WEBVTT - The History of MP3 Players 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:14.400 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:18.400 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, senior writer at how stuff 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.079 works dot com. And today we're going to revisit the 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.840 world of m P three's because I promised you guys 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.720 I do an episode about the history of MP three players, 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:31.960 and this is that episode. I've already covered the history 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:35.600 of the MP three format itself and how digital audio works, 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.280 so you can check out those earlier episodes as well 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.240 if you want to. But first let me just give 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.360 like kind of a very brief overview of the history 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.360 of the MP three super summarized version. If you recall, 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.479 it originated as a project out of a research company 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:56.280 called the Frown Hawthor Gazelle Shoft Company. A team of 0:00:56.320 --> 0:00:59.960 researchers led by Karl Heinz Brandenburg created the MP three 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:04.480 format back in seven. Now, what he was doing was 0:01:04.480 --> 0:01:07.080 trying to build a compression formula that would allow for 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:11.000 high audio quality that doesn't take up as much space 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:15.880 as raw audio files do. Those are huge, so how 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.400 do you get them smaller so that transmission is easier. 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:23.119 He wanted to do this for audio transmission across phone lines. Now, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:26.360 the name MP three comes to us courtesy of the 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:30.280 Motion Picture Experts Group, also known as IMPEG, and the 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.600 reason the three is there is because the full name 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.840 for the format is the IMPEG Audio Layer three. So 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:42.200 Brandenburg's team's research led to this audio compression format. Al 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.640 Fraunhofer a Gazelle Shoft applied for a patent in Germany 0:01:45.640 --> 0:01:48.760 in nine and for a patent in the United States 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.160 uh in. And this is a good spot to include 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:57.880 a bit of information to clear up some ambiguity. An 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:01.760 MP three player can be a couple of different things. 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.680 One version of an MP three player is just a 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.480 program that you run on your computer and it's meant 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:10.680 to decode compressed MP three files and then play them 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:13.120 back so that you can listen to them. Now, the 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:15.840 other meaning of MP three player is really what I 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.680 was going to talk about today. That's a dedicated, typically 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:22.400 portable device that is a decoder and an audio system 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.560 all in one, kind of like a Sony Walkman was 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.959 the old cassette player. I think of MP three player 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.600 as this handheld personal audio device, but technically MP three 0:02:32.600 --> 0:02:36.280 player can refer to either. And since it can refer 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.880 to either. I'm going to cover the history of both, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.080 but I'm really going to focus more on those handheld devices. 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.240 Now frown hawfor a gazelle shaft, and I do love 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:49.640 saying that name over and over, which is why I 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.399 take every opportunity to do so. They marketed an MP 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:57.400 three player program for computers, but it failed to catch on. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.560 It wasn't terribly user friendly, people didn't really care for it, 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.440 and the MP three was actually in danger of fading 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.840 into obscurity. If no one had created a user friendly 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:13.400 MP three program, chances are that format never would have 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:17.160 caught on and we would have some other compression format 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.200 that would be the standard uh or at least a 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:26.320 major standard in audio compression. Now, there were other researchers 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:28.600 and companies working on a way to find success where 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.080 the German company found frustration, and that's when we flash 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.960 forward to ninet. So remember ninety seven is when the 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:41.280 company first started developing the MP three compression format. Ten 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.360 years later is when Thomas lav Lak created the a 0:03:46.560 --> 0:03:52.520 MP MP three playback engine now use Lac was born 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.080 in Croatia and studied at the University of Zagreb's Faculty 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:00.320 of electrical engineering and computing, and he had graduate weighted 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:04.920 with a degree of engineering. And he developed his MP 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.960 three player software when he was a student, and he 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:10.200 wanted to launch it as a commercial product. He said, 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.880 all right, well, I've created this thing that can play 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.800 MP three files, and I want to be able to 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.520 make this something like a piece of software that could 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:22.480 actually sell. So he formed a partnership with an American 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:28.320 entrepreneur named Brian Littman. Together they created a new company 0:04:28.400 --> 0:04:32.839 called Advanced Multimedia Products. This was back in the time 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:36.640 when multimedia became like the catchphrase. It was a buzz term, 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.480 kind of similar to like the way we call Internet 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:43.080 of Things or cloud computing. Those are real buzz terms today. 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.760 Multimedia back in those days was the big buzz word, 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.360 and it also could mean things like full motion video 0:04:50.560 --> 0:04:52.440 in computer games, and I've talked about that in a 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:58.360 previous episode. They were terrible and amazing and terrible. So 0:04:58.440 --> 0:05:01.520 Advanced Multimedia Product that's where you get the a MP 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:06.440 in a MP MP three. It wasn't AMP like an amplifier, 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:11.679 but rather an acronym for Advanced Multimedia Products. Side note 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.360 it was Lack would later go on to work in 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.320 the world of video games. He co created a company 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.560 called two by two Games, which released a turn based 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.320 war game called Unity of Command. So, if you've ever 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.720 played Unity of Command, that was made by the same 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:35.080 person who created the first commercially successful MP three player program. 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:40.200 So this program hits the market and it is commercially successful, 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:47.159 but it's not entirely easy to use for everybody. That's 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:51.240 when a University of Utah student named Justin Frankel took 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.359 this AMP program and he poured it it over to 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:59.080 the Windows operating system, along with help from a few 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:04.440 other developers, and he called this sport win AMP w 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.719 I N A MP. Justin Frankel, by the way, would 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:10.120 actually go on to develop the New Tell, a peer 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.440 to peer sharing program, and new Tell in this case 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:14.679 is spelled with a g N you good New Teller. 