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In late nineties when digital music players were still not a reality, Tony Fadell envisioned the idea of building a compact digital music player that were to sport a quarter-sized hard drives which offered 5GB of storage space.

Fadell also thought that the new player could link on the internet with a media service where users can buy music that could be legally downloaded onto the player.

However, his idea was rejected by RealNetworks, on the ground that it was a difficult to justify the creation of a separate personal music device when the player they were selling was successful. Disappointed, Fadell approached Phillips. His idea was turned off at Philips too.

Faddel then took his idea to Apple. The company lapped it up and gave the world iPod. In 2001, the first iPod was released and came with a 5GB Toshiba hard drive, ARM processors, an operating system from Pixo, a lithium polymer battery for added battery life.

According to reports Apple currently controls 80% of the digital music market. In the second quarter ended March 2009, Apple sold 11.01 million iPods during the quarter, representing 3% unit growth over the year-ago quarter. In contrast to Apple, reports reveal Real Networks' revenues are a fraction of what Apple makes from iTunes alone.