A Portable Music Player History


By Peter Simpson

15 years ago, it was hard enough to get one album in your pocket. Flash forward and you can happily wander around with your entire library. Come with us, as we take you on a little journey through the technological achievements that allowed this to happen.

For those who have grown up with changing trends in music such as vinyl, cassettes, CDs and finally mp3s, it's fair to say that it's been quite a wild ride so far. Just even a few years ago, the concept of being able to carry hundreds of albums worth of music on a single electronic device in one's back pocket was mere fantasy. Today, however, that fantasy has become reality, as mp3 players have changed the landscape of portable music entirely. Welcome to the future of portable technology.

The first portable music came in 1973 with cassettes. Cassettes were considered to be superior to vinyl records as they could be fast-forwarded and re-winded very precisely, and their size meant that they could be carried around and played on the go. While cassettes never truly eclipsed vinyl on the market, they did take off and served to introduce the world to what portable music players could do.

Next up in the portable realm came the CD, and the invention of the portable CD player in 1982. When CDs first came out, they were (and for some people still are) considered to be the utmost in high-fidelity music reproduction. Since the technology is digital, it was finally possible to switch from track to track with just a single push of a button. And given their size, one could carry a whole stack of CDs with them if they so chose. Little did the world know, however, that portable music was about to get a lot more convenient.

The latest and greatest in portable music technology is the mp3 player, which first hit the market in 1998 to great acclaim. While the mp3 player was still in its infancy, it wasn't nearly as streamlined as it is today. The first mp3 players to hit the market were a bit bulky and did not carry very much music. Mp3s at that time were also thought to have considerably less fidelity than CDs. Since then, everything has changed.

It took Apple to really bring a change to the market. Already successful with their Apple Mac, the Apple iPod debuted in 2001, and forever changed the face of the mp3 player. Since then, the iPod has gone through countless iterations, including the iPod Touch, improving upon itself as time goes on. Many people believe the touch iPad to be the newest in portable music technology, even though it is not quite as portable as the original iPod design. The fact is, however, Apple's mp3 products are what keeps them at the top of the technology world today, and will likely sustain them for many years to come.

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