Apple Helped Create A Top Secret iPod In 2005, Former Employee Recalled

Since the very beginning, Apple has been known as the creator of highend and expensive products. And with its iPod series, Apple has redefined what a portable media player and multi-purposed mini computer should be.

Apple even said that its iPod product is "the Walkman of the twenty-first century".

In 2005, Apple is said to have allowed two U.S. government contractors to work inside its offices, in order to develop a custom-made iPod, a former iPod engineer David Shayer recalled in a post.

He wrote that:

In the post which resembles a short story, describes how Apple kept its mythos of secrecy, among a few.

Shayer recalled how only four people at the company knew about this secret project: Shayer, the director of iPod Software, the vice president of the iPod Division, and the senior vice president of Hardware.

"None of us still work at Apple. There was no paper trail. All communication was in person," the post continues.

The two contractors whose first names are Paul and Matthew didn’t actually work for the Department of Energy, but instead worked for a division of Bechtel, a large U.S. defense contractor to the Department of Energy.

They were given a copy of the iPod system's source code on a DVD. After that, they work on their own shops using their own devices, at Apple's office, Shayer said.

"This wasn't a collaboration with Bechtel with a contract and payment," he wrote.

"It was Apple doing a favour under the table for the Department of Energy."

Shayer describes that the two contractors wanted to add some custom hardware to a fifth-generation iPod, so the holder can record data from this custom hidden sensors to the iPod's storage in a way that it couldn't be easily detected.

On the outside and the inside, the secret project iPod should still look, work and behave like a normal iPod.

Apple had helped the engineers build the custom version of the iPod software to accommodate the secret device, Shayer said, suggesting that even Steve Jobs didn't know about this.

"They were careful to make sure I never saw the hardware," added Shayer, who was Apple's software engineer for 18 years.

"And I never did."

Shayer said that he didn’t know what that custom iPod would be used for, but guessed that it was probably for "something like a stealth Geiger counter.”

If that is true, the iPod-like Geiger counter could have theoretically allowed the holder to record radioactivity levels while appearing to use a normal-looking iPod.

"You could walk around a city," wrote Shayer, "casually listening to your tunes, while recording evidence of radioactivity — scanning for smuggled or stolen uranium, for instance, or evidence of a dirty bomb development program — with no chance that the press or public would get wind of what was happening."

But still, Shayer didn't know much of the device, leaving the actual product a mystery. Regardless, the Department of Energy is, among other functions, is responsible for nuclear power.

Former iPod chief Tony Fadell tweeted that Shayer's story was "absolutely spot on" and "real without a doubt".

"Crazy super cool technology the government was working on then… I can only imagine what is cooking these days," he added.

Fadell was vice president of iPod at the time, meaning that Fadell was one of the four people who knew about the project.