Answer: Dulcimer

During the 1990s designer Tony Fadell–responsible for developing several well known devices of the era like the Motorola Envoy–started a company called Fuse to design and promote a hard-disk based music player. The company faced various short comings and setbacks over the years, including getting rejected by RealNetworks but Fadell ultimately prevailed.

In 2000 he approached Apple with his music player idea. Despite being burned by personal electronics projects in the past–such as the Newton–Apple was persuaded by Fadell and they hired him in 2001 to continue his work on Project Dulcimer and direct Apple’s audio product development.

When Project Dulcimer was unveiled to the public in October of 2001 it was with great fanfare and with what would go on to become the most iconic name in the history of personal music players: the iPod.