Apple launches the iPod

Apple has unveiled a pocket-sized music player called the iPod, which it says can hold 1,000 songs.

The device was launched by the company's chief executive, Steve Jobs, at an event in California on 23 October. It will go on sale in the United States next month, priced at $399.

A thousand songs in your pocket

The iPod has a five gigabyte hard drive, far more storage than the flash memory players already on the market, which typically hold only a few dozen songs. It is about the size of a pack of cards and weighs 185 grams.

The player has a black and white screen and a scroll wheel that lets users move quickly through long lists of songs. It connects to Apple Macintosh computers using a FireWire cable, which the company says can transfer a CD's worth of music in seconds.

The battery is designed to last for ten hours of continuous playback.

Working with iTunes

The iPod works with iTunes, Apple's free software for managing digital music. Users can copy songs from their CDs onto their computer, turn them into compressed digital files and then transfer them to the player automatically.

Digital music has become hugely popular in the last few years, thanks to the MP3 format and file-sharing services such as Napster, which has been fighting legal action from the record industry. The music industry is worried about illegal copying and has yet to find a way to sell music online successfully.

A new direction for Apple

The iPod is Apple's first move into consumer electronics beyond computers. The company has had mixed fortunes in recent years, but has recovered since Jobs returned in 1997, with the success of the colourful iMac computer.

Some analysts have questioned whether a music player will be a success, pointing to its high price and the fact that it only works with Macs, which make up a small share of the computer market. Others believe Apple's reputation for design could help it stand out in a crowded field.

The iPod will be available in Britain later, and Apple says it will be sold in its usual retail outlets.

Whether it becomes a hit or not, the launch is a sign of how quickly the way people listen to music is changing, from tapes and CDs to digital files that can be stored by the thousand.