastic learned from Apple's white iBook redesign"Shortly after the iMac, we did the Titanium PowerBook, and then we redesigned the iBook in white. The white definitely came from Jony." inferred — Doug Satzger, Apple's industrial design creative lead, traces Apple's white to Ive and the iBook redesign in the 2001 chapter of Fast Company's oral history; he does not name the iPod in that passage
  5. documentedThe iPod's automatic sync with iTunes learned from Palm's HotSync software"Jobs insisted the iPod work seamlessly with iTunes, and that many functions should be automated, especially transferring songs. The model was Palm's HotSync software." Leander Kahney, Wired (Oct 17, 2006)
  6. documentedMichael Dhuey, the iPod's hardware engineer, learned from his earlier hardware work on the Apple III, Lisa, Macintosh and Mac II"Having already worked on the Apple III, Lisa, Macintosh and Mac II, Dhuey was given free reign by Apple to get the job done." Design News, Engineer of the Year finalist profile (September 2007)

The tradition it sits in

  1. statedThe iPod comes from the hard-drive music players before it, at a fifth of their volume"iPod represents the next generation of portable music players that store music on an internal hard drive, yet are only 20 percent of the volume of today’s hard drive-based players." Apple, "Apple Presents iPod" press release (October 23, 2001)
  2. documentedJonathan Ive's design work at Apple comes from Dieter Rams's work for Braun"There are common elements, but he [Ive] has developed my design." Dieter Rams, at a Seoul press conference for the "Less and More" exhibition (Korea JoongAng Daily)
  3. inferredThe iPod comes from the personal-stereo line of Sony's Walkman"We were kind of like, Who needs another Walkman? While the design [of the iPod] was great, it was just an MP3 player." inferred — Jeff Zwerner, Apple's packaging creative director, measures the iPod against the Walkman in Fast Company's oral history; nobody who made it names the Walkman as a source

Where the whole form comes from

  1. documentedThe iPod's scroll wheel comes from earlier scroll wheels, back to the Hewlett Packard 9836 workstation keyboard (1983)"Back in 1983, the Hewlett Packard 9836 workstation had a keyboard with a similar wheel for scrolling text." Leander Kahney, Wired (Oct 17, 2006)

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