"As we all know, Apple's iPod has dominated the digital music player scene since its launch in 2001, much like an aardvark busting through a termite mound. As hard-drive-based players have gotten smaller and the price of flash-based players has dropped, Apple seized on the opportunity to dive into the flash-based market with the iPod shuffle. It was a wildly successful move for Apple, which has grabbed close to 46 percent of the flash-based player market since its inception. However, there were still many reasons for users not to get the shuffle—namely, the lack of a screen and sophisticated controls. The task for Apple was to create a music player that was somehow a marriage between the minute size of the iPod shuffle and the versatility of a regular iPod."