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.440 There's some disagreement online, by the way, regarding to who 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:24.080 contributed to creating winapp and who was ultimately responsible who 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.919 did most of the work. But I'm gonna be honest 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:30.360 with you, guys, I cannot sort it all out. There 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.880 are multiple stories out there. They all disagree with each other. 0:06:34.560 --> 0:06:40.039 Some of them seemed to be a little more conspiracy 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:43.880 oriented than others. It's very difficult to sort out what 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.320 is the actual truth. It seems to me like there 0:06:47.360 --> 0:06:52.240 were multiple players involved and there's disagreement about who did 0:06:52.400 --> 0:06:56.520 most of the work. So for the purposes of this podcast, 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.400 let's say that Frankel developed WINAMP and just put a 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:04.360 little asked a risk behind that phrase, because honestly, without 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:07.000 chatting with all the parties involved, I can't really make 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:13.040 an educated guess as to who whom was the ultimate 0:07:13.480 --> 0:07:16.680 party responsible. I'm guessing it was more of a group effort. 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.400 Now when AMP would actually go on to become one 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:24.320 of the top MP three playback programs on the Windows platform, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.560 in it was a free program, anyone could download it, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.440 and that really helped cement the MP three format. It 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:36.200 helped establish it as a format that would stick around 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:38.720 because now you had a free program you could use. 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.480 You had a compression formula that allowed you to store 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:47.040 a lot more music in the same storage space as 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.440 if you were to use the raw music files you could. 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.760 You could store way more music with m P three 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.480 format because it compressed it so low, so low as 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.600 in low storage space, and of course that depended upon 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.800 things like the bit rate you set your encoding at 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:04.840 and if you wanted to learn more about that, you 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:07.720 can listen to the digital audio episode I did to 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.640 talk more about bit rate. I'm not going to go 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.040 into that here. So the NP three format was no 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:18.000 longer in danger of fading off into obscurity. In one 0:08:18.080 --> 0:08:21.120 year after when it became free, A o L purchased 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.560 the rights to win app. They actually acquired a company 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.480 called null Soft. That was the company that Frankel had 0:08:27.520 --> 0:08:30.960 formed when he was marketing win app. And the price 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:36.640 for acquiring Nullsoft was a cool eighty million dollars, not 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:41.800 bad for a University of Utah dropout. Frankel dropped out 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.520 of the out of college once he had developed this 0:08:44.559 --> 0:08:47.560 program because he was running his own company. He had 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:53.199 created a startup and UH found enormous success by getting 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:56.559 acquired by A o L. This was just one example 0:08:56.800 --> 0:09:00.000 of a long and storied history of people creating company 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.880 needs that showed some utility and then selling out to 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:07.880 a larger company. And by selling out, they don't mean 0:09:07.920 --> 0:09:12.080 they sold out in the you know, derogatory sense. They 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.800 made really good business decisions by making millions of dollars 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.600 off of their work. Um, I only wish I had 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:23.360 come up with something equally as useful so that I 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.680 could be a millionaire. Gosh darn it, but don't we 0:09:26.720 --> 0:09:34.640 all anyway? It was not long for this world ultimately, 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:40.120 because in a O l shut down winnapp. Uh you 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.120 couldn't download it anymore. They stopped supporting it. But of course, 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:47.800 by the MP three format was firmly entrenched, so the 0:09:47.880 --> 0:09:50.360 death of winnapp did not mean the death of the 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:54.400 MP three. And there are tons of other MP three 0:09:54.400 --> 0:09:58.000 pro player programs and MP three compatible programs out there, 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.120 way more than I name. Some of them have really 0:10:02.160 --> 0:10:05.679 interesting features. Some of them are really slimmed down programs 0:10:05.720 --> 0:10:09.679 that just have basic commands. Most operating systems have some 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.960 form of MP three playback functionality built into them with 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:15.480 a stock application, so you don't even have to download 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:17.679 anything to be able to access MP three files for 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.760 most cases. So instead of focusing on the software side, 0:10:21.840 --> 0:10:25.920 let's shift over to talk about portable MP three players. 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:28.599 When did they start to show up? So while it 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.120 was Lack was working on the a MP MP three 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:33.480 player program, and thank goodness, I'm not gonna have to 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:37.240 say that anymore. There was a company in South Korea 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:41.040 that was busy creating the first solid state handheld MP 0:10:41.160 --> 0:10:46.559 three player. Now that company was this Sahan Information Systems Corporation. 0:10:47.760 --> 0:10:50.679 The original product they launched was called the MP man 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:54.679 Digital Stereo Player, kind of like a Walkman, but it's 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.679 an MP man, And of course Walkman came from Sony. 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:03.679 This came from Sahan Information system Now, the company wasn't 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.640 prepared to market this worldwide, so they actually partnered with 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.360 another company, Iger Labs, and Iger Labs was in charge 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:14.600 of marketing this product over in the Western world, and 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.400 they showed off the device at the nineteen s Bit 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:22.280 trade show in Germany. The product would then hit the 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:27.520 consumer market in the summer of nineteen so you have 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.160 the software side developing at the same time as the 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.719 hardware side, which was kind of interesting right now. There 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:39.880 were two versions of the early MP man MP three player. 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:43.720 Others would follow after a while, but the first two, 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:46.760 we're pretty simple. One of them had thirty two megabytes 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:49.480 of memory, which was enough to hold about thirty two 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:54.480 minutes of audio encoded at a killabits per second. That's 0:11:54.480 --> 0:12:01.960 about eight standard length songs. Obviously standard length is you know, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.079 that depends, but we're talking three to four minutes, right. So, 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.880 just for fun, out of the mischievous of my heart, 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:12.400 I decided to ask eight co workers a simple question. 