Jeff Robbin

Jeffrey Lowell "Jeff" Robbin is the vice president of consumer applications at Apple Inc. He is an American and  notable for creating the MP3 player SoundJam MP with Bill Kincaid that was acquired by Apple Computer and renamed iTunes. He remains the lead software designer for iTunes.

Career
Robbin and Kincaid worked for Apple Computer in the 1990s as system software engineers on the ill-fated Copland operating system project, which was later abandoned. Both left Apple, with Robbin creating Conflict Catcher and Kincaid working at a startup.

SoundJam MP
After listening to a show on the radio channel, Kincaid created hardware and device driver support for the  line of digital audio players. He then enlisted Jeff Robbin to develop the front-end for an MP3-playing software they named SoundJam MP. Dave Heller completed the core team. The three chose Casady & Greene as distributor, whom Robbin had previously worked with to distribute Conflict Catcher.

The software saw early success in the Mac music player market, competing with Panic's Audion. "We got [SoundJam] to pretty much be the premiere MP3 player on the Mac," said Robin Casady, co-owner of Casady & Greene.

iTunes
In early 2000, Apple was looking to purchase an MP3 player and approached both Casady & Greene (SoundJam) and Panic (Audion). Because Panic was caught up in negotiations with AOL, their meeting with Apple never took place. Instead, Apple purchased SoundJam MP in a deal covered by a two-year secrecy clause.

SoundJam MP was renamed iTunes. Robbin, Kincaid, and Heller moved to Apple as the founding developers of iTunes. All three continue to work at Apple, with Robbin as the current lead developer of iTunes.

iPod
Robbin was also involved in developing the iPod, as co-lead of the early iPod team with Tony Fadell and acting as lead developer of the original iPod firmware.

Although Robbin's role has been published in a number of articles that have disclosed his name and role, an October 16, 2005 article in  claimed that Steve Jobs had prohibited the magazine from publishing Robbin's last name, explaining that Steve was worried about competitors "poaching his talent".