When we talk about iPod and the relationship with society, we talk about a very large and vast area. Different factors influence the success of Apple and Apple iPod in particular. The relationship between society and IT had been for a very long time ignored, but recently sociologists started debating it. Analyzing the factors that influence the rising success of the iPod means understanding this relationship. In this essay we are going to analyse the factors that lead to the success of the iPod and try to explain how this success contributed to the comparative lack of success of rival MP3 players. .
The discussion is going to be based on the influence that iPod had on society and its relationship with it based on the reading of du Gay (1997), Mackay's theory about the IT/society relationship (1995), Bull (2007), Levy (2006) and some online journals. This essay is going to try to demonstrate that the success is a conglomerate of facts and that also very important is the aggressive marketing.
The success of the iPod seems apparent from the impact that it is claimed it had on cultural, social, political and economic life. Selling over 100 millions units world wide since the launch in 2001 "is the first cultural icon of the twenty- first century. " (Bull, 2007). When first the iPod was launched on the market it was a bold move from Apple considering that on the market already existed MP3 players.
At the question "Why is it so successful? " Schulhof (2006) explains that Apple created "not only the hardware (iPod) but also the content (iTunes)" and that was maybe one of the reasons it was so attractive to people even though there were other players at that moment on the market. Apple had a very unique modality to market their products. IPod is being launch on the market at a historic moment in the history of U.S. (five weeks after 9/11). When Steve Jobs launched the iPod he proclaimed it as "a major, major breakthrough ".