0:12:12.640 --> 0:12:17.080 If you could fit one and only one song on 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.160 an MP three player for your use, what would it be? 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:26.120 And so here is the how Stuff Works employee playlist, 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.599 as determined by the eight co workers I asked. H 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:33.280 I asked a couple of others this question later on 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.960 and tortured them as well. By the way across the board, 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.120 when I asked this question, it was clear to me 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.080 that the people responding were giving more thought to this 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:45.679 question than perhaps any other piece of work that crossed 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.880 their desk this week. That's not a judgment, I'm just 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.600 making an observation. So co worker Allison said that she 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.080 would put put under pressure by Queen and David Bowie 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.680 on this MP three player. Christopher went with a door 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:07.679 by Prince, although he has since reconsidered his choice multiple times. 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:14.360 Nathan chose later Alice by tool. Sherry chose telephone call 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:19.480 from Istanbul by Tom Waits Ramsey, who is the director 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.440 for the Forward Thinking series. Now his choice was waiting 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.600 Room by Fugazi. Our office manager to Mika said she 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.640 would go with the Imperial March by John Williams from 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:34.559 the Empire Strikes Back soundtrack. I think she wins. Julie, 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.320 who hosts Stuff of Life among other things, went with 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:41.960 Nina Simons Centerman, specifically a live version. She wanted me 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.680 to make sure I mentioned that. And then we have 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.559 Matt Frederick, one of the hosts of Stuff they don't 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.199 want you to know, who decided to torture me because 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:55.400 he chose a song that I don't think I can 0:13:55.440 --> 0:14:00.960 pronounce sefan Inglare by a group called Seeger Ross, and 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:03.960 I know I butchered it, and I know that that 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.400 wasn't necessarily Matt's intent, But I also know that Matt 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:11.080 is probably not disappointed to hear that I cannot say 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.040 the name of the song he chose. Now, I think 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:15.760 it's only fair that I do the same as my 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.200 co workers. But I'm giving myself all eight tracks. So 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:23.560 here are eight songs I feel like I could put 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.320 on an MP three player that could only hold those 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:30.840 eight songs. First up is Tie your Mother Down by Queen, 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.120 because it's a song that was written in nineteen six 0:14:34.200 --> 0:14:36.680 by Brian May and May went on to become an 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:41.640 astro physicist. So if an astrophysicist can write an amazing 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.200 song called tie your Mother Down, I think you have 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.040 to include it on your MP three player. Next, I've 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:51.400 got Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, which I think is 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:53.360 best played in a car that has all the windows 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:58.120 rolled down. Third is my one and only entry from 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.120 They Might Be Giants. This when we can't keep Johnny down, 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.400 Because you know it's My name is Jonathan, so I 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:07.280 went with that. Anyone who knows me is aware that 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.880 I'm an enormous fan of They Might Be Giants, so 0:15:09.960 --> 0:15:14.800 picking any one song from them was really tough. Fourth 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.720 would be The Clashes cover of Pressure Drop, which was 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:20.440 originally by Toots and the Maytals, which was one of 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:24.560 my favorite cover songs. And then next I've I've chosen 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.560 this must be the Place by the Talking Heads. Uh. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.360 Then we would have a song from a more recent 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.480 band that I've become obsessed with. That would be The 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:36.840 Struts and Put Your Money on Me. After that s 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.320 O B by Nathaniel Rateliff in the Night Sweats, and 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.760 the last song I would put on my MP three 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:46.480 player would have to be something that would indicate my 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.760 love of musicals, So I picked the song once in 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.840 a while from The Rocky Horror Show, not the Rocky 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.360 Horror Picture Show, but the play The Rocky Horror Show, 0:15:55.360 --> 0:16:00.720 and specifically the roxy cast version. So look up the 0:16:00.760 --> 0:16:03.440 different songs. I mentioned, both the ones that my coworkers 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.280 picked and the ones I picked to kind of get 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:08.440 your idea of why anyone would want to put that 0:16:08.520 --> 0:16:11.040 on an MP three player that could only hold eight songs. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:12.960 It will give you a lot more information about the 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:17.000 personalities of the people who work here and of me. 0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.600 I guess that's also a warning. Now. I did say 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.480 that the MP man was available in two versions. The 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:29.280 second one actually had sixty four megabytes of storage. That's 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.120 double the amount of data you could stuff onto the 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.680 other version. It did not have a rechargeable battery, though. 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:40.400 The thirty two megabyte had a nickel metal hydride battery 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:44.520 that you could recharge and had nine hours of playtime, 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.000 which is pretty incredible, right, like nine hours to play 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:51.960 eight songs over and over again. Well, the sixty four 0:16:52.000 --> 0:16:55.240 megabyte instead of having that rechargeable battery, it ran off 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.720 a single double A battery. Now, technically the double A 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:02.120 could be rechargeablepending upon what brand you purchased, but you 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:06.680 get what I mean. It wasn't inherently a rechargeable battery. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:10.399 The original player, the thirty two megabyte version, it didn't 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.919 have expandable memory. So if you wanted to upgrade, you 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:17.480 had to do this. You purchase your thirty two megabyte 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:19.960 You decide, you know what, eight songs isn't enough, I'd 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:23.679 really like to have sixteen on there. You would send 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.800 your thirty two megabyte model and a check to cover 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.719 the difference in cost off to Eiger Labs, and they 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.760 would send you a sixty four megabyte version in return. 