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Apple released the very first iPod (first generation) on the 23rd October 2001 and was immediately very popular. Apple at the time were struggling in the computer market with only 20 million Mac users too 340 million Microsoft windows users.
In 2003 Apple only had 2.06% of Americans desktop computers with the vast proportion going to Microsoft.
Many industry pundits were predicting apples impending doom' and say in the late 90's the company's future was at its bleakest'. On September 29th 2000 Apples market value halved overnight. Around $9 billion was wiped from the company's market capitalization and its shares more than halved to $26.12 by midday.

Just as the pundits had predicted Apple was facing a very bleak future. Its investors had begun to worry that the company's long term demand and its earnings were substantially lower in the next quarter and were under threat of lowering further.

This is partly because Apple has a small base of users in the creative and artistic businesses and the well educated but this may also be seen a an advantage as they have a base of customers that will never stop as I have witnessed the reliance upon Apple during my work experience and anyone remotely related to the creative industry has no choice but to use Apple as it has such a high performance and quality and there is absolutely no chance of this reliance ever changing. It is also claimed that George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh are Apple users.
The first iPod was released only 13 months after this disaster. It began with the first generation model available in 5 or 10 GB but they went on to produce 10 different ranges with various capacities: The
second generation was released on 17th July 2002 after the success of the first, the third was released on 28th April 2003 followed by the new Mini' on 6th January 2004. By July 2004 the forth generation came out with a color screen and photo viewer. Since have been new high tech models such as the shuffle (more like the conventional MP3 player), the tiny and slim line Nano' and the 5th generation iPod Video'.
The iPod had definitely rescued Apple from its huge losses in 2000, as by 2004 Apples shares had risen back to $53.50 in the NASDAQ stock market, the highest since its drop on 29th September 2000. This was because of an almost 4 fold increase in iPod sales to 2.68 million units in the December period alone.
By September 2004 Apple had sold 5.74 million of the players, the revenue of the iPod more than quadrupled

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