WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: The History of MP3 Players 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.320 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.040 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.360 --> 0:00:19.720 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.560 are you. It is a Friday. It is time for 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:28.240 a tech stuff classic episode. And this episode originally published 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:33.120 on February fifteenth, twenty seventeen, which I believe would make 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:38.600 it my ten year anniversary at what was then how 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:43.840 Stuff Works. Yeah, I've worked in the same job since 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.840 two thousand and seven, but it's the company has changed 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:51.400 a few times. Anyway, this episode is called the History 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.480 of MP three players. Hope you enjoy. First, let me 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.200 just give like kind of a very brief overview of 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.600 the history of the MP three super summarized version. If 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.360 you recall, it originated as a project out of a 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:11.640 research company called the fraun Hoffer gazelle Schaft Company. A 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.120 team of researchers led by Carl Heinz Brandenberg created the 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:19.560 MP three format back in nineteen eighty seven. Now, what 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.080 he was doing was trying to build a compression formula 0:01:22.120 --> 0:01:25.759 that would allow for high audio quality that doesn't take 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:30.319 up as much space as raw audio files do. Those 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.760 are huge, so how do you get them smaller so 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:35.920 that transmission is easier. He wanted to do this for 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.200 audio transmission across phone lines. Now, the name MP three 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:43.920 comes to us courtesy of the Motion Picture Experts Group, 0:01:44.000 --> 0:01:47.000 also known as IMPEG. And the reason the three is 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.160 there is because the full name for the format is 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:55.200 the IMPEG Audio Later three. So Brandenberg's team's research led 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.600 to this audio compression format. Now, fraun Haffer Gazelle Shaft 0:01:59.640 --> 0:02:02.400 apply for a patent in Germany in nineteen eighty nine 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.000 and for a patent in the United States in nineteen 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.880 ninety six. And this is a good spot to include 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.600 a bit of information to clear up some ambiguity. An 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.519 MP three player can be a couple of different things. 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:20.440 One version of an MP three player is just a 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.240 program that you run on your computer and it's meant 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.440 to decode compressed MP three files and then play them 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:28.880 back so that you can listen to them. Now, the 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:31.600 other meaning of MP three player is really what I 0:02:31.639 --> 0:02:34.440 was going to talk about today. That's a dedicated, typically 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:38.120 portable device that is a decoder and an audio system 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.320 all in one, kind of like a Sony Walkman. Was 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:44.680 the old cassette player. I think of MP three player 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.320 as this handheld personal audio device, but technically MP three 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.080 player can refer to either, and since it can refer 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.639 to either, I'm going to cover the history of both, 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:59.120 but I'm really going to focus more on those handheld devices. 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.320 Well frownhawfer a gazelle shaft, and I do love saying 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.760 that name over and over, which is why I take 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:09.399 every opportunity to do so. They marketed an MP three 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.160 player program for computers, but it failed to catch on. 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.320 It wasn't terribly user friendly, people didn't really care for it, 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:20.160 and the MP three was actually in danger of fading 0:03:20.280 --> 0:03:24.560 into obscurity. If no one had created a user friendly 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:29.160 MP three program, chances are that format never would have 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.959 caught on and we would have some other compression format 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.400 that would be the standard, or at least a major 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:42.120 standard in audio compression. Now, there were other researchers and 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.440 companies working on a way to find success where the 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:48.160 German company found frustration, and that's when we flash forward 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.640 to nineteen ninety seven. So remember nineteen eighty seven is 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:56.520 when the company first started developing the MP three compression format. 0:03:56.840 --> 0:04:01.760 Ten years later is when Thomas lav Uzilac created the 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:08.440 AMP MP three playback engine. Now. Uzlak was born in 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:13.000 Croatia and studied at the University of Zagreb's Faculty of 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.440 Electrical Engineering and Computing, and he had graduated with a 0:04:16.560 --> 0:04:21.440 degree of engineering and he developed his MP three player 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.080 software when he was a student, and he wanted to 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:26.440 launch it as a commercial product. He said, all right, well, 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.080 I've created this thing that can play MP three files, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.600 and I want to be able to make this something 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:35.880 like a piece of software that I could actually sell. 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.640 So he formed a partnership with an American entrepreneur named 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:45.120 Brian Littman. Together they created a new company called Advanced 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:49.520 Multimedia Products. This was back in the time when multimedia 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.720 became like the catchphrase. It was a buzz term, kind 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.279 of similar to like the way we call Internet of 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.440 Things or cloud computing. Those are real buzz terms today. 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:02.520 Multimedia back in those days was the big buzz word, 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:06.080 and it also could mean things like full motion video 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.200 in computer games, and I've talked about that in a 0:05:08.240 --> 0:05:14.039 previous episode. They were terrible and amazing and terrible. So 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.800 Advance Multimedia Products that's where you get the AMP in 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:22.479 AMP MP three. It wasn't AMP like an amplifier, but 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:28.520 rather an acronym for advanced multimedia products. Side note. Uz 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.479 Lack would later go on to work in the world 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:33.800 of video games. He co created a company called two 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.000 by two Games, which released a turn based war game 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.760 called Unity of Command. So, if you've ever played Unity 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:44.040 of Command, that was made by the same person who 0:05:44.080 --> 0:05:51.000 created the first commercially successful MP three player program. So 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.960 this program hits the market and it is commercially successful, 0:05:56.120 --> 0:06:03.120 but it's not entirely to use for everybody. That's when 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:07.479 a University of Utah student named Justin Frankel took this 0:06:07.640 --> 0:06:11.920 AMP program and he poureded it over to the Windows 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.760 operating system along with help from a few other developers, 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:22.920 and he called this port win AMP WI NAMP. Justin Frankel, 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:24.719 by the way, would actually go on to develop the 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.960 Newtella peer to peer sharing program, and Nutella in this 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:32.400 case is spelled with a G in Gnutella. There's some 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:36.120 disagreement online, by the way, regarding to who contributed to 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:40.160 creating win AMP and who was ultimately responsible who did 0:06:40.240 --> 0:06:43.279 most of the work. But I'm gonna be honest with you, guys, 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.359 I cannot sort it all out. There are multiple stories 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:50.680 out there. They all disagree with each other. Some of 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:57.400 them seemed to be a little more conspiracy oriented than others. 0:06:57.480 --> 0:07:01.120 It's very difficult to sort out what is the actual truth. 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:04.680 It seems to me like there were multiple players involved 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.919 and there's disagreement about who did most of the work. