300 million iPods sold, Apple boasts

All bums are firmly on the edges of seats tonight as new Apple chief executive Tim Cook prepares to unveil what we hope will be a new iPhone -- or two. First though, Tim's had a good old brag about the iPod.

"Over 300 million iPods have been sold," Cook explained to a packed audience in Apple's Cupertino headquarters. "It took Sony 30 years to sell 220,000 Walkman cassette players". That's certainly an impressive boast, and a swift kick to Sony's unmentionables.

The iPod has certainly come a long way from its launch in 2001 to commanding 78 per cent of the portable-music-player market. The first iterations packed only 5GB of memory and a mechanical scroll wheel, rather than the touch-sensitive wheels we all know and love today.

Since the launch, the iPod has gone from strength to strength, with Apple constantly tweaking the design and specs, bringing us such gems as the iPod mini, iPod nano and more recent iPod touch.

"iPod is still a large and important market for Apple," commented Cook, so we don't expect the iPod name to be disappearing any time soon, although the iPod classic may well be getting the axe later tonight.

We're impressed by Cook's boasts, but not really surprised. The iPod came to dominate the market so quickly that it's difficult to imagine strolling down the street without one blasting Ke$ha into our ears.

The news is still coming thick and fast from the Apple event, so make sure to keep it CNET UK for all the latest information.