Pixo
Encyclopedia
Pixo was a company that developed infrastructure for hand-held devices. It was founded in 1994 when Paul Mercer, a software developer at Apple, left to form his own company. The company developed a system software toolkit in C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...

 for use on cell phones and other hand-held devices. They were acquired by Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

 in 2003.

Use in Apple's iPod

In 2001, Pixo was hired by Apple to adapt their system software for use in the 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...

. The use of the Pixo OS in the iPod was never formally announced, although the first-generation iPod's "About iPod" display includes a mention of Pixo, and a Connectix
Connectix
Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company, noted for having released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they become popular...

 biography of their VP of engineering Mike Neil
Mike Neil
Mike Neil is an American software engineer. Promoted to General Manager of Windows Server and Server Virtualization at Microsoft in September 2009, Neil joined Microsoft as part of the company’s February 2003 acquisition of Connectix Corporation...

 mentions his role as "lead architect on the Pixo OS that is used in ... the Apple iPod". Apple acquired the Pixo OS shortly after shipping the iPod and removed mention of Pixo from the "About iPod" display with a firmware update to the first-generation iPod.

On April 9, 2007, Apple CEO
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...

 Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...

 announced the shipment of its 100 millionth iPod, making the Pixo OS one of the most widely used embedded operating system
Embedded operating system
An embedded operating system is an operating system for embedded computer systems. These operating systems are designed to be compact, efficient, and reliable, forsaking many functions that non-embedded computer operating systems provide, and which may not be used by the specialized applications...

s.

External links

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