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:12.840 So for the purposes of this podcast, let's say that 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:16.120 Frankel developed win AMP and just put a little asterisk 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:20.920 behind that phrase, because honestly, without chatting with all the 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:25.760 parties involved, I can't really make an educated guess as 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:31.400 to whom was the ultimate party responsible. I'm guessing it 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.920 was more of a group effort. Now when AMP would 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:37.200 actually go on to become one of the top MP 0:07:37.280 --> 0:07:41.200 three playback programs on the Windows platform in nineteen ninety eight, 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:44.680 it was a free program. Anyone could download it, and 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.520 that really helped cement the MP three format. It helped 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.400 establish it as a format that would stick around because 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.280 now you had a free program you could use. You 0:07:55.640 --> 0:07:59.600 had a compression formula that allowed you to store a 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.000 lot more music in the same storage space as if 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.520 you were to use the raw music files. You could 0:08:05.520 --> 0:08:08.320 store way more music with MP three format. Because it 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:13.160 compressed it so low or solow as in low storage space. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.000 And of course that depended upon things like the bitrate 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.680 you set your encoding at. And if you wanted to 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:21.920 learn more about that, you can listen to the Digital 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.880 Audio episode I did to talk more about bitrate. I'm 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.920 not going to go into that here. So the MP 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.400 three format was no longer in danger of fading off 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.640 into obscurity. In nineteen ninety nine, one year after win 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.000 amp became free, AOL purchased the rights to win Amp. 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:42.120 They actually acquired a company called Nollsoft. That was the 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.000 company that Frankel had formed when he was marketing win Amp. 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:50.000 And the price for acquiring Nollsoft was a cool eighty 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:55.760 million dollars, not bad for a University of Utah dropout. 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:59.440 Frankel dropped out of the out of college once he 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:02.600 had developed this program because he was running his own company, 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:09.440 created a startup, and found enormous success by getting acquired 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.160 by AOL. This was just one example of a long 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.320 and storied history of people creating companies that showed some 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:22.160 utility and then selling out to a larger company. And 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:24.800 by selling out, they don't mean they sold out in 0:09:24.920 --> 0:09:30.400 the derogatory sense. They made really good business decisions by 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:35.559 making millions of dollars off of their work. I only 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:38.600 wish I had come up with something equally as useful 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:41.559 so that I could be a millionaire. Gosh darn it, 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:48.520 but don't we all anyway? It was not long for 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:54.200 this world ultimately, because in twenty thirteen AOL shut down 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.240 win amp. You couldn't download it anymore, they stopped supporting it. 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:01.880 But of course, by twenty thirteen the MP three format 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:05.120 was firmly entrenched, so the death of winnamp did not 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:08.120 mean the death of the MP three And there are 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:12.240 tons of other MP three player programs and MP three 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.120 compatible programs out there, way more than I can name. 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.559 Some of them have really interesting features. Some of them 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.000 are really slimmed down programs that just have basic commands. 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:27.040 Most operating systems have some form of MP three playback 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.080 functionality built into them with a stock application, so you 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:32.120 don't even have to download anything to be able to 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:35.480 access MP three files for most cases. So instead of 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:39.640 focusing on the software side, let's shift over to talk 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.120 about portable MP three players. When did they start to 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.000 show up? So, while Uzlak was working on the AMP 0:10:46.320 --> 0:10:48.800 MP three player program, and thank goodness, I'm not going 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:52.280 to have to say that anymore. There was a company 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.240 in South Korea that was busy creating the first solid 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:59.400 state handheld MP three player. Now that company was this 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:04.920 Say Huh Information Systems Corporation. The original product they launched 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:09.080 was called the MP man Digital Stereo Player, kind of 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.760 like a Walkman, but it's an MP man. And of 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:17.480 course Walkman came from Sony. This came from Sehan Information Systems. Now, 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:22.280 the company wasn't prepared to market this worldwide, so they 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:26.520 actually partnered with another company, Eiger Labs, and Iiger Labs 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.040 was in charge of marketing this product over in the 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.120 Western world, and they showed off the device at the 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:37.079 nineteen ninety eight c BIT trade show in Germany. The 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:39.480 product would then hit the consumer market in the summer 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:44.880 of nineteen ninety eight. So you have the software side 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.960 developing at the same time as the hardware side, which 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:52.240 was kind of interesting right now. There were two versions 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:56.760 of the early MP man MP three player. Others would 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.839 follow after a while, but the first two we're pretty simple. 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.720 One of them had thirty two megabytes of memory, which 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:06.360 was enough to hold about thirty two minutes of audio 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.040 and coded at one hundred and twenty eight kilobits per second. 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:17.439 That's about eight standard length songs. Obviously, standard length is 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.800 you know, that depends, but we're talking three to four minutes, right. So, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:24.640 just for fun, out of the mischievounus of my heart, 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.160 I decided to ask eight co workers a simple question. 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:32.800 If you could fit one and only one song on 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.880 an MP three player for your use, what would it be? 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:41.880 And so here is the How Stuff Works employee playlist, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:47.199 as determined by the eight coworkers I asked. I asked 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:49.640 a couple of others this question later on and tortured 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.439 them as well. By the way across the board, when 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.480 I asked this question, it was clear to me that 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.240 the people responding were giving more thought to this question 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:01.640 than perhaps any other piece of work that crossed their 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.080 desk this week. That's not a judgment, I'm just making 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.160 an observation. So coworker Allison said that she would pit 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:13.680 under pressure by Queen and David Bowie on this MP 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:19.280 three player. Christopher went with adore by Prince, although he 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:26.319 has since reconsidered his choice multiple times. Nathan chose lateralis 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:31.800 by tool Sherry chose Telephone Call from Istanbul by Tom 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.760 Waits Ramsey, who is the director for the Forward Thinking series. 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:41.320 Now his choice was Waiting Room by Fugazi. Our office manager, 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.440 Tamika said she would go with the Imperial March by 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.040 John Williams from the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. I think 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:52.640 she wins. Julie, who hosts Stuff of Life among other things, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:57.080 went with Nina Simone's Cinnerman, specifically a live version. She 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:01.120 wanted me to make sure I mentioned that. And then 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.000 we have Matt Frederick, one of the hosts of Stuff 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.160 they don't want you to know, who decided to torture 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:10.839 me because he chose a song that I don't think 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:15.040 I can pronounce svefen ge Inglar by a group called 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:18.800 Seegar Ross. And I know I've butchered it, and I 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.320 know that that wasn't necessarily Matt's intent, But I also 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.800 know that Matt is probably not disappointed to hear that 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.520 I cannot say the name of the song he chose. Now, 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:31.240 I think it's only fair that I do the same 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:35.400 as my coworkers. But I'm giving myself all eight tracks. 