iPod
The iPod is an MP3 player made by Apple. It is the most popular, easy-to-use, and stylish MP3 player on the market. There have been two generations of the popular iPod mini and four generations of the full-sized iPod, all of which had monochrome screens except for the fourth-generation iPod with color screen. The lineup currently consists of the fifth-generation iPod, which has video playback capabilities, the iPod nano which has a color screen, and the iPod shuffle; all three versions were released in 2005.
The iPod is currently the world's best-selling digital audio player. The bundled software used for uploading music, photos, and videos to the iPod is called iTunes. A music jukebox application, iTunes stores a comprehensive library of the users' music on their computer, and can play and rip music from a CD. The most recent incarnations of iPod and iTunes have video playing and organization features.
In addition to playing music and storing files, the iPod has limited PDA functionality. Since January 2003, Mac users have been able to synchronize their contacts and schedules Address Book and iCal to their iPods through iSync. With the 2005 release of iTunes 5.0, Apple integrated contact/schedule syncing into iTunes and added the ability for Windows users to synchronize their contacts and schedules from Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express. Although Mozilla Calendar and Mozilla Sunbird iCalendar have the same file format used by iCal and the iPod, there is no way to automatically sync schedules across from these programs. However the files can be manually dragged and dropped into the correct directory on the iPod.
Most iPods (the exception is the iPod shuffle) also feature games. All iPods (except the shuffle) feature "Brick", a clone of the Breakout arcade game from Atari (originally created by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak) along with three other games:
- Parachute: a game in which the user controls a turret and attempts to shoot down paratroopers and the helicopters which release them. Parachute is similar to the Apple II game Sabotage by Mark Allen.
- Solitaire: a simple card game resembling the Klondike solitaire card game.
- Music Quiz: an interactive music quiz featuring the user's own songs. The game plays a portion of a random song and prompts the user to identify it from a list of 5 (or of 4 on the iPod mini). A song drops off the list every few seconds. The faster the users choose the right song, the more points they get. Music Quiz became available through a free firmware update for third-generation iPods released in October 2003 and later came standard with the iPod mini and fourth-generation iPods. No record is kept of the score, and there is no limit on the number of songs played; however, the songs repeat after the first 100. Music Quiz requires rapid disk seeking and uses a lot of battery power.
- Notes: iPod also has the function to read eBooks through use of the Notes Function. This allows the user to read small text files.
December 2005 saw the release of one the first iPod games to make use of the iPod's ability to act as a "Sonic Gaming Platform". The game, "Rock and Pop Trivia Quiz" from Coolgorilla takes the listener through 40 narrated questions on well known Rock & Pop artists.