Griffin Technology
Encyclopedia
Griffin Technology is a privately held U.S. company founded in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
in 1992 by Paul Griffin. The company designs and manufactures computer peripherals, consumer electronics
Consumer electronics
Consumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
, and accessories, the first products being primarily video adapters, in particular those to enable the connection of DB-15 based Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
computers to the more popular VGA based monitors of the time. June 1998 marked Griffin's entry into USB based computer peripherals with the introduction of the iMate, a device that allowed the use of Apple Desktop Bus
Apple Desktop Bus
Apple Desktop Bus is an obsolete bit-serial computer bus connecting low-speed devices to computers. Used primarily on the Macintosh platform, ADB equipment is still available but not supported by most Apple hardware manufactured since 1999....
(ADB) based devices with the newer, and increasingly more common, Universal Serial Bus (USB). Griffin introduced additional USB devices, such as iMic and PowerMate
Griffin PowerMate
The Griffin PowerMate is an input device produced by Griffin Technology for computers equipped with USB ports. It is a multifunction knob which can be rotated or depressed...
, over the next two years, and continued to enjoy moderate growth during this period.
Griffin was one of the first companies to recognize the potential of Apple's iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
, introducing their first accessories for iPod in January 2002 at the MacWorld
Macworld Conference & Expo
Produced by Boston-based IDG World Expo, Macworld | iWorld is a trade-show with conference tracks dedicated to the Apple Macintosh platform. It is held annually in the United States, usually during the second week of January...
held in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. This was just three months after Apple's release of iPod. One year later, at MacWorld San Francisco 2003, Griffin introduced iTrip
ITrip
The iTrip is an FM-transmitter made by Griffin Technology as a third party accessory for Apple's popular iPod MP3 player and iPhone.The iTrip plugs into the headphone socket of the iPod and converts the audio output into an FM radio signal, which can then be picked up by appliances such as car...
. iTrip is an FM transmitter that allows iPod owners to transmit audio from an iPod to a nearby FM receiver
Receiver (radio)
A radio receiver converts signals from a radio antenna to a usable form. It uses electronic filters to separate a wanted radio frequency signal from all other signals, the electronic amplifier increases the level suitable for further processing, and finally recovers the desired information through...
.
The company experienced rapid growth fueled by the success of its iPod accessories, especially the iTrip. As evidence, the number of people employed by Griffin Technology increased four-fold between 2003 and 2007. This growth allowed the company to take on more ambitious projects such as the Evolve wireless speaker system, and to diversify the product line to include accessories for iPod competitors such as Microsoft's
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
Zune
Zune
Zune is a digital media brand owned by Microsoft which includes a line of portable media players, a digital media player software for Windows machines, a music subscription service known as a 'Zune Music Pass', music and video streaming for the Xbox 360 via the Zune Software, music, TV and movie...
, and SanDisk's
SanDisk
SanDisk Corporation is an American multinational corporation that designs, develops and manufactures data storage solutions in a range of form factors using the flash memory, controller and firmware technologies. It was founded in 1988 by Dr. Eli Harari and Sanjay Mehrotra, non-volatile memory...
Sansa
SanDisk Sansa
The SanDisk Sansa is a line of 2 to 16 gigabyte flash memory-based digital audio players and portable media players produced by SanDisk.- Sansa Fuze+:...
.
Griffin had already been involved in software, with utilities in support of its iMic and other products, and in 2008, began offering software apps for Apple iPhone and iPod touch. Its first offerings were games; later, the company developed a software version of its iTalk recording appliance for iPod. The first iTalk was a stereo microphone that plugged into an iPod to facilitate direct recording. The software version for iPod touch and iPhone allows stereo recording at CD-quality sampling rates, via either the iPhone's built-in microphone or an external mic. iTalk quickly became one of the most-downloaded utility apps available from Apple's iTunes App Store, and continues in popularity to the present.
Awards
Griffin Technology was chosen unanimously by the editors of iLoungeILounge
iLounge is an independent website covering all things related to Apple's iPod, iPhone, iPad and the related iTunes software. Founded by Dennis Lloyd in the days after Apple released their first generation iPod on October 23, 2001, iLounge is a popular source of iPod, iPhone and iPad information,...
as "iPod Accessory Maker of the Year 2005," and has been included in Macworld Expo's Best of Show picks for products like: SmartDeck (2005), a smart cassette adapter that not only transferred music from the user's iPod to the car stereo, but let users control a connected iPod using the car's tape deck controls; and Radio SHARK
Radio SHARK
radio SHARK is a computer-controlled radio designed by Griffin Technology, introduced in late 2004. A second generation superseded it in 2007; they are distinguishable by color . The radio connects the computer through a USB interface, which also supplies power to the radio...
(2003), a fin-shaped device that acted as an AM/FM radio receiver, routing radio programming through the computer's interface. Radio SHARK also allowed users to "pause" live radio broadcasts (by means of an interval delay), and to schedule and record broadcasts to disk for later listening.
Products
- iTripITripThe iTrip is an FM-transmitter made by Griffin Technology as a third party accessory for Apple's popular iPod MP3 player and iPhone.The iTrip plugs into the headphone socket of the iPod and converts the audio output into an FM radio signal, which can then be picked up by appliances such as car...
- iTalk
- radio SHARKRadio SHARKradio SHARK is a computer-controlled radio designed by Griffin Technology, introduced in late 2004. A second generation superseded it in 2007; they are distinguishable by color . The radio connects the computer through a USB interface, which also supplies power to the radio...
- ProxiProxiProxi is a free utility from Griffin Technology for Mac OS X. It allows the assignment of automated events called "tasks" to a variety of "triggers" such as hotkeys, email, iTunes, RSS feeds, as well as hardware available from Griffin such as the PowerMate, AirClick or radio SHARK...
- FireWaveFirewaveThe FireWave is a device that is, essentially, an external FireWire soundcard made by Griffin Technology as a third party accessory for Apple Inc.'s line of personal computers....
- iMic
- iMate
- PowerMateGriffin PowerMateThe Griffin PowerMate is an input device produced by Griffin Technology for computers equipped with USB ports. It is a multifunction knob which can be rotated or depressed...
- iClear
- Simplifi
Survivor cases
In 2011, Griffin Technology released a MilSpec iPhone/iPod/iPad case series named Survivorhttp://www.griffintechnology.com/armored. The Mil-STD810 claims were verified by an independent third party lab (NTS National Technical Systems). As part of the marketing campaign for Survivor, Griffin released a series of YouTubeYouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
videos in a lighthearted "reality" show style. The videos showed Griffin Certifications Director Michael O'Connor
Michael O'Connor
Michael O'Connor may refer to:Politicians* Michael O'Connor , Australian politician* Michael A. O'Connor, mayor of Berwyn, Illinois, USA* Michael P. O'Connor , U.S...
performing various real world experiments (throwing the phone through drywall, off a 150ft bridge, dragged behind a motorcycle, etc) with the iPhone in a Survivor case.