kami

Tony Fadell is known as the “Father of the iPod” He had spent years trying to build up a small digital music startup called Fuse. But by 2001 his company was out of money. By stroke of luck, while on vacation in January 2001, he revived a phone call by no other than Jon Rubinstein! Apple wanted his help building a new mp3 player. He accepted a 6 week consulting roll within Apple and got to work. In that time, he built 3 prototypes which lead up to a big presentation directly to Steve Jobs. He pitched the iPod using styrofoam blocks & fishing weights to simulate its physical weight and feel Jobs immediately rejected the first two larger hard drive or bulky options… Fadell then pulled a hidden 3rd prototype from his coat and handed it to Steve. The 3rd version was a perfect balance of shape and size. Jobs picked up the weighted block, turned it over in his hands to feel its weight and form factor, thought about it for a moment and said: “Let's do this" A month later Tony was officially hired by Apple and named Senior Director of the iPod & Special Projects engineering group. The rest was history.