0:17:37.520 --> 0:17:40.239 That's how you upgrade. It didn't have anything to do 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:45.880 with removable storage discs or anything like that. So how 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.760 much did these things cost? Well, the thirty two megabyte 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:52.440 mp man cost a cool two hundred fifty dollars when 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.960 it launched in If you were to take that same 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.000 product and look at inflation, you could say, all right, 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.360 well today, that means it would cost close to three 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.720 hundred and sixty eight dollars. So you would be spending 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.520 almost three hundred and seventy dollars in order to listen 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.159 to eight songs on the go in digital format, and 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.600 of course that also depends upon the song length. Right. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.680 If you wanted to store songs by the Ramans on there, 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:20.800 you'd probably be able to squeeze in an extra tune 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:24.439 because most remote songs are three minutes or shorter. But 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.640 if you're a big fan of the musical genius known 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:28.520 as meat Loaf, you might only get a couple of 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.359 tracks on your m P three player before you filled 0:18:30.400 --> 0:18:33.879 up all the memory. Now I've gotten more to say 0:18:33.960 --> 0:18:36.960 about the MP man and the more successful MP three 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.840 player that followed it, but first let's take a quick 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:50.920 break to thank our sponsor. The launch of the MP 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:55.600 man wasn't an enormous success, but it did help establish 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.960 the MP three as not just a digital compression format, 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.000 but also a filed type that could be used for 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:05.119 portable devices. So in September, just a couple of months 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:08.720 after the MP man launched, a new MP three player emerged, 0:19:08.760 --> 0:19:12.520 and this was the Rio P MP three hundred and 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:15.400 that debuted at a price of two hundred dollars, which 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:18.760 then prompted Eiger Labs to reduce the MP man price 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:22.800 to two hundred dollars as well. The b MP three 0:19:22.840 --> 0:19:26.199 hundred also had thirty two megabytes of storage space, and 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.679 you'd load music from a computer using a parallel port cable. 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:33.560 Do you remember. Those were kind of the things we 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.680 would use before stuff like USB cables became a standard. 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.960 So how did this PMP three hundred measure up to 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.840 the MP man apart from the identical amount of storage space. Well, 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:47.800 if you look at an MP man, and I do 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:52.160 recommend that you search for these different devices and look 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.919 at images just so you can see what these actually 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:58.639 looked like. Um, the MP man had a very small 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:04.280 digital display, almost like an electronic calculator, like handheld electronic 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:06.280 calculator that you would have basic one, not even a 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.880 scientific model. And so it had a very small digital 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:12.840 display that mostly showed how much time had passed from 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.840 the launch of a song. And it had two physical 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:18.560 buttons that you can use to navigate the device, one 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.119 called mode and the other called info, and it weighed 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.520 about sixty five grams. The p MP three hundred had 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.600 a larger digital screen than the MP man, and it 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.040 also had more buttons, including three on the top edge 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:33.280 of the player and several more on the front surface 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.320 of the player beneath where the screen was a circle 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.960 in the front, gave basic controls like play fast, forward, rewind, 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:43.320 and stop, and other buttons allowed you to do things 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.200 like change the volume level or select basic functions like repeat. 0:20:47.880 --> 0:20:50.720 These would be things that become standard in future MP 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:54.160 three players. The additional features and lower price point pushed 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.800 the Rio ahead of the MP MAN. Now that's not 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.600 to say that the launch of the Rio was perfectly smooth. 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:07.600 In October nine, the Recording Industry Association of America a 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:10.960 k a. The r I double A sued Rio Port, 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.960 which was a subsidiary of a company called Diamond Multimedia. 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:20.720 And Diamond multi Media essentially produced the Rio through Rio Port. 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.320 So what was the beef? Well, the r I double 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.720 A claimed that the Rio violated the nineteen two US 0:21:27.800 --> 0:21:32.080 Home Recordings Act. The mp MAN was such a niche 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:34.440 item that the r I double A didn't even take 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:36.680 notice of it. But the Rio was making a bigger splash, 0:21:36.800 --> 0:21:38.879 and so the R I double A said, we've got 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.680 a niphus in the butt. Anyone familiar with media organizations 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:45.240 knows that this is a pretty common occurrence. So you 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.560 get a new technology that debuts and it allows people 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:53.720 to create, play and share recordings of media and then 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.440 lawsuits come flying in. We saw it with the development 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:02.760 of video cassettes, both Beta max and VHS. We saw 0:22:02.800 --> 0:22:06.000 it with just cassette tapes. We saw it with c 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:10.240 d s and specifically writeable c d s, and we 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.320 saw it with m P Three's no big shock. Every 0:22:13.320 --> 0:22:15.840 time that someone comes up with a new way to 0:22:15.920 --> 0:22:21.000 do this, we see the various industry UH components react 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.080 normally through lawsuits. And on the one hand, you can 0:22:25.160 --> 0:22:28.440 kind of understand where they're coming from. If someone can 0:22:28.520 --> 0:22:31.439 replicate a recording or make it available for other folks 0:22:31.480 --> 0:22:35.600 to download for free, why would anyone bother to pay 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.960 for a recording? Right? So, why would I bother to 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:43.320 pay for a song if I could just go online 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.640 and download it for free and you know, there's no 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.240 repercussions there. But on the other hand, we've seen multiple 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:54.840 times that the legal tactics don't prevent piracy from happening, 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:58.400 and in some cases, lawsuits might encourage people who otherwise 0:22:58.400 --> 0:23:01.000 wouldn't dream of hirating stuff to actually go to the 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:03.879 dark side and do it, saying saying, you know, I 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.199 wasn't going to do it before, but because of the 0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:08.800 way this company is acting, I'm totally gonna do it now. 