Michal Ždanský The interaction between Apple and Hewlett-Packard dates back to when Steve Jobs was still in high school. That's when he called co-founder William Hewlett to ask if he would provide him with parts for a school project. Hewlett, impressed by Steve Jobs' audacity, provided parts to the young student and even offered him a summer job at the company. HP has been an inspiration for Jobs since the beginning of Apple Computer. Many decades later, Jobs again tried to save the position of CEO Mark Hurd, who was removed by the board due to a sexual harassment scandal.
However, Apple established an interesting collaboration with Hewlett-Packard a few years before that. It was 2004. That was when Apple first released iTunes for Windows and the iPod was still on the rise. The extension to Windows thanks to the corresponding software was a step towards even more popularization of iPods, which conquered the market of music players with an unprecedented share, when Apple practically wiped out the competition. Apple Story had been around for two years, but outside of that, Apple didn't have many distribution channels. So he decided to join forces with HP to take advantage of its distribution network, which included American chains Wall-mart, RadioShack or Office Depot. The collaboration was announced at CES 2004.
It included a special version of the iPod, which, to the surprise of many, carried the Hewlett-Packard company logo on the back of the device. However, that was the only physical difference from regular iPods. The player contained identical hardware, 20 or 40 GB memory. It was initially sold in the blue color typical of HP products. Later, the classic iPod was joined by iPod mini, iPod shuffle and the lesser-known iPod photo.
What was different, however, was Apple's approach to these devices. Service and support was provided directly by HP, not Apple, and the "geniuses" at the Apple Store refused to repair this version of iPods, even though it was identical hardware sold in the store. The HP version was also distributed with a disc containing iTunes for Windows, while regular iPods included software for both operating systems. As part of the agreement, Hewlett-Packard also preinstalled iTunes on its HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario series computers.
However, the unusual collaboration between Apple and HP did not last long. At the end of June 2005, Hewlett-Packard announced that it was terminating the agreement with the Apple company. The year-and-a-half distribution of HP channels did not bear nearly the fruit that both companies had hoped for. It accounted for only five percent of the total number of iPods sold. Despite the end of the cooperation, HP preinstalled iTunes on its computers until the beginning of 2006. The curious models of iPods with the HP logo on the back are thus the only reminder of the not-so-successful cooperation between the two large computer companies.
Nowadays, the situation between Apple and Hewlett-Packard is rather tense, especially because of the design of the MacBooks, which HP is shamelessly trying to copy in a number of notebooks Envy.
20 or 40Gb?
2 or 4 is correct I would say.
No, 20 and 40gb are correct ;)
They wrote the 4GB on the back of the iPod just to confuse users.
No, there were more versions. The one in the picture is an HP iPod mini, and the icon of the article shows a classic iPod.
The author messed it up again, the photo and text are about a goat and a car. It wasn't just iPods, it was iPod minis too, and it wasn't just 20GB and 40GB, but 4 to 60GB depending on the model (plus the shuffle (512-1024MB). See http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2345
I recommend reading the article again…
"Later, the classic iPod was joined by the iPod mini, iPod shuffle and the lesser-known iPod photo."
It's a photo, nothing else. However, putting a photo of an iMac with a pentium next to the iMac G4 is not the right thing to do, even if you write that there were other iMacs later. ;))
But the article is not specifically about the classic iPod, but in general about iPod players with the HP logo. The image is for illustrative purposes. So I don't see any problem with it.
I got chills when I read "That's when he called co-founder William Hewlett". It's Bill Hewlett and for the Czech wiki, where did you probably get it from? It's stupid :/
William = Bill