MP3 Players Are Re-Defining Music Enjoyment
The times are a-changin'. Ten years ago music-on-the-go meant you had to lug around a CD or cassette player plus CDs or tapes. Compared to our parents' transistor radios it offered flexibility limited only by how much junk we were willing to carry. Wow, we had it made!
Fast forward a few years... Now you can pack an entire music collection in portable MP3 players smaller than a deck of cards. Slip it in your pocket, clip it to your belt, or strap it on your arm and listen to your favorite tunes whenever and wherever you like.
Some of these gadgets are so tiny they can be worn as pendants. And miniscule ear buds fit almost entirely inside your ears.
But just wait, you ain't seen nothin' yet...
The MP3 Player Is Born
In the spring of 1998 Saehan-Eiger Labs of Korea introduced the MPMan, the world's first personal MP3 player. The MPMan debuted in Asia, with its American release a couple months later.
The following year Compaq designed a hard drive player and licensed it to another Korean company who produced the Hango Personal Jukebox PJB-100. Both players did OK, but like many innovations, neither really made a big splash.
Diamond Multimedia's late 1998 release of the Rio PMP300 garnered enough attention to draw the ire of and lawsuit by the recording industry. Rio ultimately prevailed, the genie was out of the bottle, and it was off to the races.
A 500 Pound Gorilla Emerges
The next three years witnessed an explosion of MP3 players. The earliest models had only 32 or 64 megabytes (MB) of flash memory. With the average song consuming four megabytes, these players could only hold about eight to sixteen tracks. Rio, RaveMP, I-Jam and Creative's Nomad were early favorites. Other companies including Intel, Sony, and Nike joined the fray with mixed results.
All that changed in October 2001 when Apple threw their hat in the ring with the iPod. The five gigabyte (GB) hard drive player was an instant hit. In the next four years Apple released the second through fifth generations, a smaller iPod Mini, and the flash drive Shuffle and Nano models.
In April 2003 Apple opened its online iTunes Music Store, selling half a billion songs the first two years. By September 2005 more than 27 million iPods had been shipped, more than any company in the world.
Criticized for everything from being too pricey, poor battery life, lousy customer support and more, iPod nevertheless dominates the MP3 player market. Their sleek, stylish players and powerful marketing suggests that trend will continue.
Top MP3 Player Brands
While many companies have MP3 players in their product mix, as of late 2005 the major brands include:
- Apple iPod
- Archos
- Cowon iAudio
- Creative Labs Nomad
- Dell DJ
- iRiver
- Olympus m:robe
- Samsung Yepp
- Sony Network Walkman
- Toshiba GigaBeat
Flash Memory Versus Hard Drive
Flash players and hard drive players have unique advantages and disadvantages. Flash players have no moving parts, making them durable and skip-free. Hard drive players, on the other hand, are able to hold huge playlists and handle video tasks too memory-intensive for flash players.
Until recently...
Flash memory has improved dramatically the last few years. The original 32MB players increased to 64, 128, 256, and 512MB. By 2004, 1GB flash players able to hold about 250 songs were available.
Flash capacities actually go to about 12GB, but the cost was prohibitive for MP3 players. This is changing rapidly though. By late 2005, 4GB flash players not much larger than a credit card appeared for around $300. In 2006 expect to see 8GB flash players, and 16GB by 2008.
So what does all this mean? Until recently flash players were limited to a few hundred songs. Hard drive players were needed for video and other memory-intensive functions. The downside is they're bulkier, more fragile, and can cost $400 to $1,000 or more.
Apple's new iPod Nano marks an important break-through in flash players. With up to 4GB it adds video and slide shows with music to its repertoire - albeit still somewhat limited.
This doesn't mean hard drive players are going away. Their massive memories - up to 100GB or more - allow them to hold hundreds of hours of movies or thousands of songs or photos. High definition color LCD screens are nearly as large as the player itself for easier viewing. They are smaller and lighter than portable DVD players with more functions.
Amazing Audio/Video Innovations
A common complaint about MP3 players is their limited battery life. Even recent improvements only increased play time to about 15 to 20 hours. But radical gains are coming. Panasonic recently announced a new line of players expected to run more than 100 hours per charge.
Perhaps even more exciting is the development of tiny fuel cells. Toshiba is working on fuel cell powered prototypes expected to play up to 60 hours on a few milliliters of ethanol. They plan to introduce these players in 2007.
How about a little multi-tasking? It's happening as the cell phone industry joins the MP3 revolution. Verizon, Samsung, Sony and others are working on it, but the most noise is being made by Cingular and Apple who recently joined to release the Motorola ROKR phone that will download and play 100 songs from iTunes.
Would you believe...iBoobs? BT Futurology, a research arm of British Telecom is working on MP3 player breast implants. They say within 15 years they'll be able to implant a player controlled by a Bluetooth device worn on the wrist. To make it more practical, implanted sensors can monitor and warn of blood pressure, heart murmur, diabetes and breast cancer problems. Hmmm...
The Future of MP3 Players and Online Music
Worldwide, 26.5 million MP3 players were sold in 2004. Growth is expected to average more than 21% a year with accumulated totals approaching 950 million in 2009. The biggest concern is the ability to produce enough of the high-capacity flash players the public is clamoring for.
The affect on music download services is anyone's guess. There are already more than 300 services with millions of tracks available. By late 2005 the public was downloading half a million songs a day, nearly as many as all of 2004!
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