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.080 So here are eight songs I feel like I could 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:41.800 put on an MP three player that could only hold 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.840 those eight songs. First up is Tie your Mother Down 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.800 by Queen because it's a song that was written in 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.800 nineteen seventy six by Brian May, and May went on 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:56.760 to become an astrophysicist. So if an astrophysicist can write 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.640 an amazing song called tie your Mother Down, I think 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.600 you have to include it on your MP three player. Next, 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.960 I've got Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, which I think 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:08.720 is best played in a car that has all the 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:13.520 windows rolled down. Third is my one and only entry 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.520 from They Might Be Giants. This one would be Can't 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.440 Keep Johnny Down, because you know it's my name's Jonathan, 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:22.640 so I went with that. Anyone who knows me is 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.520 aware that I'm an enormous fan of They Might Be Giants, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:29.160 so picking any one song from them was really tough. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.360 Fourth would be The Clashes cover of Pressure Drop, which 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.080 was originally by Toots and the Maytolls, which is one 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:40.320 of my favorite cover songs. And then next, I've chosen 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:44.560 this Must be the Place by the Talking Heads. Then 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:46.400 we would have a song from a more recent band 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.760 that I've become obsessed with that would be the Struts 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:53.400 and Put Your Money on Me. After that, sob by 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.840 Nathaniel Raightliff and The Night Sweats, And the last song 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.440 I would put on my MP three player would have 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:03.520 to be something that would indicate my love of musicals. 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.400 So I picked the song Once in a While from 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.440 The Rocky Horror Show, not the Rocky Horror Picture Show, 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.080 but the play The Rocky Horror Show and specifically the 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:17.640 roxy cast version. So look up the different songs. I mentioned, 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:19.800 both the ones that my coworkers picked and the ones 0:16:19.840 --> 0:16:22.200 I picked to kind of get your idea of why 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.040 anyone would want to put that on an MP three 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:27.360 player that could only hold eight songs. It'll give you 0:16:27.400 --> 0:16:30.240 a lot more information about the personalities of the people 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:35.280 who work here and of me. I guess that's also 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.200 a warning now. I did say that the MP man 0:16:39.240 --> 0:16:42.200 was available in two versions. The second one actually had 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.960 sixty four megabytes of storage. That's double the amount of 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:50.240 data you could stuff onto the other version. It did 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.840 not have a rechargeable battery, though the thirty two megabyte 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:58.320 had a nickel metal hydride battery that you could recharge 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:02.000 and had nine hours of play time, which is pretty incredible, right, 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:07.080 like nine hours to play eight songs over and over again. Well, 0:17:07.119 --> 0:17:10.280 the sixty four megabyte instead of having that rechargeable battery, 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:13.520 it ran off a single double A battery. Now, technically 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:16.800 the double A could be rechargeable depending upon what brand 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.640 you purchased, but you get what I mean. It wasn't 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.800 inherently a rechargeable battery. The original player, the thirty two 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.080 megabyte version, it didn't have expandable memory. So if you 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:32.080 wanted to upgrade, you had to do this. You purchase 0:17:32.119 --> 0:17:34.520 your thirty two megabyte, You decide, you know what, eight 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.440 songs isn't enough, I'd really like to have sixteen on there. 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.800 You would send your thirty two megabyte model and a 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:48.120 check to cover the difference in cost off to Eiger Labs, 0:17:48.160 --> 0:17:51.719 and they would send you a sixty four megabyte version 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.879 in return. That's how you upgraded. Didn't have anything to 0:17:55.880 --> 0:18:01.199 do with removable storage discs or anything like that. So 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.960 how much did these things cost? Well, the thirty two 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:07.280 megabyte MP man cost a cool two hundred and fifty 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.480 dollars when it launched in nineteen ninety eight. If you 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.480 were to take that same product and look at inflation, 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:16.879 you could say, all right, well today, that means it 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.800 would cost close to three hundred and sixty eight dollars. 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:23.200 So you would be spending almost three hundred and seventy 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.000 dollars in order to listen to eight songs on the 0:18:27.080 --> 0:18:29.960 go in digital format. And of course that also depends 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.800 upon the song length. Right, If you wanted to store 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:35.280 songs by the Ramones on there, you'd probably be able 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.800 to squeeze in an extra tune because most Romote songs 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.920 are three minutes or shorter. But if you're a big 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:43.480 fan of the musical genius known as Meatloaf, you might 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:45.240 only get a couple of tracks on your MP three 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:48.600 player before you filled up all the memory. Now I've 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.199 gotten more to say about the MP man and the 0:18:51.240 --> 0:18:54.199 more successful MP three player that followed it, but first 0:18:54.480 --> 0:19:06.399 let's take a quick break to thank our sponsor. The 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:10.520 launch of the MP man wasn't an enormous success, but 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.639 it did help establish the MP three as not just 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:17.000 a digital compression format, but also a file type that 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:20.240 could be used for portable devices. So in September nineteen 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:22.600 ninety eight, just a couple of months after the MP 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:25.639 man launched, a new MP three player emerged, and this 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.959 was the Rio PMP three hundred and that debuted at 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.080 a price of two hundred dollars, which then prompted Eiger 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:36.080 Labs to reduce the MP man price to two hundred 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:41.000 dollars as well. The PMP three hundred also had thirty 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.160 two megabytes of storage space, and you'd load music from 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:47.480 a computer using a parallel port cable. Do you remember. 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.000 Those were kind of the things we would use before 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:55.280 stuff like USB cables became a standard. So how did 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:58.639 this PMP three hundred measure up to the mp man 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.840 apart from the identical amount of storage space. Well, if 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:05.080 you look at an MP man, and I do recommend 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:09.000 that you search for these different devices and look at 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.000 images just so you can see what these actually looked like. 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:16.720 The MP man had a very small digital display, almost 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:21.680 like an electronic calculator, like handheld electronic calculator that you 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:24.920 would have basic one, not even a scientific model. And 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.560 so it had a very small digital display that mostly 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:30.080 showed how much time had passed from the launch of 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.000 a song. And it had two physical buttons that you 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:36.000 could use to navigate the device, one called mode and 0:20:36.000 --> 0:20:39.320 the other called info, and it weighed about sixty five grams. 