Jeff Robbin

Who is Jeff Robbin?

Jeffrey L. "Jeff" Robbin is the vice president of consumer applications at Apple, Inc. He is a US computer engineer and entrepreneur notable for creating the MP3 player SoundJam MP with Bill Kincaid that was eventually bought by Apple and renamed iTunes. He remains the lead software designer for iTunes.

Robbin and Kincaid worked for Apple in the 1990s as system software engineers on their operating system project Copland; the project was later abandoned. Both left Apple, where Robbin created Conflict Catcher and Kincaid worked at a startup.

After listening to a show on the radio channel NPR, Kincaid created hardware and device driver support for the Diamond Rio 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.

In early 2000 Apple was looking to purchase an MP3 player and approached both Casady & Greene and Panic. 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.