iPod (5th generation)
The video iPod, though Apple never called it that. Launched the same day the iTunes Store started selling television at $1.99 an episode.
Released October 12, 2005 · Discontinued September 5, 2007 · From $299 (30 GB)
Everyone called the fifth-generation iPod the video iPod. Apple never did. It had a 2.5-inch color screen at 320x240, H.264 and MPEG-4 playback, 30 or 60GB of storage, and a body thinner than the 4th generation in spite of all of it. The iTunes Store started selling television the same day at $1.99 an episode, which was the first time a studio had sold a show for download at any real scale. ABC agreed to it. Lost and Desperate Housewives went on sale, and the rest of television spent the next several years working out what to do about that. Watching anything on a 2.5-inch screen was never good. Selling it by the episode changed the industry anyway.
Reviews & Reception
Video arrived on the full-size iPod, and reviewers judged it on how little content there was to watch.
The screen looks great, the controls are responsive, and Apple's incorporated video in a way that feels as natural as any other function on the iPod.
Video content is limited, but the iPod's still the best music player out there.