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:13.800 Maybe they're just justifying what their activity is, but it's 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:16.480 not a great story, and it also leads to companies 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.960 adopting various types of digital rights management or DRM that 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:23.600 can ultimately cause more frustration to legal customers than two 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:27.639 people pirating that software or files. More on that in 0:23:27.680 --> 0:23:31.119 a little bit. So for about a week and a 0:23:31.160 --> 0:23:35.840 half in October, the r I double A was able 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:40.679 to secure a sales ban on the Rio, so about 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:44.000 ten days or so the Rio could not be sold 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:47.399 legally in the United States, but by October six that 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:52.080 ban was lifted. Real Port would countersue the r I 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:56.639 double A in December and said that what that organization 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:58.919 was doing was illegal. They were trying to stifle a 0:23:58.960 --> 0:24:02.120 market that they didn't actually control, and that market would 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:06.240 be digital music. There was a lawsuit that followed, and 0:24:06.320 --> 0:24:09.840 the court ruled that the Rio wasn't in violation of 0:24:09.840 --> 0:24:13.680 any rules because the company couldn't control the behavior of 0:24:13.760 --> 0:24:16.760 its customers. In other words, it's not an MP three 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:20.760 player manufacturer's fault. If customers fill up their devices with 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.080 stolen files, they can't control that. It's the same as 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:28.520 saying it's not a computer manufacturer's fault if a hacker 0:24:28.960 --> 0:24:33.600 uses their computers to make malware. Dell can't control if 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.960 I take a Dell computer and start creating malware off 0:24:37.000 --> 0:24:39.359 of it, so Dell should not be held at fault 0:24:39.640 --> 0:24:43.719 if I unleash a damaging malware onto the world. By 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:48.159 the same token, an MP three player manufacturer can't guarantee 0:24:48.280 --> 0:24:50.359 that its customers are going to play by the rules, 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.480 and it can't be held responsible when they don't. The 0:24:53.640 --> 0:24:56.000 r I double A appealed this verdict, and then the 0:24:56.000 --> 0:24:58.440 court said that the RIO didn't qualify as a recording 0:24:58.440 --> 0:25:02.760 device under the definitions a Recording Act, so therefore it 0:25:02.800 --> 0:25:05.320 couldn't be in violation of any rules because it didn't 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:08.639 qualify for the rules that are I double A said, 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:12.159 we're in play, so the MP three player lived to 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:15.440 fight another day. On a side note, the r I 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:17.879 double A would soon see its fears realized upon the 0:25:17.920 --> 0:25:22.360 birth of peer to peer sharing services, namely Napster. These 0:25:22.400 --> 0:25:26.920 services became massive resources for pirates, first of music files 0:25:26.960 --> 0:25:30.320 and then later for all types of files. Now the 0:25:30.359 --> 0:25:34.080 technology itself and peer to peer sharing isn't illegal, but 0:25:34.160 --> 0:25:37.920 it was put to illegal use frequently enough that everyone 0:25:38.240 --> 0:25:41.399 in the industry was equating this perfectly legal means of 0:25:41.440 --> 0:25:45.760 distribution with illegal activity. It became an enormous headache for 0:25:45.760 --> 0:25:47.880 a lot of people who used peer to peer sharing 0:25:48.359 --> 0:25:52.439 for totally legitimate legal purposes. Uh. It didn't help that 0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:54.879 there were also lots of people using it to pirate 0:25:54.960 --> 0:25:58.280 the crap out of music, movies, and games and other 0:25:58.320 --> 0:26:03.000 types of files. This would also extend into the era 0:26:03.160 --> 0:26:06.920 of the bit torrent networks. So I've talked about those 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:11.840 in previous episodes. I won't dwell on it here. Those lawsuits, however, 0:26:11.920 --> 0:26:14.600 got the attention of the industry at large, and nobody 0:26:14.640 --> 0:26:17.600 wanted to get sued by a powerful organization representing the 0:26:17.640 --> 0:26:21.600 interests of the major music labels. They had almost bottomless 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:25.840 amounts of cash and could completely bankrupt smaller companies that 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:29.880 were trying to get into this industry. So various entities 0:26:29.920 --> 0:26:33.879 in the technology sector, including consumer electronics companies and various 0:26:34.000 --> 0:26:37.800 rights holders formed what was called the Secure Digital Music 0:26:37.840 --> 0:26:43.080 Initiative or s d m I. Their goal originally was 0:26:43.119 --> 0:26:48.920 to create a strategy, some encryption specifications and other strategies 0:26:48.920 --> 0:26:51.800 to prevent the unlawful distribution of MP three recordings, so, 0:26:51.840 --> 0:26:54.680 in other words, they wanted to create a digital rights 0:26:54.760 --> 0:26:58.960 management strategy. To do this, they created a digital water 0:26:59.040 --> 0:27:02.080 marking process that would attach a bit of code to 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:04.440 a music file, and that bit of code would act 0:27:04.520 --> 0:27:06.960 as a water mark. If you tried to remove the 0:27:07.000 --> 0:27:10.000 water mark, it would in theory, cause damage to the 0:27:10.080 --> 0:27:13.159 MP three file, so that you would get signal loss, 0:27:13.760 --> 0:27:16.920 you would have a lower quality sound file, or maybe 0:27:16.920 --> 0:27:19.800 it wouldn't even play properly at all. And they also 0:27:19.840 --> 0:27:22.600 work to create a standard for MP three players. So 0:27:22.680 --> 0:27:27.600 the idea was that MP three player manufacturers would implement technology, 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:31.359 some kind of code hard coded into the device that 0:27:31.400 --> 0:27:35.200 would prevent an s d M I compliant player from 0:27:35.200 --> 0:27:38.919 playing an sd M I compliant music file if it 0:27:38.960 --> 0:27:42.280 didn't have authorization to do so. So, in other words, 0:27:42.600 --> 0:27:44.720 think of it like a key in a lock. If 0:27:44.880 --> 0:27:47.800 the key was not present on the device, it could 0:27:47.880 --> 0:27:51.880 not unlock a music file that had been illegally loaded 0:27:51.960 --> 0:27:55.280 onto the device. And to make sure that their plan worked, 0:27:55.359 --> 0:27:58.200 the s d d M I group invited various hackers 0:27:58.200 --> 0:28:02.240 to try their hand at removing a digital watermark without 0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:05.200 harming the MP three file. So there was a group 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:09.120 led by a Princeton University professor of computer science and 0:28:09.240 --> 0:28:12.560 his name was Ed Felton. They claimed that they managed 0:28:12.600 --> 0:28:17.000 the task. Now, the SDM I group said no, no, no, no, now, yeah, 0:28:17.080 --> 0:28:21.040 you you didn't do it because just because our software 0:28:21.160 --> 0:28:24.240 says that the watermark is gone doesn't mean the watermark 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:27.199 is really gone. Plus there's signal loss here in this 0:28:27.240 --> 0:28:30.480 audio file, so you didn't really successfully do this. Now, 0:28:31.600 --> 0:28:36.280 Felton's group did not opt for the non disclosure policy. 0:28:36.920 --> 0:28:40.280 The group had offered a prize, a cash prize award 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:42.960 to anyone who could manage to do this. If you 0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:46.479 opted out of that non disclosure policy, you were not 0:28:46.640 --> 0:28:50.120 eligible for the award. Well, Felton's group never agreed to 0:28:50.160 --> 0:28:53.800 the non disclosure part. So they moved to publish their 0:28:53.840 --> 0:28:58.920 method to defeat the s d M I um uh 0:28:59.280 --> 0:29:03.320 D r m S strategy. And that's when several groups, 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:05.880 including the r I double A, sprung into action. They 0:29:05.880 --> 0:29:09.080 threatened legal action under the Digital Management Copyright Act or 0:29:09.200 --> 0:29:13.480 d m c A. Felton turned to the Electronic Frontier 0:29:13.560 --> 0:29:16.920 Foundation the e f F, and said, hey, now this 0:29:17.000 --> 0:29:18.880 is not fair. So they took it to the U 0:29:19.000 --> 0:29:21.160 S Department of Justice, and the d o J said, 0:29:21.320 --> 0:29:26.080 you're cool, Felton, because legit academic research isn't a violation 0:29:26.160 --> 0:29:29.120 of the d m c A. So the paper was published, 0:29:30.200 --> 0:29:33.040 the s d m I essentially dissolved without any fanfare 0:29:33.080 --> 0:29:37.040 in two thousand one. Turns out that protecting digital information 0:29:37.120 --> 0:29:40.120 is pretty tricky, and this approach was ultimately a failure. 0:29:40.280 --> 0:29:42.880 It's probably a good thing seeing is how those approaches 0:29:42.880 --> 0:29:48.080 to DRM tend to do more harm. They they negatively 0:29:48.120 --> 0:29:52.080 affect legitimate legal customers more than they affect the people 0:29:52.080 --> 0:29:56.200 who are skirting around the law. And trust me, nothing 0:29:56.280 --> 0:29:58.800 is more frustrating than the feeling you're being punished for 0:29:58.880 --> 0:30:02.800 following the rules. Anyone who's played a single player video 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:05.960 game that will only work if you have an active 0:30:06.920 --> 0:30:09.440 connection to the Internet probably knows what I'm talking about. 