#3 Odd iPods

Apple’s MP3 player was technically launched late into a market filled with some major players including Sony. However, the iPod, with its flawless design, had indeed won the hearts of millions.

The trademark of iPods- Clickwheel has not changed its design, except in the second generation, when it turned touch sensitive from mechanical. But some of the Jobs’ patents show the ideas he had beyond the clickwheel.

Even though Apple never changed the clickwheel, here are those odd designs.

iPods with Track pad and Cross

Steve Jobs had actually patented an iPod design which has a laptop like track pad instead of the clickwheel. However the design never made it to shops. Jobs also had patented a cross design as a means to navigate the menus, because that was the design used by most of the counterfeit iPods.  

There was also an iPod design patented with a slide controller. Even though nobody knows how it is going to communicate with the iPod UI, Wired suggests that Jobs just patented it to mess with other companies who wanted to build anything similar.