0:20:39.840 --> 0:20:43.080 The PMP three hundred had a larger digital screen than 0:20:43.119 --> 0:20:45.800 the MP MAN, and it also had more buttons, including 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.200 three on the top edge of the player and several 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:52.000 more on the front surface of the player beneath where 0:20:52.040 --> 0:20:55.240 the screen was. A circle in the front gave basic 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.600 controls like play, fast, forward, rewind, and stop, and other 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.400 buttons allowed you to do things change the volume level 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.440 or select basic functions like repeat. These would be things 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:09.120 that become standard in future MP three players. The additional 0:21:09.119 --> 0:21:11.959 features and lower price point pushed the Rio ahead of 0:21:12.000 --> 0:21:15.960 the MP Man. Now that's not to say that the 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:19.760 launch of the Rio was perfectly smooth. In October nineteen 0:21:19.920 --> 0:21:24.960 ninety eight, the Recording Industry Association of America aka the 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:29.440 ri double A sued Reo Port, which was a subsidiary 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:33.280 of a company called Diamond Multimedia. And Diamond multi Media 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:39.240 essentially produced the Rio through Rio Port. So what was 0:21:39.280 --> 0:21:41.720 the beef? Well, the ri double A claimed that the 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:45.879 Rio violated the nineteen ninety two US Home Recordings Act. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.840 The MP Man was such a niche item that the 0:21:49.960 --> 0:21:52.080 RIUBLEA didn't even take notice of it, but the Rio 0:21:52.200 --> 0:21:54.960 was making a bigger splash, and so the ri double 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:56.719 A said, we've got to nip this in the butt. 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:00.240 Anyone familiar with media organizations knows that this is a 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:03.879 pretty common occurrence. So you get a new technology that 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.200 debuts and it allows people to create, play, and share 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.199 recordings of media, and then lawsuits come flying in. We 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.240 saw it with the development of video cassettes, both Beta 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:21.560 max and VHS. We saw it with just cassette tapes. 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:26.800 We saw it with CDs and specifically writeable CDs, and 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:29.960 we saw it with MP three's no big shock. Every 0:22:30.000 --> 0:22:32.560 time that someone comes up with a new way to 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:38.560 do this, we see the various industry components react normally 0:22:38.640 --> 0:22:42.000 through lawsuits. And on the one hand, you can kind 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.720 of understand where they're coming from. If someone can replicate 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:48.199 a recording or make it available for other folks to 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:52.439 download for free, why would anyone bother to pay for 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:55.960 a recording? Right So, why would I bother to pay 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:00.640 for a song if I could just go online download 0:23:00.680 --> 0:23:04.600 it for free and you know there's no repercussions there. 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.440 But on the other hand, we've seen multiple times that 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:12.359 the legal tactics don't prevent piracy from happening, and In 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:15.800 some cases, lawsuits might encourage people who otherwise wouldn't dream 0:23:15.840 --> 0:23:18.240 of pirrating stuff to actually go to the dark side 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.040 and do it, saying, you know, I wasn't going to 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:23.800 do it before, but because of the way this company 0:23:23.840 --> 0:23:26.680 is acting, I'm totally going to do it now. Maybe 0:23:26.680 --> 0:23:30.600 they're just justifying what their activity is, but it's not 0:23:30.680 --> 0:23:33.640 a great story, and it also leads to companies adopting 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:36.880 various types of digital rights management or DRM that can 0:23:36.960 --> 0:23:40.600 ultimately cause more frustration to legal customers than to people 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.439 pirating that software or files. More on that in a 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:48.240 little bit. So for about a week and a half 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:52.639 in October nineteen ninety eight, the RIIAA was able to 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:57.560 secure a sales ban on the Rio, so about ten 0:23:57.640 --> 0:24:01.160 days or so the Rio could not be sold legally 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:04.120 in the United States, but by October twenty sixth, that 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:10.080 ban was lifted. Reoport would countersue the RIAA in December 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:13.440 nineteen ninety eight and said that what that organization was 0:24:13.480 --> 0:24:16.040 doing was illegal. They were trying to stifle a market 0:24:16.080 --> 0:24:18.879 that they didn't actually control, and that market would be 0:24:18.920 --> 0:24:23.080 digital music. There was a lawsuit that followed, and the 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:26.720 court ruled that the Rio wasn't in violation of any 0:24:26.840 --> 0:24:31.240 rules because the company couldn't control the behavior of its customers. 0:24:31.280 --> 0:24:34.880 In other words, it's not an MP three player manufacturer's 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:38.480 fault if customers fill up their devices with stolen files. 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:41.760 They can't control that. It's the same as saying it's 0:24:41.800 --> 0:24:46.200 not a computer manufacturer's fault if a hacker uses their 0:24:46.240 --> 0:24:51.040 computers to make malware. Dell can't control if I take 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:53.920 a Dell computer and start creating malware off of it, 0:24:54.280 --> 0:24:56.639 So Dell should not be held at fault if I 0:24:56.840 --> 0:25:01.359 unleash a damaging malware onto the world. By the same token, 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:05.840 an MP three player manufacturer can't guarantee that its customers 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:07.520 are going to play by the rules, and it can't 0:25:07.520 --> 0:25:12.000 be held responsible when they don't. The Riublea appealed this verdict, 0:25:12.280 --> 0:25:14.439 and then the court said that the Rio didn't qualify 0:25:14.480 --> 0:25:17.560 as a recording device under the definitions the Recording Act, 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:21.280 so therefore it couldn't be in violation of any rules 0:25:21.400 --> 0:25:25.320 because it didn't qualify for the rules that Riublea said 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:28.800 were in play. So the MP three player lived to 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:32.720 fight another day. On a side note, the Riublea would 0:25:32.760 --> 0:25:35.399 soon see its fears realized upon the birth of peer 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:40.480 to peer sharing services, namely Napster. These services became massive 0:25:40.520 --> 0:25:44.240 resources for pirates, first of music files and then later 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:48.080 for all types of files. Now, the technology itself im 0:25:48.119 --> 0:25:51.440 peer to peer sharing isn't illegal, but it was put 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:55.640 to illegal use frequently enough that everyone in the industry 0:25:55.760 --> 0:25:59.760 was equating this perfectly legal means of distribution with illegal 0:25:59.760 --> 0:26:02.639 life activity. It became an enormous headache for a lot 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:05.679 of people who used peer to peer sharing for totally 0:26:05.760 --> 0:26:09.720 legitimate legal purposes. It didn't help that there were also 0:26:09.840 --> 0:26:12.600 lots of people using it to pirate the crap out 0:26:12.640 --> 0:26:15.800 of music, movies, and games and other types of files. 0:26:16.960 --> 0:26:20.320 This would also extend into the era of the bit 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:24.680 torrent networks, So I've talked about those in previous episodes. 0:26:24.680 --> 0:26:28.760 I won't dwell on it here. Those lawsuits, however, got 0:26:28.760 --> 0:26:31.600 the attention of the industry at large, and nobody wanted 0:26:31.600 --> 0:26:34.760 to get sued by a powerful organization representing the interests 0:26:34.800 --> 0:26:38.720 of the major music labels. They had almost bottomless amounts 0:26:38.720 --> 0:26:42.720 of cash and could completely bankrupt smaller companies that were 0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:46.679 trying to get into this industry. So various entities in 0:26:46.720 --> 0:26:50.879 the technology sector, including consumer electronics companies and various rights 0:26:50.880 --> 0:26:55.119 holders formed what was called the Secure Digital Music Initiative 0:26:55.280 --> 0:27:02.000 or SDMI. Their goal originally was to create a strategy, 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:06.639 some encryption specifications, and other strategies to prevent the unlawful 0:27:06.680 --> 0:27:09.520 distribution of MP three recordings, So, in other words, they 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:13.520 wanted to create a digital rights management strategy. To do this, 0:27:14.000 --> 0:27:17.760 they created a digital water marking process that would attach 0:27:17.800 --> 0:27:20.159 a bit of code to a music file, and that 0:27:20.200 --> 0:27:22.679 bit of code would act as a watermark. If you 0:27:22.720 --> 0:27:25.439 tried to remove the water mark, it would in theory 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:28.439 cause damage to the MP three file, so that you 0:27:28.480 --> 0:27:32.400 would get signal loss, you would have a lower quality 0:27:32.440 --> 0:27:35.400 sound file, or maybe it wouldn't even play properly at all. 0:27:36.000 --> 0:27:38.280 And they also worked to create a standard for MP 0:27:38.359 --> 0:27:41.760 three players. So the idea was that MP three player 0:27:41.840 --> 0:27:46.840 manufacturers would implement technology, some kind of code hardcoded into 0:27:46.880 --> 0:27:51.840 the device that would prevent an SDMI compliant player from 0:27:51.880 --> 0:27:56.040 playing an SDMI compliant music file if it didn't have 0:27:56.080 --> 0:27:59.480 authorization to do so. So. In other words, think of 0:27:59.520 --> 0:28:02.160 it like a key in a lock. If the key 0:28:02.400 --> 0:28:05.560 was not present on the device, it could not unlock 0:28:05.840 --> 0:28:09.560 a music file that had been illegally loaded onto the device, 0:28:10.320 --> 0:28:13.600 and to make sure that their plan worked, THEDMI group 0:28:13.640 --> 0:28:16.719 invited various hackers to try their hand at removing that 0:28:16.800 --> 0:28:21.400 digital watermark without harming the MP three file. So there 0:28:21.440 --> 0:28:24.359 was a group led by a Princeton University professor of 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:28.600 computer science and his name was Ed Felton. They claimed 0:28:28.600 --> 0:28:32.919 that they managed the task. Now, the SDMI group said no, no, no, no, no, 0:28:34.000 --> 0:28:38.160 you didn't do it because just because our software says 0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:41.040 that the watermark is gone doesn't mean the watermark is 0:28:41.080 --> 0:28:44.480 really gone. Plus there's signal loss here in this audio file, 0:28:44.560 --> 0:28:49.160 so you didn't really successfully do this. Now, Felton's group 0:28:50.000 --> 0:28:54.200 did not opt for the non disclosure policy. The group 0:28:54.240 --> 0:28:57.480 had offered a prize, a cash prize award to anyone 0:28:57.520 --> 0:29:00.600 who could manage to do this. If you opt out 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:03.960 of that non disclosure policy, you were not eligible for 0:29:04.040 --> 0:29:07.120 the award. Well, Felton's group never agreed to the non 0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:11.719 disclosure part, so they moved to publish their method to 0:29:11.760 --> 0:29:20.000 defeat the SDMI DRM strategy, and that's when several groups, 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:23.520 including the RIAA, sprung into action. They threatened legal action 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:28.840 under the Digital Management Copyright Act or DMCA. Felton turned 0:29:28.880 --> 0:29:33.080 to the Electronic Frontier Foundation the EFF and said, hey, 0:29:33.200 --> 0:29:35.280 now this is not fair. So they took it to 0:29:35.320 --> 0:29:39.000 the US Department of Justice, and the DOJ said, you're cool, Felton, 0:29:39.480 --> 0:29:43.760 because legit academic research isn't a violation of the DMCA. 0:29:44.160 --> 0:29:48.960 So the paper was published. The SDMI essentially dissolved without 0:29:48.960 --> 0:29:52.200 any fanfare in two thousand and one. Turns out that 0:29:52.240 --> 0:29:55.560 protecting digital information is pretty tricky, and this approach was 0:29:55.640 --> 0:29:58.520 ultimately a failure. It's probably a good thing, seeing as 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:02.320 how those approaches to dra tend to do more harm. 0:30:02.560 --> 0:30:08.440 They negatively affect legitimate legal customers more than they affect 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:11.640 the people who are skirting around the law. And trust me, 0:30:12.560 --> 0:30:15.320 nothing is more frustrating than the feeling you're being punished 0:30:15.400 --> 0:30:18.960 for following the rules. Anyone who's played a single player 0:30:19.160 --> 0:30:22.120 video game that will only work if you have an 0:30:22.200 --> 0:30:26.120 active connection to the Internet probably knows what I'm talking about. 0:30:26.480 --> 0:30:30.000 All right, back to the MP three players. After the 0:30:30.080 --> 0:30:33.720 launch of the MP Man and the Rio, other devices 0:30:33.760 --> 0:30:36.840 began to hit the market, and the biggest challenge companies 0:30:36.840 --> 0:30:40.280 faced was to provide a decent amount of memory storage 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:43.280 while trying to keep the price down because in those 0:30:43.320 --> 0:30:46.640 early days, if you wanted to use solid state flash 0:30:46.680 --> 0:30:50.280 based memory storage, you're paying a pretty hefty price. We're 0:30:50.280 --> 0:30:53.880 talking between three and four dollars per megabyte, which adds 0:30:53.960 --> 0:30:58.280 up to about thirty five hundred dollars per gigabyte. That's 0:30:58.320 --> 0:31:01.400 an enormous amount of money. I don't have thirty five 0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:05.320 hundred dollars to spend on a one gigabyte MP three player. 0:31:06.120 --> 0:31:08.880 I don't have it to spend on a terabyte MP 0:31:09.000 --> 0:31:11.720 three player, to tell you the truth. Now, in nineteen 0:31:11.800 --> 0:31:15.320 ninety nine, a new MP three player debuted with a 0:31:15.400 --> 0:31:18.880 much larger hard drive than its competitors. And this was 0:31:18.920 --> 0:31:23.000 the Remote Solutions Personal Jukebox and it had four point 0:31:23.000 --> 0:31:28.200 eight gigabytes of storage. How How could Remote Solutions Personal 0:31:28.400 --> 0:31:31.640 jukebox have four point eight gigabytes when everyone else is 0:31:31.680 --> 0:31:35.680 struggling with thirty two or sixty four megabytes? Did it 0:31:35.760 --> 0:31:39.160 cost the same amount as a car? No? And the 0:31:39.240 --> 0:31:45.200 reason was personal jukebox wasn't using solid state flash memory. Instead, 0:31:46.000 --> 0:31:50.160 the personal jukebox actually was using a repurposed laptop hard drive. 0:31:50.360 --> 0:31:53.240 In other words, it used a disc based storage system, 0:31:53.360 --> 0:31:57.280 hard disk, not floppy disk, and it used magnetic storage 0:31:57.280 --> 0:31:59.880 instead of the solid state model. Now that kept the 0:31:59.880 --> 0:32:03.959 price down, but it was still monstrously expensive. The launch 0:32:04.040 --> 0:32:06.640 price for the Personal juke Box was seven hundred and 0:32:06.720 --> 0:32:09.080 ninety nine dollars, which is about the same as one 0:32:09.600 --> 0:32:14.280 one hundred and fifty one dollars in today's money. And 0:32:14.320 --> 0:32:16.239 you might think that a laptop hard drive would make 0:32:16.280 --> 0:32:18.840 an MP three player larger and heavier than those that 0:32:18.960 --> 0:32:22.120 used flash storage, and you're right. It was not really 0:32:22.200 --> 0:32:25.600 a portable device, at least not in the same way 0:32:25.640 --> 0:32:29.600 that the flash based ones were. In two thousand, another 0:32:29.720 --> 0:32:32.880 disc based hard drive MP three player debuted, and this 0:32:32.920 --> 0:32:36.880 one was the Creative Nomad Jukebox. It cost five hundred 0:32:36.920 --> 0:32:40.920 dollars for six gigabytes of storage, so more storage for 0:32:41.040 --> 0:32:43.880 less money, But like the Personal Jukebox, it was a 0:32:43.920 --> 0:32:46.840 hefty monster. It was too big for a personal listening device. 0:32:46.880 --> 0:32:49.800 It kind of looked like a personal CD player rather 0:32:49.800 --> 0:32:52.360 than an MP three player, much too large to fit 0:32:52.440 --> 0:32:54.840 into a pocket. If you wanted to go lightweight, you 0:32:54.840 --> 0:32:56.880 would have to opt for something else like the I 0:32:57.080 --> 0:33:01.080 two go Ego, which had a microdrive capable of storing 0:33:01.080 --> 0:33:06.000 two gigabytes of music. But there was a hefty price 0:33:06.040 --> 0:33:08.920 tag for the I two go Ego. It cost two 0:33:09.480 --> 0:33:15.320 thousand dollars a two thousand dollars MP three player, and 0:33:15.360 --> 0:33:19.320 that's by two thousand year standards like the year two thousand. 0:33:19.320 --> 0:33:21.920 If you wanted to adjust for inflation, it's more like 0:33:21.960 --> 0:33:24.840 two thousand, seven hundred and eighty seven dollars for a 0:33:24.880 --> 0:33:27.320 two gigabyte MP three player. It's not even made out 0:33:27.360 --> 0:33:31.680 of platinum or anything. Other alternatives were also popping up, 0:33:31.720 --> 0:33:35.240 though most of them had those storage limitations. There was 0:33:35.280 --> 0:33:39.800 the RCA Lira or Lyra if you prefer it's l Yr, 0:33:41.040 --> 0:33:43.880 and that marked RCA's attempt to get into the MP 0:33:43.960 --> 0:33:47.080 three player business. The first model had a thirty two 0:33:47.120 --> 0:33:50.719 megabyte capacity on a CF card, and he also had 0:33:50.720 --> 0:33:54.720 a fairly large monochromatic display and several physical buttons for operation. 0:33:55.640 --> 0:33:58.280 If you wanted to store music on the device, you 0:33:58.360 --> 0:34:02.160 had to use proprietary software to write to the CF reader. Moreover, 0:34:02.360 --> 0:34:04.960 the files you'd store would be converted into an encrypted 0:34:05.000 --> 0:34:08.840 format that would only play on the Lira or Lyra 0:34:09.880 --> 0:34:14.439 or whatever. Now, because it actually used a removable memory card, 0:34:14.480 --> 0:34:17.560 you could upgrade the memory. You just buy a higher 0:34:17.600 --> 0:34:20.560 memory card. Now, the max in those early models was 0:34:20.600 --> 0:34:24.879 five hundred and twelve megabytes, so still way less than 0:34:24.920 --> 0:34:28.800 those hard disk style MP three players, but far more 0:34:28.840 --> 0:34:31.160 storage than the standard models that were on the market, 0:34:31.239 --> 0:34:34.760 and it kept the size of the device relatively small. 0:34:35.680 --> 0:34:38.560 One drawback was that when the Lyra booted up, it 0:34:38.600 --> 0:34:41.840 had to read the full contents stored on the card, 0:34:42.239 --> 0:34:44.680 kind of like how your computer when it's booting up 0:34:44.800 --> 0:34:47.040 and it's trying to load the desktop, it has to 0:34:47.120 --> 0:34:49.719 read all the different things that are associated with the 0:34:49.719 --> 0:34:53.279 desktop before it can fully load. So the only way 0:34:53.280 --> 0:34:55.720 it could present a menu of all the songs stored 0:34:55.760 --> 0:34:58.680 on the device was to go through all the contents first. 0:35:00.000 --> 0:35:02.160 The more you stored on it, the longer that boot 0:35:02.160 --> 0:35:05.200 time lasted. If you had more than half of your 0:35:05.280 --> 0:35:07.600 device full and you had five hundred and twelve megabytes 0:35:07.640 --> 0:35:10.080 of storage, you'd be waiting longer than a minute just 0:35:10.080 --> 0:35:13.160 for the thing to boot up properly. So it wasn't 0:35:13.160 --> 0:35:17.239 the most convenient compared to some other devices. Now, that 0:35:17.520 --> 0:35:20.719 entire line of RCA products would persist and evolve, with 0:35:20.800 --> 0:35:25.000 later models adding more functionality and more storage. Meanwhile, in 0:35:25.040 --> 0:35:28.360 two thousand, Sony joined the game by launching a device 0:35:28.400 --> 0:35:31.279 that sort of looked like a pen. It was called 0:35:31.280 --> 0:35:37.240 the Sony Vio MCP ten Music Clip. And boy, doesn't 0:35:37.239 --> 0:35:39.560 that just roll off the tongue. I love these NB 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:43.080 three players that all have letter and number designations instead 0:35:43.080 --> 0:35:46.080 of just a quipping name that I can rattle off. 0:35:46.440 --> 0:35:49.360 Sony Io MCP ten music Clip, We'll just call the 0:35:49.440 --> 0:35:51.280 music clip from here on out. It was a sixty 0:35:51.320 --> 0:35:54.640 four megabyte digital music player, so their entry level was 0:35:54.680 --> 0:35:57.000 a little higher than the previous models that had come 0:35:57.040 --> 0:36:00.000 out over the last couple of years. It costs three 0:36:00.000 --> 0:36:04.200 three hundred dollars. And here's another big difference. Unlike the 0:36:04.239 --> 0:36:07.359 other players I've talked about, this wasn't actually an MP 0:36:07.400 --> 0:36:10.960 three player. It didn't play MP three files at all. 0:36:11.080 --> 0:36:15.520 Why because, in a very Sony fashion, it would play 0:36:15.600 --> 0:36:19.160 music files in the A track three format. That's at 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:22.879 RAC three format. That's a format that was created by 0:36:23.880 --> 0:36:29.759 drum Roll Sony. So you could use included software to 0:36:30.000 --> 0:36:34.600 transcode files from MP three to A track three. But 0:36:34.719 --> 0:36:36.840 the whole process took a really long time. It was 0:36:36.920 --> 0:36:39.440 very clunky, and they paired it with a poorly designed 0:36:39.440 --> 0:36:43.600 program designed to move files from a computer to the player, right, 0:36:43.760 --> 0:36:49.080 you would still download files onto your PC or rip 0:36:49.320 --> 0:36:53.560 music from a CD onto your PC. Then you would 0:36:53.640 --> 0:36:57.720 have to transfer from the PC to your MP three player. 