Have you ever wondered how does an iPod work? You see them everywhere - on television, in stores, and in the hands of random people walking down the street - but do you really know what they are?
Put simply, an iPod is a music storage and listening device. Many people prefer it to storing music on computers or discs because the iPod is so easily portable. You can simply load the music you want into the iPod, slip it into your pocket or purse, and have music with you anytime, anywhere!
An iPod can play anything that you can play on your computer or regular home stereo. When music is uploaded to an iPod, it is changed to a digital format. If you were to look at this format on a screen, it would read as a series of numbers. When those numbers are read by a hard drive, like the one in your iPod, the numerals are converted into sound.
An iPod can hold hours and hours of music. How is that possible? A typical CD can only hold about eighty minutes of music! If a CD can only hold a bit over an hour, how does an iPod work? It can hold up to 30,000 songs - that's days and days of music!
The iPod uses a process called compression to fit all that music into a tiny space. Compression allows you to shrink the size of a file down into a very small file that is easily transferred and stored. The digital audio chip in your iPod reads the shrunken files and creates the sound from them, which is then transmitted to the ear buds.
The iPods usually use one of two types of memory. They either use miniature hard drives, which can be smaller than two inches and can hold an incredible amount of data for their size. These hard drives can hold thousands of songs, as well as several full-length movies. These hard drives are common in the larger iPods, the ones with the greater capacity for storage.
The flash memory, on the other hand, is common in the smaller iPod versions, like the shuffle. Though the flash memory holds less than the hard drive, it has the advantage of being much thinner and smaller, thus leading to smaller devices.
Of course, all iPods run on a battery that has to be charged from time to time, depending on usage. The battery is enclosed in the device, a very tiny little component that keeps your music spinning and your movies showing. The final feature of any iPod is the click wheel, a unique touch-sensitive ring that allows you to go through your music as easily as tapping your finger. The click wheel makes it easy to handle your iPod without even bothering to look down at it.
Now that we've answered the question "how does an iPod work", don't you want one of your own? There are many models, styles and colors to choose from, and one of them is guaranteed to meet all your media needs.
