Apple's iPod chief to step down - report

[AppleInsider]

Tony Fadell, largely regarded as the grandfather of the iPod and Apple's audio strategy, is leaving the company for personal reasons, according to a report published Tuesday by the Wall Street Journal.

Apple declined to comment on the story, but the financial paper cited people familiar with the matter as saying the executive will be replaced by Mark Papermaster, a top chip designer recently recruited from IBM among much controversy.

Fadell joined Apple as the first member of its iPod hardware engineering team in 2001 and was promoted to vice president of iPod engineering in 2004.*He's served as the senior vice president of Apple's iPod division since April 2006.

Back in the 1990s, Fadell started a company called Fuse, which aimed to produce a new array of consumer electronics devices for the masses. One such product was a hard disk-based digital music player.

When Fuse ran out of funding, Fadell explored the possibility of developing his gadgets for another company. He initially joined RealNetworks in 2000, but left just six weeks later. The next company he approached was Apple.

While presiding over the iPod boom, Fadell was also instrumental in the development of the first iPhone and oversaw other smaller products during his tenure at the company, including the iSight.

Fadell's big break came on October 14, 2005, when Apple announced that he would replace the retiring Jon Rubinstein as Senior Vice President of the iPod Division.

Fadell has filed more than 20 patents for his work, several of which have been covered (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) by AppleInsider.

According to the Journal, Fadell plans to take time off after leaving Apple but may still keep a role at the company as a consultant.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[Ireland]

Fadell shopped the idea of the iPod around silicon valley and no one was interested, but Apple said yes. The rest as they say; is history.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Ireland

Fadell shopped the idea of the iPod around silicon valley and no one was interested, but Apple said yes. The rest as they say; is history.

I thought it was iTunes that made the iPod. There were tons of MP3 players around long before the iPod. What did he have to do with iTunes? Let's not re-write history. Unless you mean he invented the click-wheel?

[SpinDrift]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I thought it was iTunes that made the iPod. There were tons of MP3 players around long before the iPod. What did he have to do with iTunes? Let's not re-write history. Unless you mean he invented the click-wheel?

The iTunes store and the seamless integration with a MP3 player was his concept.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by SpinDrift

The iTunes store and the seamless integration with a MP3 player was his concept.

Interesting- not something I would normally equate with hardware engineering.

[aaarrrgggh]

Didn't this news come out a month or two back? It was a slow transition period thing if I recall correctly.

[sflocal]

Originally Posted by SpinDrift

The iTunes store and the seamless integration with a MP3 player was his concept.

It was a variety of things IMHO. The iPod set the standard at that time for ease of use. The other mp3 players in the area suffered horribly from bad design implementations, menus and proprietary audio formats (Sony???).

No one will know what would have happened had RealNetworks decided to go full-speed on their version of the iPod. They probably would not have had they success compared to what Apple could do with it. Certainly they did not have the creativity-base that Apple is known for. I'm curious what those other companies that passed up the opportunity think now about their decision to do that.

The iPod will have its place in the history books as a device that changed the industry.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I thought it was iTunes that made the iPod. There were tons of MP3 players around long before the iPod. What did he have to do with iTunes? Let's not re-write history. Unless you mean he invented the click-wheel?

iTunes is media playback software and is incapable of designing consumer electronics.

The iPod was designed by a team of humans working under the direction of Tony Fadell.
While there were other MP3 players before, Fadell recognized that their flaw was lack of integration with their desktop software. There were very few companies with the expertise in hardware and software to create a successful device like the iPod.

iTunes was actually based on an earlier piece of software called SoundJam.
Apple acquired it in 2000 and released iTunes 1.0 in Jan of 2001.

Fadell began working as a contractor for Apple in February 2001 and was formally hired in April.
For the iPod, Apple used an System-On-a-Chip from PortalPlayer consisting of two ARM cores.
For the GUI, Apple hired another company called Pixo to develop the software that ran on PortalPlayer's OS and interacted with Apple's iTunes.
Apple introduced the iPod in October of 2001.
It was designed and brought to market in less than a year!

[Ireland]

MacRumors:

Apple also announced that Tony Fadell, Apple’s senior vice president of the iPod Division, and his wife Danielle Lambert, vice president of Human Resources, are reducing their roles within the company as they devote more time to their young family. Fadell will remain at Apple as an advisor to the CEO. Lambert will depart the company at the end of this year after a successor is in place.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella

The iPod was designed by a team of humans working under the direction of Tony Fadell.

I thought it was lizards, lol.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Ireland

I thought it was lizards, lol.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella

iTunes was actually based on an earlier piece of software called SoundJam.
Apple acquired it in 2000 and released iTunes 1.0 in Jan of 2001.

!

Ah yes -I actually had SoundJam running on my old G3 iMac- the good old days of OS9.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by sflocal

The iPod will have its place in the history books as a device that changed the industry.

Along with the vibrator.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Originally Posted by Ireland

I thought it was lizards, lol.

That was the ZUNE.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Ah yes -I actually had SoundJam running on my old G3 iMac- the good old days of OS9.

I wish they had gone with Panic's Audion instead.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella

I wish they had gone with Panic's Audion instead.

That was much more sophisticated- a friend had Audion. I guess they went for simplicity or who knows.

[aka]

Cool. Maybe the new guy will focus on improving the iPod's middle of the road sound quality instead of adding endless bells and whistles.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by aka

Cool. Maybe the new guy will focus on improving the iPod's middle of the road sound quality instead of adding endless bells and whistles.

The shuffle's is low road.

[bigdaddyp]

Originally Posted by teckstud

That was much more sophisticated- a friend had Audion. I guess they went for simplicity or who knows.

Sorry if this is off topic a little bit. If you go to Panics web site and dig around on Audion's page it has a very interesting story about how they almost were bought by Apple but were distracted by talks with Aol.

[Chris_CA]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella

iTunes is media playback software and is incapable of designing consumer electronics.

Perhaps the original poster was stating that iTunes is what "made" the iPod
such a hit?
Not that iTunes actually developed the iPod.

[joelsalt]

Originally Posted by Chris_CA

Perhaps the original poster was stating that iTunes is what "made" the iPod
such a hit?
Not that iTunes actually developed the iPod.

I thought the aesthetics had something to do with it.

that and marketing/branding.

[ncee]

iTunes was actually based on an earlier piece of software called SoundJam.

And I for one, liked Soundjam better -

Skip

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by Johnny Mozzarella

iTunes is media playback software and is incapable of designing consumer electronics.

And all this time I thought it was a person- kinda like a Santa elf.

[Johnny Mozzarella]

Originally Posted by Chris_CA

Perhaps the original poster was stating that iTunes is what "made" the iPod
such a hit?
Not that iTunes actually developed the iPod.

I was wrong.
I just loaded up a copy of iTunes 1.0 under Classic.
Under "File" menu is "New Consumer Electronics Device"
The short cut is Command+Option+Control+Shift+N
I selected the menu item and the computer just beach-balled for a good two minutes then schematics for the iPod started popping up on the screen.

It was there all along!!!