0:36:58.200 --> 0:37:00.000 In this case, you would also have to transcode it 0:37:00.040 --> 0:37:02.400 to a track three if it wasn't already in that format. 0:37:03.520 --> 0:37:06.360 It was a very frustrating experience and a lot of 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:09.000 customers were upset that it wasn't really an MP three 0:37:09.080 --> 0:37:11.360 player despite the fact that MP three would appear on 0:37:11.400 --> 0:37:14.360 the box because of that transcoding program. I mean, the 0:37:14.400 --> 0:37:17.680 transcoding program was included, so why not say MP three 0:37:17.680 --> 0:37:22.920 on the box. Ultimately, the device did not get a 0:37:22.960 --> 0:37:25.960 lot of traction. It did not do very well in 0:37:25.960 --> 0:37:30.239 the marketplace. Also that same year, in two thousand, Iomega, 0:37:30.320 --> 0:37:34.000 which created ZIP discs, launched an MP three player called 0:37:34.000 --> 0:37:37.280 the Hip Zip and it had a forty megabyte storage 0:37:37.280 --> 0:37:40.280 capacity and used a scaled down version of the magnetic 0:37:40.320 --> 0:37:44.120 disc storage that they used for ZIP discs. But at 0:37:44.120 --> 0:37:46.400 this point the market was starting to get a bit crowded. 0:37:46.800 --> 0:37:49.440 There was some confusion going on in the marketplace. A 0:37:49.520 --> 0:37:52.120 lot of companies were launching MP three players at different 0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:55.759 storage capacities for different prices. And the experience could be 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:59.680 remarkably different depending upon which device you chose and which 0:37:59.760 --> 0:38:01.799 saw where package came along with it so that you 0:38:01.800 --> 0:38:06.680 can manage your music database and load up your device. 0:38:08.000 --> 0:38:10.520 Keep in mind this is a time where these devices 0:38:10.560 --> 0:38:14.000 didn't have Wi Fi connectivity. You had to physically attach 0:38:14.080 --> 0:38:17.160 them to a computer in order to move music over 0:38:17.320 --> 0:38:20.200 onto them. Customers were starting to get a bit frustrated 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:24.160 because it was a confusing time, and it turned out 0:38:24.239 --> 0:38:27.480 that having a bigger storage drive wasn't necessarily the killer 0:38:27.520 --> 0:38:30.560 feature because some products were just too frustrating to use. 0:38:30.640 --> 0:38:32.920 It didn't matter that you could store more music on them. 0:38:33.239 --> 0:38:36.680 The process of getting music moved to the device was 0:38:36.719 --> 0:38:40.120 so irritating that a lot of people just didn't like them. 0:38:40.920 --> 0:38:42.880 But in two thousand and one, a product launch that 0:38:43.000 --> 0:38:46.319 changed the game completely. Now, before I talk about that, 0:38:46.920 --> 0:38:58.280 let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. Okay, 0:38:58.960 --> 0:39:01.239 I mentioned before the break that we had a groundbreaking 0:39:01.280 --> 0:39:03.839 product launch in two thousand and one. I am, of 0:39:03.960 --> 0:39:08.600 course talking about the Intel Pocket Concert. It's like I 0:39:08.719 --> 0:39:12.400 meant the iPod. But the Intel Pocket Concert did launch 0:39:12.520 --> 0:39:14.919 in two thousand and one, and it was pretty cool. 0:39:14.920 --> 0:39:17.080 It had one hundred and twenty eight megabytes of storage. 0:39:17.120 --> 0:39:20.560 It cost three hundred dollars this amount of storage, and 0:39:20.600 --> 0:39:23.680 that price point was really attractive. It actually met with 0:39:23.719 --> 0:39:27.360 some success in the market, but it didn't last very long, 0:39:27.480 --> 0:39:30.200 not because of problems with the device, not because people 0:39:30.200 --> 0:39:33.840 didn't like it, but because Intel reorganized in two thousand 0:39:33.880 --> 0:39:38.040 and one, and in that reorg they shut down their 0:39:38.120 --> 0:39:42.120 home electronics division, and the Pocket concert fell into the 0:39:42.160 --> 0:39:45.960 home electronics category. So it was a casualty of a reorg. 0:39:46.080 --> 0:39:48.480 It didn't have anything to do with the market acceptance 0:39:48.560 --> 0:39:52.319 of the MP three player. Just think if Intel had 0:39:52.400 --> 0:39:56.440 kept it, maybe the story would be very different. No, 0:39:56.600 --> 0:39:58.640 the one that actually launched in two thousand and one 0:39:58.640 --> 0:40:04.520 that changed everything was the iPod. Now, it didn't change 0:40:04.520 --> 0:40:08.200 everything right away when it first launched, it was too 0:40:08.239 --> 0:40:11.759 limited to do that. Apple was not the powerhouse in 0:40:11.800 --> 0:40:14.239 two thousand and one that it would become just a 0:40:14.280 --> 0:40:17.799 few years later. It was still recovering from a very 0:40:17.880 --> 0:40:20.959 tumultuous period in the company history. It had gone through 0:40:21.400 --> 0:40:25.320 a lot of turbulence in the nineties. Co founder Steve 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:29.240 Jobs had returned to Apple in nineteen ninety seven after 0:40:29.400 --> 0:40:33.280 essentially being exiled for several years. If you remember, Steve 0:40:33.360 --> 0:40:36.600 Jobs was kind of forced out of Apple, effectively forced. 0:40:36.640 --> 0:40:39.720 He was essentially put to the side until he stepped 0:40:39.760 --> 0:40:45.080 away because he wasn't in charge of anything anymore. Then 0:40:45.160 --> 0:40:48.480 Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy after a series 0:40:48.560 --> 0:40:53.879 of terrible business decisions and strategies, and Jobs came back 0:40:53.920 --> 0:40:57.279 in as an interim CEO until he was starting to 0:40:57.320 --> 0:41:00.319 turn the company around and became the actual CEO, and 0:41:00.360 --> 0:41:02.920 he was working really hard to make the company healthy again. 0:41:03.360 --> 0:41:05.640 And the two thousand and one launch of the iPod 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:08.239 was one of the first really big moves Apple made 0:41:08.239 --> 0:41:11.080 to assert itself and become a leader in computing and 0:41:11.120 --> 0:41:15.680 electronics markets. So the very first generation of iPods had 0:41:15.760 --> 0:41:20.040 a large led screen. They had the classic scroll wheel. 0:41:20.320 --> 0:41:22.440 You'd put your thumb on the wheel and spin it 0:41:22.480 --> 0:41:26.840 around in order to navigate the various lists of songs. 0:41:27.760 --> 0:41:31.000 A scroll wheel in that first generation was surrounded by 0:41:31.000 --> 0:41:34.680 the control buttons like play and pause and rewine and 0:41:34.680 --> 0:41:37.800 fast forward, and so the device had a pretty simple 0:41:37.880 --> 0:41:42.080 and fairly aesthetic design, kind of clunky compared to today's technology, 0:41:42.120 --> 0:41:44.400 but less clunky than a lot of the competitors that 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:47.880 were out there. It also had five gigabytes of storage space, 0:41:48.000 --> 0:41:51.719 and it cost four hundred dollars when it launched. Also, 0:41:52.480 --> 0:41:55.520 it was aimed at a niche market because the only 0:41:56.280 --> 0:42:01.000 compatible computer you could use with a first generation iPod 0:42:01.120 --> 0:42:04.480 was a Mac. It wasn't compatible with Windows based PCs 0:42:04.680 --> 0:42:09.640 just Max the original iPods were running. They were rather 0:42:09.680 --> 0:42:12.040 compatible with MAX that were running a brand new software 0:42:12.080 --> 0:42:15.799 package called iTunes. Now, at that time, iTunes was just 0:42:15.880 --> 0:42:19.840 a management software, right. It was meant to help you 0:42:19.960 --> 0:42:23.600 manage your music files, but you had to get the 0:42:23.680 --> 0:42:27.760 music files from somewhere else at that point. Now, because 0:42:27.800 --> 0:42:32.000 of those limitations, the iPod didn't immediately dominate the MP 0:42:32.080 --> 0:42:35.120 three player space. What's more, other companies were starting to 0:42:35.120 --> 0:42:38.800 introduce innovations into devices, and that was in an effort 0:42:38.800 --> 0:42:41.440 to set them apart from all the other competitors out there. 0:42:41.760 --> 0:42:44.440 In two thousand and two, Arcos began to market a 0:42:44.440 --> 0:42:49.360 product called the Jukebox Multimedia. A lot of jukeboxes in here, anyway. 0:42:49.640 --> 0:42:53.759 The Jukebox Multimedia could play audio and video, as the 0:42:53.880 --> 0:42:57.120 name would suggest, and they had two different versions. They 0:42:57.120 --> 0:42:59.880 had a ten gigabyte and a twenty gigabyte version. The 0:43:00.120 --> 0:43:03.760 basic ten gigabyte version went on sale for four hundred dollars, 0:43:03.800 --> 0:43:07.319 so same price as the first generation I've had, but 0:43:07.400 --> 0:43:10.040 this one could show video and it had more storage space. 0:43:11.160 --> 0:43:14.319 Creative Labs would launch an MP three player called the 0:43:14.520 --> 0:43:19.600 Moveo Muvo, which was a small, simple MP three player 0:43:19.600 --> 0:43:22.440 that used a single triple A battery and had a 0:43:22.440 --> 0:43:25.879 battery life of twelve hours, which was pretty impressive, and 0:43:26.080 --> 0:43:29.920 that came in both sixty four megabyte and one hundred 0:43:29.920 --> 0:43:32.440 and twenty eight megabyte options. It was less expensive than 0:43:32.480 --> 0:43:34.640 a lot of the other players, and it was fairly 0:43:34.680 --> 0:43:38.000 popular at the time because people were starting to really 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:41.440 get into this idea of the MP three. A year later, 0:43:41.600 --> 0:43:44.359 other gadgets started to join the list, including Sony's next 0:43:44.360 --> 0:43:46.880 attempt at getting into the MP three game. It was 0:43:46.920 --> 0:43:55.880 another catchy model, the nw MS seven zero D rolls 0:43:55.880 --> 0:44:00.560 off the tongue. I could just imagine kids writing Desanta, Santa, 0:44:01.200 --> 0:44:04.840 please get me the nw MS seven zero D, and 0:44:04.880 --> 0:44:07.440 then they probably end up with some completely unrelated electronic 0:44:07.480 --> 0:44:11.440 device because the parents couldn't read the word I'm sorry, Santa, 0:44:11.680 --> 0:44:14.800 couldn't read the words properly, and then ended up buying 0:44:14.880 --> 0:44:18.719 I don't know a hair dryer or something. By the way, 0:44:18.800 --> 0:44:22.040 that device looks really weird. You want to look up 0:44:22.040 --> 0:44:24.640 an image of this, So one more dying for those 0:44:24.640 --> 0:44:26.239 of you who want to look up the image the 0:44:26.400 --> 0:44:30.600 NWMS seven zero D because I don't think I can 0:44:30.680 --> 0:44:33.200 really describe it properly, So here here goes. This is 0:44:33.280 --> 0:44:37.439 just a wild attempt, but I don't really think it's 0:44:37.880 --> 0:44:40.200 gonna help you that much. Imagine something that looks like 0:44:40.200 --> 0:44:44.600 an old fashioned electric razor, and then imagine a cylinder 0:44:44.760 --> 0:44:48.640 protruding from either side of one end of that electric razor. 