Considering the poor state of the PMP market, Jobs decided that Apple should attempt to create its own MP3 player, one that played well with iTunes and could potentially attract more customers to the Mac platform. He assigned Jon Rubinstein, then Apple's senior VP of hardware, to the task.

Rubinstein began preliminary research for ideas on how to proceed. From the beginning, he had two ingredients in mind: a speedy FireWire interface to solve the transfer problem, and a particular 1.8-inch 5GB hard drive from Toshiba that could make Apple's music device smaller than any other hard drive-based player on the market.

With most of Apple's engineers tied up in Mac-related projects, Rubinstein sought help from outside the company to further determine the feasibility of an Apple music player. Through personal connections, Rubinstein heard about a man with the right qualifications and experience to do the job. He gave him a call in January 2001.

On that day in January, Tony Fadell happened to be riding on a ski lift when his phone rang. It was Jon Rubinstein calling. He invited Fadell to visit Apple to discuss a potential project, but he kept quiet about its exact nature.