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About this siteFor six years, the Internet Nexus served as my technology blog, but I've since started blogging at the SuperSite Blog instead. If you're looking for the blog, please head there. --Paul Wednesday, July 21, 2004Inside Look at Birth of the IPodWired: "Ben Knauss is a former senior manager at PortalPlayer, the company Apple Computer approached to help develop an MP3 player that would eventually become the wildly popular iPod. Knauss shared his firsthand knowledge of the device's development, the glitches that almost killed it, and the extraordinary steps Apple took to keep the iPod a secret. Knauss, who acted as the primary liaison between Apple and PortalPlayer, quit the company in 2001. According to Knauss, the iPod originated with a business idea dreamed up by Tony Fadell, an independent contractor and hardware expert who'd helped develop handheld devices at General Magic and Philips ... Knauss said Fadell approached several companies and was turned away by all of them, except for Apple. Apple hired Fadell in early 2001 and assigned him a team of about 30 people ... Knauss said at one of the first meetings with PortalPlayer, Fadell said, 'This is the project that's going to remold Apple and 10 years from now, it's going to be a music business, not a computer business' ... '(PortalPlayer) was attractive to Apple because we had an operating system,' said Knauss. 'That was a real selling point for Apple. We had the software and the hardware already done, and Apple was on a tight schedule.' Knauss said the reference design was about 80 percent complete when Apple came calling."This is an absolutely fascinating article. Highly recommended. [ Posted at 11:10 AM | Permalink ]
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