0:30:09.800 --> 0:30:13.320 All right, back to the MP three players. After the 0:30:13.400 --> 0:30:17.040 launch of the MP Man and the Rio, other devices 0:30:17.120 --> 0:30:20.120 began to hit the market, and the biggest challenge companies 0:30:20.200 --> 0:30:23.520 faced was to provide a decent amount of memory storage 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:26.640 while trying to keep the price down, because in those 0:30:26.680 --> 0:30:29.920 early days, if you wanted to use solid state flash 0:30:30.000 --> 0:30:33.600 based memory storage, you're paying a pretty hefty price. We're 0:30:33.600 --> 0:30:37.200 talking between three and four dollars per megabyte, which adds 0:30:37.280 --> 0:30:41.360 up to about thirty five hundred dollars per gigabyte. That's 0:30:41.440 --> 0:30:44.520 that's an enormous amount of money. I don't have thirty 0:30:45.160 --> 0:30:48.640 dollars to spend on a one gigabyte MP three player. 0:30:49.440 --> 0:30:52.240 I don't have it to spend on a tarobyte MP 0:30:52.320 --> 0:30:57.040 three player, to tell you the truth. Now, a new 0:30:57.160 --> 0:30:59.800 MP three player debuted with a much larger hard drive 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:04.840 then its competitors. And this was the Remote Solutions Personal Jukebox, 0:31:04.920 --> 0:31:09.560 and it had four point eight gigabytes of storage. How 0:31:09.760 --> 0:31:13.200 How could Remote Solutions Personal Jukebox have four point eight 0:31:13.200 --> 0:31:16.400 gigabytes when everyone else is struggling with thirty two or 0:31:16.440 --> 0:31:20.120 sixty four megabytes? Did it cost the same amount as 0:31:20.120 --> 0:31:24.280 a car? No? And the reason was personal juke box 0:31:24.440 --> 0:31:30.280 wasn't using solid state flash memory. Instead, the Personal juke 0:31:30.320 --> 0:31:33.760 Box actually was using a repurposed laptop hard drive. In 0:31:33.800 --> 0:31:37.280 other words, it used a disc based storage system hard disc, 0:31:37.600 --> 0:31:40.960 not floppy disk, and it used magnetic storage instead of 0:31:40.960 --> 0:31:43.920 the solid state model. Now, that kept the price down, 0:31:44.040 --> 0:31:47.800 but it was still monstrously expensive. The launch price for 0:31:47.840 --> 0:31:51.680 the Personal Jukebox was seven hundred dollars, which is about 0:31:51.680 --> 0:31:54.800 the same as one thousand, one hundred fifty one dollars 0:31:54.880 --> 0:31:58.760 in today's money. And you might think that a laptop 0:31:58.800 --> 0:32:01.040 hard drive would make an MP three player larger and 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:04.080 heavier than those that use flash storage, and you're right. 0:32:04.400 --> 0:32:08.240 It was not really a portable device, at least not 0:32:08.280 --> 0:32:10.200 in the same way that the flash based ones were. 0:32:11.360 --> 0:32:14.960 In two thousand, another disc based hard drive MP three 0:32:15.040 --> 0:32:18.880 player debut, and this one was the Creative Nomad Jukebox. 0:32:19.160 --> 0:32:22.600 It cost five dollars for six gigabytes of storage, so 0:32:23.360 --> 0:32:26.800 more storage for less money, But like the Personal Jukebox, 0:32:26.920 --> 0:32:28.800 it was a hefty monster. It was too big for 0:32:28.840 --> 0:32:31.160 a personal listening device. It kind of looked like a 0:32:31.320 --> 0:32:34.959 personal CD player rather than MP three player, much too 0:32:35.080 --> 0:32:37.480 large to fit into a pocket. If you wanted to 0:32:37.520 --> 0:32:39.640 go lightweight, you would have to opt for something else, 0:32:39.680 --> 0:32:43.120 like the I to Go Ego, which had a micro 0:32:43.240 --> 0:32:48.000 drive capable of storing two gigabytes of music. But there 0:32:48.200 --> 0:32:50.840 was a hefty price tag for the Eye to Go Ego. 0:32:51.000 --> 0:32:57.000 It cost two thousand dollars a two thousand dollar MP 0:32:57.120 --> 0:33:01.720 three player, and that's by two thousand year standards like 0:33:01.720 --> 0:33:04.520 the year two thousand. If you wanted to adjust for inflation, 0:33:04.760 --> 0:33:08.040 it's more like two thousand seven eight seven dollars for 0:33:08.120 --> 0:33:10.520 a two gigabyte MP three player. It's not even made 0:33:10.520 --> 0:33:15.000 out of platinum or anything. Other alternatives were also popping up, 0:33:15.040 --> 0:33:18.560 though most of them had those storage limitations. There was 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:22.000 the r C A Lira or Lyra if you prefer, 0:33:22.040 --> 0:33:25.160 it's l y r A, and that marked r C 0:33:25.360 --> 0:33:28.320 as attempt to get into the MP three player business. 0:33:28.560 --> 0:33:31.720 The first model had a thirty two megabyte capacity on 0:33:31.800 --> 0:33:34.760 a CF card, and I also had a fairly large 0:33:34.760 --> 0:33:39.160 monochromatic display and several physical buttons for operation. If you 0:33:39.200 --> 0:33:41.920 wanted to store music on the device, you had to 0:33:42.000 --> 0:33:45.480 use proprietary software to write to the CF reader. Moreover, 0:33:45.680 --> 0:33:48.320 the files you'd store would be converted into an encrypted 0:33:48.320 --> 0:33:52.200 format that would only play on the Lira or Lyra 0:33:53.200 --> 0:33:57.720 or whatever. Now, because it actually used a removable memory card, 0:33:57.800 --> 0:34:00.920 you could upgrade the memory. You just buy a higher 0:34:00.920 --> 0:34:03.880 memory card. Now, the max in those early models was 0:34:03.920 --> 0:34:08.479 five dred twelve megabytes, so still way less than those 0:34:08.520 --> 0:34:12.640 hard disk style MP three players, but far more storage 0:34:12.680 --> 0:34:14.719 than the standard models that were on the market, and 0:34:14.760 --> 0:34:19.160 it kept the size of the device relatively small. One 0:34:19.239 --> 0:34:22.120 drawback was that when the Lyrah booted up, it had 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:25.680 to read the full contents stored on the card, kind 0:34:25.719 --> 0:34:28.279 of like how your computer when it's booting up and 0:34:28.280 --> 0:34:30.880 it's trying to load the desktop, it has to read 0:34:30.920 --> 0:34:33.440 all the different things that are associated with the desktop 0:34:33.480 --> 0:34:36.640 before it can fully load. So the only way it 0:34:36.640 --> 0:34:39.120 could present a menu of all the songs stored on 0:34:39.160 --> 0:34:43.160 the device was to go through all the contents first. Now, 0:34:43.200 --> 0:34:45.440 the more you stored on it, the longer that boot 0:34:45.480 --> 0:34:48.560 time lasted. If you had more than half of your 0:34:48.600 --> 0:34:51.400 device full and you had five twelve megabytes of storage, 0:34:51.600 --> 0:34:53.640 you'd be waiting longer than a minute just for the 0:34:53.719 --> 0:34:56.880 thing to boot up properly. So it wasn't the most 0:34:57.160 --> 0:35:01.560 convenient compared to some other devices. Now, that entire line 0:35:01.600 --> 0:35:04.080 of our c A products would persist and evolve, with 0:35:04.160 --> 0:35:08.319 later models adding more functionality and more storage. Meanwhile, in 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:11.680 two thousand, Sony joined the game by launching a device 0:35:11.760 --> 0:35:14.600 that sort of looked like a pen. It was called 0:35:14.640 --> 0:35:18.880 the Sony Viio m C P ten Music Clip, And 0:35:19.040 --> 0:35:22.160 boy doesn't that just roll off the tongue? I love 0:35:22.239 --> 0:35:25.319 these MP three players that all have letter and number 0:35:25.320 --> 0:35:28.600 of designations instead of just a quipping name that I 0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:31.960 can rattle off, Sony Vio m c P ten music clip. 0:35:32.040 --> 0:35:33.919 We'll just call the music clip from here on out. 0:35:34.000 --> 0:35:36.880 It was a sixty four megabyte digital music player, so 0:35:36.920 --> 0:35:39.480 their entry level was a little higher than the previous 0:35:39.520 --> 0:35:41.680 models that had come out over the last couple of years. 0:35:42.440 --> 0:35:47.480 It costs three dollars. And here's another big difference. Unlike 0:35:47.480 --> 0:35:50.440 the other players I've talked about, this wasn't actually an 0:35:50.520 --> 0:35:53.960 MP three player. It didn't play m P three files 0:35:53.960 --> 0:35:58.400 at all. Why because in a very Sony fashion, it 0:35:58.400 --> 0:36:01.840 would play music files in the A track three format. 0:36:01.920 --> 0:36:04.960 That's a t R a C three format. That's a 0:36:05.000 --> 0:36:10.640 format that was created by drum Roll Sony. So you 0:36:10.680 --> 0:36:15.719 can use included software to transcode files from MP three 0:36:15.880 --> 0:36:19.120 to A track three. But the whole process took a 0:36:19.160 --> 0:36:21.480 really long time. It was very clunky, and they paired 0:36:21.520 --> 0:36:24.640 it with a poorly designed program designed to move files 0:36:24.680 --> 0:36:27.600 from a computer to the player. Right, you would still 0:36:27.680 --> 0:36:33.920 download files onto your PC or rip music from a 0:36:33.960 --> 0:36:37.759 CD onto your PC. Then you would have to transfer 0:36:37.960 --> 0:36:42.000 from the PC to your MP three player in this case, 0:36:42.000 --> 0:36:44.120 you would also have to transcode into a track three 0:36:44.160 --> 0:36:47.279 if it wasn't already in that format. It was very 0:36:47.320 --> 0:36:50.640 frustrating experience and it a lot of customers were upset 0:36:50.719 --> 0:36:53.160 that it wasn't really an MP three player despite the 0:36:53.200 --> 0:36:55.600 fact that MP three would appear on the box because 0:36:55.640 --> 0:36:59.160 of that transcoding program. I mean, the transcoding program was included, 0:36:59.200 --> 0:37:03.480 so why not say MP three on the box. Uh. Ultimately, 0:37:03.920 --> 0:37:07.080 the the device did not get a lot of traction. 