0:44:49.239 --> 0:44:51.880 And then you have that MP three player from Sony. 0:44:51.920 --> 0:44:54.080 And it was actually a pretty small player. So the 0:44:54.600 --> 0:44:56.840 had a weird shape, but it really wasn't that big. 0:44:57.760 --> 0:45:00.000 It could hold two hundred and fifty six megabytes of music, 0:45:00.520 --> 0:45:02.400 plus it had an additional one hundred and twenty eight 0:45:02.480 --> 0:45:06.320 megabytes storage thanks to a memory card. This one launched 0:45:06.320 --> 0:45:08.279 at three hundred dollars and I actually kind of dig 0:45:08.400 --> 0:45:11.520 the design of this one. It used flash based memory, 0:45:11.719 --> 0:45:14.279 and so a lot of people liked this one, specifically 0:45:14.320 --> 0:45:17.480 if they wanted to do exercise. Because flash based memory, 0:45:17.520 --> 0:45:20.600 you don't have to worry about skipping with any physical 0:45:20.640 --> 0:45:23.080 hard drive like a magnetic storage drive. You've actually got 0:45:23.120 --> 0:45:26.880 a physical disc that spins, and if you jostle it around, 0:45:27.000 --> 0:45:30.840 it can cause the device to skip. So those early 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:33.120 MP three players, a lot of them, the ones that 0:45:33.200 --> 0:45:36.680 had those disk drive based storage systems, they weren't great 0:45:36.680 --> 0:45:38.840 if you wanted to go jogging or do heavy duty 0:45:38.880 --> 0:45:42.319 exercise because they could skip around. These other flash based 0:45:42.360 --> 0:45:46.920 ones didn't have that problem. Creative continued it's push into 0:45:46.960 --> 0:45:49.120 the MP three market by launching a line of MP 0:45:49.200 --> 0:45:52.680 three players called Zen and the Zen line could play 0:45:52.680 --> 0:45:55.640 not just MP three files, but also WMA files, and 0:45:55.680 --> 0:45:58.719 some could also handle wave files and later others as 0:45:58.760 --> 0:46:02.200 what types of files as well. Well. Creative built management 0:46:02.239 --> 0:46:06.080 software called Creative Media Source, which allowed users to synchronize 0:46:06.080 --> 0:46:08.719 devices to music stored on a computer. That meant that, 0:46:08.800 --> 0:46:11.560 you know, if you added more music to your PC 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:14.799 and then you hooked up your device to the PC, 0:46:15.280 --> 0:46:19.080 it would automatically pull over new songs into your device. 0:46:19.440 --> 0:46:21.440 You didn't have to do it manually. You didn't have 0:46:21.480 --> 0:46:23.000 to go in and say, all right, don't want this one. 0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:25.680 You could do that, but you didn't have to. So 0:46:25.920 --> 0:46:28.680 if you added new music to your computer, it would 0:46:28.680 --> 0:46:31.560 automatically poured it over to your Zen every time you 0:46:31.600 --> 0:46:34.960 would plug it in. And my first MP three player 0:46:35.360 --> 0:46:38.239 was a Creative Zen Touch that actually launched in two 0:46:38.280 --> 0:46:40.920 thousand and four. At the time I chose the Creative 0:46:40.960 --> 0:46:42.399 Zen Touch, I don't think I got it in two 0:46:42.400 --> 0:46:44.239 thousand and four. I think I got it later, so 0:46:44.680 --> 0:46:47.200 I got it for less. It was a later model. 0:46:47.239 --> 0:46:50.240 It was less expensive, but I chose that one because 0:46:50.280 --> 0:46:53.440 I owned a PC. I didn't own a MAC, and 0:46:53.600 --> 0:46:56.120 I could at that time get a version of iTunes 0:46:56.160 --> 0:46:58.879 for the PC. But iTunes for the PC in those 0:46:58.960 --> 0:47:02.040 days did not work very well. It was a kind 0:47:02.040 --> 0:47:05.200 of a monster on Windows. It was not a piece 0:47:05.239 --> 0:47:08.720 of software I particularly cared for. Back in those days. 0:47:08.800 --> 0:47:10.600 It worked much better on a MAC than it would 0:47:10.640 --> 0:47:14.520 on a PC, and as a result, I felt discouraged 0:47:14.520 --> 0:47:17.360 from using iTunes and decided to go with the Creative 0:47:17.440 --> 0:47:21.319 Zen Touch and use their media source software instead. Now, 0:47:21.480 --> 0:47:24.560 the Zen Touch was a pretty solid brick of a device, 0:47:24.600 --> 0:47:27.200 but I like the interface. It had a touch sensitive 0:47:27.280 --> 0:47:31.040 vertical bar instead of a scroll wheel, and you'd use 0:47:31.040 --> 0:47:34.560 the vertical bar to scroll through your music selection. I 0:47:34.600 --> 0:47:37.359 held onto that thing for longer than I probably should have, 0:47:38.360 --> 0:47:41.319 just because I maintained that it was better to have 0:47:41.360 --> 0:47:44.200 a dedicated device to play music than to use my 0:47:44.600 --> 0:47:48.400 phone to play music. If you guys are longtime listeners 0:47:48.400 --> 0:47:50.799 of Tech Stuff, and you listened way back in the 0:47:50.840 --> 0:47:53.600 day when Chris Poullette was co host of tech Stuff, 0:47:54.239 --> 0:47:56.840 you heard me talk about this, how I preferred having 0:47:57.080 --> 0:47:59.960 a dedicated device for my music so I didn't have 0:48:00.239 --> 0:48:03.879 to gum up the memory on my phone to hold 0:48:03.880 --> 0:48:06.680 all my music collection. And these days I do what 0:48:06.719 --> 0:48:09.000 the majority of people out there are doing. I use 0:48:09.040 --> 0:48:12.200 streaming services to access music. I have some stuff downloaded 0:48:12.239 --> 0:48:14.439 to my phone, but mostly I'm streaming it. So now 0:48:14.520 --> 0:48:17.680 I don't have a dedicated music player, all right. But 0:48:17.800 --> 0:48:21.080 jumping back to two thousand and three, Apple would continue 0:48:21.080 --> 0:48:25.360 with its iPod line. It launched a fifteen gigabyte iPod 0:48:25.400 --> 0:48:27.120 and then later on in two thousand and three, it 0:48:27.160 --> 0:48:31.080 launched a forty gigabyte iPod. But the biggest news was 0:48:31.080 --> 0:48:35.719 that iTunes graduated from a music management software program to 0:48:35.800 --> 0:48:40.279 a full fledged music store interface. That meant that in 0:48:40.320 --> 0:48:43.080 two thousand and three, you could purchase music through Apple 0:48:43.320 --> 0:48:46.440 and then transfer it to your handy dandy iPod just directly. 0:48:48.160 --> 0:48:51.560 This was brilliant, you know, having your ability to shop, 0:48:51.960 --> 0:48:54.560 your ability to manage your playlist, and your ability to 0:48:54.600 --> 0:48:59.400 sync it with your device all in one software package. However, 0:49:00.320 --> 0:49:04.520 Apple was also implementing a digital Rights management strategy DRM 0:49:04.840 --> 0:49:09.760 that really irritated consumers. The forty gigabyte third generation iPod 0:49:09.880 --> 0:49:11.680 is the one that I always think about when I 0:49:11.680 --> 0:49:14.840 imagine an iPod. That's the vision I have in my head. 0:49:15.600 --> 0:49:19.960 They changed the control slightly so they still had the 0:49:20.080 --> 0:49:23.520 LED screen at the top. Beneath that, they put the 0:49:23.560 --> 0:49:27.720 control buttons arranged in a horizontal line below the LED screen, 0:49:27.840 --> 0:49:31.440 so they were no longer around the circumference of the 0:49:31.480 --> 0:49:36.040 scroll wheel, and below the control buttons was the scroll clickwheel. 0:49:36.960 --> 0:49:39.440 This one launched at a four hundred dollars price point. 0:49:40.200 --> 0:49:42.399 We're going to take another break, but we'll be back 0:49:42.440 --> 0:49:44.960 to talk more about the history of MP three players 0:49:44.960 --> 0:49:57.080 in just a moment. By two thousand and four, color 0:49:57.120 --> 0:49:58.880 screens started to become a feature in some of the 0:49:58.960 --> 0:50:02.520 high end m P three p Creative launched the Zen 0:50:02.680 --> 0:50:05.480 Media Center. That one had a color screen and ran 0:50:05.520 --> 0:50:08.959 on the Windows Mobile operating system. It could store forty 0:50:08.960 --> 0:50:14.279 gigabytes music. It cost five hundred dollars. Meanwhile, Iriver's h 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:17.080 three hundred series packed a color screen and a much 0:50:17.200 --> 0:50:20.839 smaller form factor, and it also included an FM radio, 0:50:21.040 --> 0:50:23.319 so you could buy a twenty gigabyte ie River three 0:50:23.400 --> 0:50:26.839 hundred for two hundred and fifty dollars. Apple followed suit 0:50:26.920 --> 0:50:29.160 by launching an iPod with a color screen and a 0:50:29.239 --> 0:50:33.160 sixty gigabyte storage capacity, costing three hundred and forty nine dollars. 0:50:33.200 --> 0:50:36.279 So now you've got lots of different players trying to 0:50:36.840 --> 0:50:40.239 get the edge by adding in these other features. But 0:50:40.320 --> 0:50:43.160 it was that music store that really gave Apple the edge. 0:50:43.239 --> 0:50:45.680 By pairing a store system with the management software for 0:50:45.800 --> 0:50:48.640 an iPod, Apple created a new way for consumers to 0:50:48.719 --> 0:50:51.640 buy music, and since Apple got a cut of the sales, 0:50:52.480 --> 0:50:56.200 it became an immensely profitable strategy for the company. It 0:50:56.280 --> 0:50:59.399 really propelled Apple into new heights, and Apple was also 0:50:59.440 --> 0:51:01.760 making a name for the quality of its products. People 0:51:01.840 --> 0:51:06.319 really liked the quality, They liked the experience, particularly if 0:51:06.320 --> 0:51:08.640 they owned a Mac. If you were like me and 0:51:08.680 --> 0:51:10.840 you owned a PC, you were still complaining about the 0:51:10.880 --> 0:51:15.239 fact that iTunes was not great on Windows. People began 0:51:15.280 --> 0:51:18.200 to trust the Apple brand more and the iPod would 0:51:18.200 --> 0:51:19.919 start to make its mark in other ways as well. 0:51:20.000 --> 0:51:24.040 Because the popular term for what I do is called podcasting. 0:51:24.760 --> 0:51:27.640 That was a lot to the brand name iPod. Now 0:51:27.640 --> 0:51:31.240 some folks prefer to use less branded terms like netcasts, 0:51:31.560 --> 0:51:34.200 and there's nothing wrong in that, but I would argue 0:51:34.200 --> 0:51:37.319 podcasts remains the popular generic term for what I do, 0:51:37.400 --> 0:51:39.799 and that's thanks to Apple for making the iPod and 0:51:39.800 --> 0:51:45.040 taking MP three player's mainstream. Now, Apple did that not 0:51:45.160 --> 0:51:47.719 just by concentrating on the iPod line, but also by 0:51:47.760 --> 0:51:51.160 launching other brands that catered to specific markets. So you 0:51:51.160 --> 0:51:55.200 had the iPod Shuffle for example. This was a simplified, 0:51:55.239 --> 0:51:58.880 stripped down MP three player. It had no display, It 0:51:58.920 --> 0:52:02.840 automatically would shuffle playlists. I had basic controls that allowed 0:52:02.880 --> 0:52:05.440 you to skip or replay songs and adjust the volume, 0:52:05.880 --> 0:52:08.200 and that simplification meant that the Shuffle could be sold 0:52:08.200 --> 0:52:11.120 for much less money than other MP three players, and 0:52:11.239 --> 0:52:14.600 the standard one gigabyte model was priced at one hundred 0:52:14.640 --> 0:52:17.720 and fifty dollars In two thousand and five. Other companies 0:52:17.719 --> 0:52:19.960 were still trying to get into the game. Dell launched 0:52:19.960 --> 0:52:23.080 the DJ Diddy in two thousand and five, which had 0:52:23.120 --> 0:52:25.720 a small display, had an FM radio in five hundred 0:52:25.719 --> 0:52:28.200 and twelve megabytes of storage space, so it was lagging 0:52:28.280 --> 0:52:30.880 behind a lot of the other players, and by then 0:52:30.960 --> 0:52:34.000 iPod was beginning to define the market and newcomers were 0:52:34.040 --> 0:52:36.359 having a harder time gaining any traction. So by two 0:52:36.400 --> 0:52:39.200 thousand and six, Dell would abandon the Diddy Diddy Dum 0:52:39.280 --> 0:52:43.440 Diddy Doo. In two thousand and six, Microsoft tried to 0:52:43.560 --> 0:52:47.160 challenge Apple for that heavyweight championship in MP three players 0:52:47.440 --> 0:52:51.160 and they launched the Zoon. Do you guys remember the Zoon? 0:52:52.040 --> 0:52:55.319 Do you guys remember what they called sharing on the Zoon? 0:52:55.440 --> 0:52:58.120 Like if you had a song and someone else had 0:52:58.120 --> 0:53:00.920 a Zoon and you could share one Zoom song to 0:53:00.960 --> 0:53:03.520 another Zoom. Do you remember Dylan Dylan shaking his head. 0:53:05.520 --> 0:53:08.960 It was called squirting. If you wanted to squirt your song, 0:53:09.840 --> 0:53:13.640 Dylan is a Let's say that there's some disbelief in 0:53:13.719 --> 0:53:16.120 Dylan's reaction, but no, that is in fact what they 0:53:16.160 --> 0:53:18.800 called it. It was a method of being able to 0:53:18.840 --> 0:53:21.080 say that I bought a song, I could share it 0:53:21.120 --> 0:53:24.560 temporarily with you, Dylan, if you had your Zoom, just 0:53:24.560 --> 0:53:27.200 by squirting it right over to you. I just squirt 0:53:27.239 --> 0:53:30.239 that song and then you'd be able to enjoy the 0:53:30.280 --> 0:53:33.239 squirted song on your Zoom. Dylan's giv me a thumbs up, 0:53:33.280 --> 0:53:38.280 and he's, well, there's at least one finger pointing toward me. Yeah. 0:53:38.320 --> 0:53:42.080 So a lot of people made fun of that, and 0:53:42.880 --> 0:53:46.279 obviously I'm still doing it today, despite the fact that 0:53:46.320 --> 0:53:50.799 the Zoon is no longer a thing. Spoiler alert, But 0:53:50.960 --> 0:53:55.440 you know, the Zoon was an impressive attempt to challenge 0:53:55.640 --> 0:53:59.000 the iPod in many ways. It just it came a 0:53:59.000 --> 0:54:02.920 little too late for it to really have a chance. 