| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Consumer electronics |
| Founded | 1989 |
| Headquarters | Nashville, Tennessee |
| Key people |
Paul Griffin, Founder Van Thompson, Founder Mark Rowan, President |
| Products | cables, loudspeakers, iPod accessories, computer hardware |
| Revenue | Unknown |
| Employees | 150+ |
| Website | www.griffintechnology.com |
Griffin Technology is a privately held U.S. company founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1989 by Paul Griffin. The company designs and manufactures computer peripherals, consumer electronics, and accessories, the first products being primarily video adapters, in particular those to enable the connection of DB-15 based Macintosh 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 (ADB) based devices with the newer, and increasingly more common, Universal Serial Bus (USB). Griffin introduced additional USB devices, such as iMic and PowerMate, 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, introducing their first accessories for iPod in January 2002 at the MacWorld held in San Francisco, California. This was just three months after Apple's release of iPod. One year later, at MacWorld San Francisco 2003, Griffin introduced iTrip. iTrip is an FM transmitter that allows iPod owners to transmit audio from an iPod to a nearby FM receiver.
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 Zune, and SanDisk's Sansa.
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.
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Griffin Technology was chosen unanimously by the editors of iLounge 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 (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.
In 2011, Griffin Technology released a MilSpec iPhone/iPod/iPad case series named Survivor[1]. 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 YouTube videos in a lighthearted "reality" show style. The videos showed Griffin Certifications Director Michael O'Connor 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.