0:37:07.600 --> 0:37:11.120 It did not do very well in the marketplace. Also 0:37:11.360 --> 0:37:14.400 that same year, in two thousand, i Omega, which created 0:37:14.480 --> 0:37:17.840 ZIP discs, launched an MP three player called the Hip 0:37:17.920 --> 0:37:21.239 Zip and it had a forty megabyte storage capacity and 0:37:21.360 --> 0:37:24.400 use a scaled down version of the magnetic disc storage 0:37:24.520 --> 0:37:27.799 that they used for ZIP discs. But at this point 0:37:27.880 --> 0:37:30.400 the market was starting to get a bit crowded. There's 0:37:30.440 --> 0:37:33.040 some confusion going on in the marketplace. A lot of 0:37:33.080 --> 0:37:36.520 companies were launching MP three players at different storage capacities 0:37:36.520 --> 0:37:40.120 for different prices, and the experience could be remarkably different 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:44.040 depending upon which device you chose and which software package 0:37:44.080 --> 0:37:45.960 came along with it. So that you can manage your 0:37:46.040 --> 0:37:51.879 music database and load up your device. Keep in mind, 0:37:52.320 --> 0:37:55.719 this is a time where these devices didn't have WiFi connectivity. 0:37:55.840 --> 0:37:58.920 You had to physically attach them to a computer in 0:37:59.040 --> 0:38:02.520 order to move music over onto them. Customers were starting 0:38:02.520 --> 0:38:05.760 to get a bit frustrated because it was a confusing time, 0:38:06.520 --> 0:38:09.319 and it turned out that having a bigger storage drive 0:38:09.440 --> 0:38:12.600 wasn't necessarily the killer feature because some products were just 0:38:12.640 --> 0:38:15.080 too frustrating to use. It didn't matter that you could 0:38:15.080 --> 0:38:18.280 store more music on them. The the process of getting 0:38:18.360 --> 0:38:21.840 music moved to the device was so irritating that a 0:38:21.920 --> 0:38:24.680 lot of people just didn't like them. But in two 0:38:24.719 --> 0:38:28.680 thousand one, product launch that changed the game completely. Now, 0:38:28.680 --> 0:38:31.600 before I talk about that, let's take another quick break 0:38:31.760 --> 0:38:42.279 to thank our sponsor. Okay, I mentioned before the break 0:38:42.320 --> 0:38:45.120 that we had a groundbreaking product launch in two thousand one. 0:38:45.320 --> 0:38:49.080 I am, of course talking about the Intel Pocket Concert. 0:38:49.960 --> 0:38:53.920 It's like i'man the iPod. But the Intel Pocket Concert 0:38:54.040 --> 0:38:57.160 did launch in two thousand one, and it was pretty cool. 0:38:57.200 --> 0:38:59.400 It had a hundred twenty eight megabytes of storage. It 0:38:59.520 --> 0:39:03.000 cost a hundred dollars this amount of storage, and that 0:39:03.080 --> 0:39:06.040 price point was really attractive. It actually met with some 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:09.560 success in the market, but it didn't last very long, 0:39:09.680 --> 0:39:12.440 not because of problems with the device, not because people 0:39:12.480 --> 0:39:16.759 didn't like it, but because Intel reorganized in two thousand one, 0:39:17.280 --> 0:39:20.560 and in that reorg they shut down at their home 0:39:20.640 --> 0:39:24.560 electronics division, and the Pocket concert fell into the home 0:39:24.600 --> 0:39:28.240 electronics category. So it was a casualty of a reorgan 0:39:28.320 --> 0:39:30.719 It didn't have anything to do with the market acceptance 0:39:30.800 --> 0:39:34.560 of the MP three player. Just think if Intel had 0:39:34.640 --> 0:39:38.680 kept it, maybe the story would be very different. No, 0:39:38.880 --> 0:39:41.000 the one that actually launched in two thousand one that 0:39:41.280 --> 0:39:47.080 changed everything was the iPod. Now, it didn't change everything 0:39:47.160 --> 0:39:50.920 right away when it first launched, it was too limited 0:39:51.160 --> 0:39:54.239 to do that. Apple was not the powerhouse in two 0:39:54.239 --> 0:39:57.319 thousand one that it would become just a few years later. 0:39:58.160 --> 0:40:01.240 It was still recovering from a very a tumultuous period 0:40:01.320 --> 0:40:04.080 in the company history. It had gone through a lot 0:40:04.120 --> 0:40:08.680 of turbulence in the nineties. Co founder Steve Jobs had 0:40:08.840 --> 0:40:14.320 returned to Apple in after essentially being exiled for several years. 0:40:14.640 --> 0:40:17.120 If you remember, Steve Jobs was kind of forced out 0:40:17.120 --> 0:40:20.360 of Apple, effectively forced. He was essentially put to the 0:40:20.440 --> 0:40:25.040 side until he stepped away because he wasn't in charge 0:40:25.040 --> 0:40:29.040 of anything anymore. Then Apple was on the verge of 0:40:29.040 --> 0:40:34.040 bankruptcy after a series of terrible business decisions and strategies 0:40:35.120 --> 0:40:38.400 and jobs. Came back in as an interim CEO until 0:40:38.560 --> 0:40:40.760 he was starting to turn the company around and became 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:43.759 the actual CEO, and he was working really hard to 0:40:43.760 --> 0:40:46.640 make the company healthy again. And the two thousand one 0:40:46.719 --> 0:40:49.120 launch of the iPod was one of the first really 0:40:49.239 --> 0:40:51.799 big moves Apple made to assert itself and become a 0:40:51.880 --> 0:40:56.440 leader in computing and electronics markets. So, the very first 0:40:56.520 --> 0:41:00.520 generation of iPods had a large led screen. They had 0:41:00.560 --> 0:41:03.840 the classic scroll wheel. You put your thumb on the 0:41:03.840 --> 0:41:06.680 wheel and spin it around in order to navigate the 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:11.200 various lists of songs. A scroll wheel in that first 0:41:11.239 --> 0:41:15.239 generation was surrounded by the control buttons like play and 0:41:15.400 --> 0:41:18.719 pause and the wine and fast forward, and so the 0:41:18.719 --> 0:41:22.040 device had a pretty simple and fairly aesthetic design, kind 0:41:22.040 --> 0:41:25.480 of clunky compared to today's technology, but less clunky than 0:41:25.520 --> 0:41:28.000 a lot of the competitors that were out there. It 0:41:28.080 --> 0:41:31.000 also had five gigabytes of storage space, and it cost 0:41:31.160 --> 0:41:35.279 four hundred dollars when it launched. Also, it was aimed 0:41:35.280 --> 0:41:40.200 at a niche market because the only compatible computer you 0:41:40.239 --> 0:41:43.880 could use with the first generation iPod was a Mac. 0:41:44.239 --> 0:41:48.400 It wasn't compatible with Windows based PCs just MAX. The 0:41:48.400 --> 0:41:52.480 original iPods were running. Uh, they were rather compatible with 0:41:52.520 --> 0:41:55.960 MAX that we're running a brand new software package called iTunes. Now. 0:41:56.200 --> 0:42:00.520 At that time, iTunes was just a management soft are right. 0:42:00.560 --> 0:42:04.040 It was meant to help you manage your your music files, 0:42:04.920 --> 0:42:07.160 but you had to get the music files from somewhere 0:42:07.200 --> 0:42:11.880 else at that point. Now, because of those limitations, the 0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:15.919 iPod didn't immediately dominate the MP three player space. What's more, 0:42:15.960 --> 0:42:19.840 other companies were starting to introduce innovations into devices, and 0:42:20.080 --> 0:42:22.200 that wasn't an effort to set them apart from all 0:42:22.200 --> 0:42:25.759 the other competitors out there. In two thousand two, Arcs 0:42:25.760 --> 0:42:30.440 began to market a product called the Jukebox Multimedia jukeboxes 0:42:30.480 --> 0:42:35.600 in here anyway. The Jukebox Multimedia could play audio and video, 0:42:35.719 --> 0:42:39.200 as the name would suggest, and they had two different versions. 0:42:39.239 --> 0:42:42.080 They had a ten gigabyte and a twenty gigabyte version. 0:42:42.160 --> 0:42:45.239 The basic ten gigabyte version went on sale for four 0:42:45.280 --> 0:42:49.320 hundred dollars, so same price as the first generation iveod, 0:42:49.480 --> 0:42:51.480 but this one could show video and it had more 0:42:51.520 --> 0:42:56.160 storage space. Creative Labs would launch an MP three player 0:42:56.239 --> 0:42:59.840 called the move oh m u v O, which was 0:42:59.880 --> 0:43:02.960 a small, simple MP three player that used a single 0:43:03.000 --> 0:43:06.160 triple A battery and had a battery life of twelve hours, 0:43:06.160 --> 0:43:10.239 which was pretty impressive, and that came in uh both 0:43:10.360 --> 0:43:13.960 sixty four megabyte and eight megabyte options. It was less 0:43:14.000 --> 0:43:16.360 expensive than a lot of the other players, and it 0:43:16.440 --> 0:43:19.920 was fairly popular at the time because people were starting 0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:22.080 to really get into this idea of the MP three. 