0:54:03.280 --> 0:54:06.680 It had a color LCD display, and that display was gorgeous. 0:54:06.800 --> 0:54:09.799 I would argue that the original Zoon when it came out, 0:54:10.040 --> 0:54:14.240 its display was better than what Apple's iPod line had 0:54:14.440 --> 0:54:17.640 at that time. It also had an FM radio and 0:54:17.680 --> 0:54:20.279 thirty gigabytes of storage with the first model, and like 0:54:20.320 --> 0:54:24.880 I said, subsequent models would have these other features. Microsoft 0:54:24.880 --> 0:54:28.319 would pair this with a subscription based service through the 0:54:28.440 --> 0:54:30.560 Zoon stores. The Zoom store was kind of like the 0:54:30.600 --> 0:54:32.879 iTunes store, but they had a different strategy. They said, 0:54:33.560 --> 0:54:36.080 here's what we want you to do. You'll pay a 0:54:36.120 --> 0:54:39.760 subscription fee of fifteen dollars a month, and for fifteen 0:54:39.760 --> 0:54:43.359 dollars a month you get all the music you can download. Now, 0:54:43.400 --> 0:54:47.800 that actually sounds fairly reasonable. Today, a lot of streaming 0:54:47.880 --> 0:54:53.399 music services depend upon a subscription base. Right, you might 0:54:53.440 --> 0:54:56.000 not pay the subscription base, but then you're getting lots 0:54:56.000 --> 0:54:59.759 of ads instead of just an ad free experience. But 0:54:59.800 --> 0:55:04.359 then if you opt in to a subscription service, then 0:55:04.360 --> 0:55:07.319 you don't have ads. Well, imagine this. Imagine that you 0:55:07.320 --> 0:55:10.480 pay fifteen dollars a month, but you can download as 0:55:10.560 --> 0:55:14.959 much music as you like, putting aside things like data 0:55:15.000 --> 0:55:19.600 caps which obviously and broadband speeds, which obviously makes an 0:55:19.600 --> 0:55:22.560 impact on how much you can take advantage of this. 0:55:22.560 --> 0:55:24.120 This is the sort of thing I would jump on 0:55:24.400 --> 0:55:28.440 in a second today because you wouldn't just have access 0:55:28.480 --> 0:55:30.880 to music, you would actually get to download those tracks, 0:55:31.040 --> 0:55:34.359 which means if the service ever were to go belly up, 0:55:34.600 --> 0:55:37.239 you could still listen to your favorite tunes. Right Like, 0:55:38.000 --> 0:55:41.440 if the service goes away and the service was how 0:55:41.480 --> 0:55:43.279 you were listening to music, you have to find a 0:55:43.280 --> 0:55:45.960 different service that may or may not have access to 0:55:46.000 --> 0:55:49.560 the same labels that you were used to. This would 0:55:49.560 --> 0:55:51.680 be a way for you to actually hold on to 0:55:51.760 --> 0:55:53.879 those music files and be able to listen to them 0:55:53.880 --> 0:55:58.280 even if the infrastructure went away. But the whole idea 0:55:58.320 --> 0:56:00.840 came a little bit too early, I think, and Microsoft's 0:56:00.840 --> 0:56:03.440 attempts to market the Zoom never really captured a large 0:56:03.520 --> 0:56:08.000 section of the market. In two thousand and seven, Apple 0:56:08.080 --> 0:56:11.520 introduced two products that changed the game again. First was 0:56:11.560 --> 0:56:15.120 the iPod Touch, which moved nearly all the controls for 0:56:15.160 --> 0:56:18.520 the device onto a touchscreen interface, which meant that most 0:56:18.520 --> 0:56:20.960 of the face of the gadget was a screen and 0:56:21.000 --> 0:56:24.560 it allowed for really impressive video playback capabilities. The base 0:56:24.640 --> 0:56:28.960 model was sixteen gigabytes and it cost about four hundred dollars. 0:56:29.560 --> 0:56:33.160 But they also introduced another product that really disrupted things, 0:56:33.200 --> 0:56:36.560 and that was the first iPhone that came out in 0:56:36.600 --> 0:56:41.359 two thousand and seven, and Steve Jobs when he introduced it, 0:56:41.840 --> 0:56:44.920 talked about the fact that it was a computer, a phone, 0:56:44.960 --> 0:56:48.680 and an MP three player all in one, had the 0:56:48.719 --> 0:56:51.000 capability of acting as an MP three player, and it 0:56:51.080 --> 0:56:54.640 really spelled doom for a lot of standalone MP three devices. 0:56:54.560 --> 0:56:57.640 The smartphones became more popular and started to have larger 0:56:57.640 --> 0:57:01.799 amounts of storage, and the price wasn't ridiculously expensive or 0:57:02.000 --> 0:57:07.560 was sometimes supplemented depending upon what service provider you were using. 0:57:07.560 --> 0:57:11.440 In where you've lived, people started seeing fewer reasons to 0:57:11.480 --> 0:57:14.359 purchase a dedicated MP three player, and the company that 0:57:14.400 --> 0:57:19.640 had dominated the market stood poised to kill that market. 0:57:20.720 --> 0:57:24.240 But that market didn't totally die. There are still plenty 0:57:24.280 --> 0:57:26.800 of dedicated MP three players out there, and there are 0:57:26.840 --> 0:57:29.120 a lot of reasons to buy one. You might want 0:57:29.160 --> 0:57:32.240 to pair an MP three player with your car, for example, 0:57:32.560 --> 0:57:35.200 and just have it be like an enormous mixtape for 0:57:35.320 --> 0:57:37.840 road trips, and that way you don't have to wear 0:57:37.840 --> 0:57:41.320 down your phone's battery. Or you might want a simple 0:57:41.520 --> 0:57:44.240 MP three player that you can wear while you're exercising, 0:57:44.400 --> 0:57:47.120 which removes the need to carry a bulky and expensive 0:57:47.160 --> 0:57:50.080 smartphone as you jog or hit the gym. But a 0:57:50.120 --> 0:57:52.440 lot of people are moving away from those dedicated devices 0:57:52.440 --> 0:57:55.520 and relying more heavily on their multipurpose smartphones, so they 0:57:55.520 --> 0:57:57.720 act as a phone, a computer, an MB three player, 0:57:57.800 --> 0:58:03.600 among other things. Now, the MP three player's history has 0:58:03.640 --> 0:58:06.840 a few more stories. I didn't mean to just end 0:58:06.880 --> 0:58:10.200 with the iPod Touch. That same year, Samsung launched the 0:58:10.960 --> 0:58:15.400 yp h P two MP three player, Yet another fantastic name, 0:58:15.560 --> 0:58:17.760 but this was a really pretty device. It had a 0:58:17.800 --> 0:58:20.120 touch screen interface, came out the same year as the 0:58:20.160 --> 0:58:22.280 iPod Touch. A lot of people at the time thought 0:58:22.280 --> 0:58:25.840 it was a superior device to the iPod Touch. Not everybody, 0:58:25.960 --> 0:58:28.560 but a lot of people did. It had Bluetooth capabilities, 0:58:28.640 --> 0:58:30.360 which meant that you could pair it with a phone 0:58:30.400 --> 0:58:32.720 and you could even use it to answer calls that 0:58:32.880 --> 0:58:37.400 were coming in from the paired phone. We also saw 0:58:37.440 --> 0:58:39.800 in two thousand and seven a smaller Zoon and a 0:58:39.840 --> 0:58:43.480 third generation iPod Nano. Didn't really talk about the introduction 0:58:43.560 --> 0:58:45.840 of the Nano, but the Nano was yet another very 0:58:45.880 --> 0:58:52.160 small iPod or MP three player meant for easy on 0:58:52.240 --> 0:58:55.880 the go use, and the iPod Nano that came out 0:58:56.400 --> 0:58:58.920 in the third generation also had a color video screen, 0:59:00.320 --> 0:59:02.640 so you could watch really tiny video on your Nano 0:59:02.680 --> 0:59:05.000 if you wanted to. For some reason. In two thousand 0:59:05.000 --> 0:59:09.200 and eight, we saw the sand Disk sansa fuse debut, 0:59:09.400 --> 0:59:12.640 also the Sony E series Walkman. These were both devices 0:59:13.040 --> 0:59:15.120 that went a totally different route. They were aiming at 0:59:15.160 --> 0:59:18.320 the budget market for folks who were unwilling or unable 0:59:18.360 --> 0:59:20.680 to shell out the big bucks for something like an 0:59:20.720 --> 0:59:23.640 iPod Touch or even an iPod Classic, which was still 0:59:23.680 --> 0:59:28.080 around at that point. These cost about seventy five dollars, 0:59:28.640 --> 0:59:32.240 much less expensive than these counterparts. On the other end 0:59:32.280 --> 0:59:34.480 of the spectrum were the iPod and Zoom models that 0:59:34.520 --> 0:59:37.600 included Wi Fi connectivity, which turned them into something approaching 0:59:37.680 --> 0:59:42.720 a smartphone, but without the cellular connectivity. This is kind 0:59:42.760 --> 0:59:45.800 of how it went for the following years until I 0:59:45.840 --> 0:59:48.840 think something else I should mention in the history of 0:59:49.120 --> 0:59:52.880 MP three players, and that's the year twenty fourteen. That 0:59:53.000 --> 0:59:57.080 was the year that Apple quietly killed off the iPod Classic. 0:59:57.800 --> 1:00:01.160 The iPod Classic lasted thirteen years two thousand and one 1:00:01.200 --> 1:00:05.120 to twenty fourteen, but in twenty fourteen you could not 1:00:05.440 --> 1:00:08.280 any longer buy the standalone MP three player with that 1:00:08.360 --> 1:00:11.600 classic form from Apple. And as I said, there's still 1:00:11.640 --> 1:00:14.000 MP three players out there. If you go to any 1:00:14.080 --> 1:00:16.840 store or you go on Amazon or anything like that 1:00:16.880 --> 1:00:18.600 and you do a search for it, you'll find tons 1:00:18.640 --> 1:00:22.080 of them, but they are a much smaller niche market, 1:00:22.160 --> 1:00:27.080 and they're generally aimed at things like the exercise crowd 1:00:27.360 --> 1:00:32.240 or stuff along those lines, as opposed to people who 1:00:32.360 --> 1:00:34.840 are more used to using their devices just to stream 1:00:34.960 --> 1:00:40.200 music online. All right, that wraps up this classic episode 1:00:40.200 --> 1:00:43.680 of the history of MP three players. If you missed it, 1:00:44.160 --> 1:00:46.720 you should look back in the tech stuff archives for 1:00:46.800 --> 1:00:49.560 this year, because earlier this year I did an episode 1:00:50.000 --> 1:00:55.680 dedicated to Microsoft Zoom and how that particular MP three 1:00:55.720 --> 1:01:00.160 player ended up being a big miss for Microsoft, of 1:01:00.320 --> 1:01:04.600 one of a few notable misses as Microsoft was trying 1:01:04.640 --> 1:01:10.040 to compete directly with Apple. It's a fascinating story all 1:01:10.160 --> 1:01:12.560 on its own, right, So you can check that one 1:01:12.600 --> 1:01:14.880 out if you look through the tech stuff archives from 1:01:14.920 --> 1:01:18.680 this year. In the meantime, I hope you are all 1:01:18.800 --> 1:01:22.200 well and I will talk to you again really soon. 1:01:28.240 --> 1:01:32.920 Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, 1:01:33.240 --> 1:01:36.960 visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen 1:01:36.960 --> 1:01:41.480 to your favorite shows.