0:43:23.000 --> 0:43:25.520 A year later, other gadgets started to join the list, 0:43:25.520 --> 0:43:28.399 including Sony's next attempt at getting into the MP three game. 0:43:28.880 --> 0:43:35.760 It was another catchy model, The NW Dash MS seven 0:43:35.880 --> 0:43:39.720 zero D rolls off the tongue. I could just imagine 0:43:39.800 --> 0:43:44.200 kids writing to Santa, Dear Santa, please get me the 0:43:44.280 --> 0:43:47.359 n W Dash MS seven zero D, and then they 0:43:47.360 --> 0:43:50.440 probably end up with some completely unrelated electronic device because 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:54.360 the parents couldn't read they were I'm sorry, Santa couldn't 0:43:54.400 --> 0:43:57.200 read the words properly, and then ended up buying I 0:43:57.239 --> 0:44:01.000 don't know, a hair dryer or something. By the way, 0:44:01.040 --> 0:44:04.279 that device looks really weird. You want to look up 0:44:04.320 --> 0:44:06.879 an image of this, so one more dying for those 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:08.400 of you who want to look up the image. The 0:44:08.640 --> 0:44:12.719 NW MS seven zero d because I don't think I 0:44:12.719 --> 0:44:15.279 can really describe it properly. So here here goes. This 0:44:15.360 --> 0:44:19.080 is just a a wild attempt, but I don't really 0:44:19.200 --> 0:44:21.960 think it's going to help you that much. Imagine something 0:44:22.000 --> 0:44:25.640 that looks like an old fashioned electric razor, and then 0:44:25.680 --> 0:44:29.600 imagine a cylinder protruding from either side of one end 0:44:29.719 --> 0:44:33.040 of that electric razor. And then you have that MP 0:44:33.160 --> 0:44:35.160 three player from Sony. And it was actually a pretty 0:44:35.200 --> 0:44:37.960 small player. So the had a weird shape, but it 0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:41.279 really wasn't that big. It could hold two d fifty 0:44:41.320 --> 0:44:44.680 six megabytes of music, plus it had an additional dwight 0:44:44.760 --> 0:44:48.560 megabytes storage thanks to a memory card. This one launched 0:44:48.560 --> 0:44:50.560 at three hundred dollars and I actually kind of dig 0:44:50.640 --> 0:44:53.760 the design of this one. It used flash based memory, 0:44:54.000 --> 0:44:56.520 and so a lot of people like this one, specifically 0:44:56.600 --> 0:44:59.720 if they wanted to do exercise. Because flash based memory, 0:44:59.760 --> 0:45:02.840 you don't have to worry about skipping with any physical 0:45:02.880 --> 0:45:05.359 hard drive like a magnetic storage drive. You've actually got 0:45:05.360 --> 0:45:09.080 a physical disc that spins, and if you jostle it around, 0:45:09.239 --> 0:45:13.080 it can cause the device to skip. So those early 0:45:13.200 --> 0:45:15.360 MP three players, a lot of them, the ones that 0:45:15.440 --> 0:45:18.919 had those disk drive based storage systems. They weren't great 0:45:18.960 --> 0:45:21.080 if you wanted to go jogging or do heavy duty 0:45:21.120 --> 0:45:24.600 exercise because they could skip around. These other flash based 0:45:24.600 --> 0:45:29.160 ones didn't have that problem. Creative continued its push into 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:31.399 the MP three market by launching a line of MP 0:45:31.480 --> 0:45:34.880 three players called Zen and the Zen line could play 0:45:34.920 --> 0:45:37.800 not just MP three files, but also w m A files, 0:45:37.800 --> 0:45:40.840 and some could also handle wave files and later others 0:45:40.840 --> 0:45:44.920 as types of files as well. Creative built management software 0:45:45.040 --> 0:45:48.760 called Creative Media Source, which allowed users to synchronize devices 0:45:48.760 --> 0:45:51.200 to music stored on a computer and meant that, you know, 0:45:51.239 --> 0:45:54.759 if you added more music to your PC and then 0:45:54.800 --> 0:45:57.799 you hooked up your device to the PC, it would 0:45:57.840 --> 0:46:02.080 automatically pull over new songs into your device. You didn't 0:46:02.080 --> 0:46:03.920 have to do it manually. You didn't have to go 0:46:03.960 --> 0:46:05.520 in and say all right, I want this one. You 0:46:05.560 --> 0:46:08.319 could do that, but you didn't have to. So if 0:46:08.360 --> 0:46:11.480 you added new music to your computer, it would automatically 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:14.120 poured it over to your Zen every time you would 0:46:14.200 --> 0:46:17.640 plug it in. And my first MP three player was 0:46:17.680 --> 0:46:21.120 a Creative Zen Touch that actually launched in two thousand four. 0:46:21.920 --> 0:46:23.719 At the time I chose the Creative Zen Touch, I 0:46:23.760 --> 0:46:25.239 don't think I got it in two thousand four. I 0:46:25.280 --> 0:46:27.680 think I got it later, so I got I got 0:46:27.760 --> 0:46:29.640 it for less. It was a later model, it was 0:46:29.719 --> 0:46:32.879 less expensive, but I chose that one because I owned 0:46:32.880 --> 0:46:36.239 a PC. I didn't own a MAC, and I could 0:46:36.320 --> 0:46:39.040 at that time get a version of iTunes for the PC. 0:46:39.600 --> 0:46:41.839 But iTunes for the PC and those days did not 0:46:41.960 --> 0:46:44.920 work very well. It was a kind of a monster 0:46:45.120 --> 0:46:48.200 on Windows. It was not a piece of software I 0:46:48.280 --> 0:46:51.600 particularly cared for. Back in those days. It worked much 0:46:51.680 --> 0:46:53.520 better on a Mac than it would on a PC, 0:46:54.480 --> 0:46:57.920 and as a result, I felt discouraged from using iTunes 0:46:57.960 --> 0:47:00.360 and decided to go with the creative Zeno much and 0:47:00.480 --> 0:47:04.439 use their media source software instead. Now, the zen Touch 0:47:04.520 --> 0:47:07.080 was a pretty solid brick of a device, but I 0:47:07.160 --> 0:47:10.200 like the interface. It had a touch sensitive vertical bar 0:47:10.440 --> 0:47:13.720 instead of a scroll wheel, and you use the vertical 0:47:13.760 --> 0:47:17.319 bar to scroll through your music selection. I held onto 0:47:17.400 --> 0:47:20.640 that thing for longer than I probably should have, just 0:47:20.760 --> 0:47:23.719 because I maintained that it was better to have a 0:47:23.719 --> 0:47:27.200 dedicated device to play music than to use my phone 0:47:27.760 --> 0:47:30.640 to play music. If you guys are long time listeners 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:33.000 of tech stuff, and you listened way back in the 0:47:33.080 --> 0:47:35.840 day when Chris Palette was co host of Tech Stuff. 0:47:36.480 --> 0:47:39.040 You heard me talk about this, how I preferred having 0:47:39.320 --> 0:47:42.400 a dedicated device for my music so I didn't have 0:47:42.440 --> 0:47:46.120 to gum up the memory on my phone to hold 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:48.920 all my music collection. And these days I do what 0:47:48.960 --> 0:47:51.200 the majority of people out there are doing. I use 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:54.400 streaming services to access music. I have some stuff download 0:47:54.480 --> 0:47:56.640 to my phone, but mostly I'm streaming it. So now 0:47:56.760 --> 0:47:59.880 I don't have a dedicated music player, all right. But 0:48:00.080 --> 0:48:03.400 jumping back to two thousand three, Apple would continue with 0:48:03.400 --> 0:48:07.680 its iPod line. It launched a fifteen gigabyte iPod, and 0:48:07.680 --> 0:48:09.799 then later on in two thousand three, it launched a 0:48:09.880 --> 0:48:14.120 forty gigabyte iPod. But the biggest news was that iTunes 0:48:14.200 --> 0:48:18.480 graduated from a music management software program to a full 0:48:18.560 --> 0:48:23.359 fledged music store interface. That meant that in two thousand three, 0:48:23.400 --> 0:48:26.520 you could purchase music through Apple and then transfer it 0:48:26.560 --> 0:48:31.320 to your handy dandy iPod just directly. This was brilliant, 0:48:31.400 --> 0:48:34.800 you know, having your your ability to shop, your ability 0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:37.200 to manage your playlist, and your ability to sink it 0:48:37.239 --> 0:48:42.880 with your device all in one software package. However, Apple 0:48:42.920 --> 0:48:47.160 was also implementing a digital Rights Management strategy DRM that 0:48:47.400 --> 0:48:52.160 really irritated consumers. The forty gigabyte third generation iPod is 0:48:52.200 --> 0:48:54.320 the one that I always think about when I imagine 0:48:54.360 --> 0:48:57.040 an iPod. That's the vision I have in my head. 0:48:57.800 --> 0:49:02.200 They changed the control slightly so they still had the 0:49:02.320 --> 0:49:05.759 LED screen at the top. Beneath that, they put the 0:49:05.800 --> 0:49:09.520 control buttons arranged in a horizontal line below the LED 0:49:09.680 --> 0:49:13.560 screen so they were no longer around the circumference of 0:49:13.600 --> 0:49:16.880 the scroll wheel, and below the control buttons was the 0:49:17.320 --> 0:49:20.359 scroll click wheel. Uh. This one launched at a four 0:49:20.440 --> 0:49:24.360 hundred dollar price point. By two thousand four, color screens 0:49:24.400 --> 0:49:26.080 started to become a feature in some of the high 0:49:26.160 --> 0:49:30.320 end m P three players. Creative launched the Zen Media Center. 0:49:30.880 --> 0:49:32.560 That one had a color screen and ran on the 0:49:32.600 --> 0:49:36.759 Windows Mobile operating system. It could store forty gigabytes music. 0:49:37.239 --> 0:49:41.520 It cost five hundred dollars. Meanwhile, I Rivers H three 0:49:41.560 --> 0:49:44.600 hundred series packed a color screen and a much smaller 0:49:44.640 --> 0:49:48.000 form factor, and it also included an FM radio, so 0:49:48.040 --> 0:49:50.239 you could buy a twenty gigabyte I River h three 0:49:50.440 --> 0:49:54.480 D two hifty dollars. Apple followed suit by launching an 0:49:54.480 --> 0:49:57.920 iPod with a color screen and a sixty gigabyte storage capacity, 0:49:58.000 --> 0:50:01.120 costing three nine dollar. So now you've got lots of 0:50:01.120 --> 0:50:05.120 different players trying to get the edge by adding in 0:50:05.160 --> 0:50:08.440 these other features. But it was that music store that 0:50:08.560 --> 0:50:11.400 really gave Apple the edge. By pairing a store system 0:50:11.440 --> 0:50:14.239 with the management software for an iPod, Apple created a 0:50:14.239 --> 0:50:17.040 new way for consumers to buy music, and since Apple 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:20.720 got a cut of the sales, it became an immensely 0:50:20.920 --> 0:50:24.399 profitable strategy for the company. It really propelled Apple into 0:50:24.400 --> 0:50:27.080 new heights, and Apple was also making a name for 0:50:27.120 --> 0:50:30.319 the quality of its products. People really liked the quality, 0:50:30.360 --> 0:50:33.960 they liked the experience, particularly if they owned a Mac. 0:50:34.560 --> 0:50:36.200 If you were like me and you owned a PC, 0:50:36.360 --> 0:50:39.120 you were still complaining about the fact that iTunes was 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:43.000 not great on Windows. People began to trust the Apple 0:50:43.040 --> 0:50:45.640 brand more and the iPod would start to make its 0:50:45.640 --> 0:50:48.160 mark in other ways as well. Because the popular term 0:50:48.200 --> 0:50:52.040 for what I do is called podcasting, that was a 0:50:52.080 --> 0:50:55.359 lot to the brand name iPod. Now some folks prefer 0:50:55.520 --> 0:50:59.080 to use less branded terms like netcasts, and there's nothing 0:50:59.120 --> 0:51:02.040 wrong in that, but I would argue podcast remains the 0:51:02.040 --> 0:51:05.040 popular generic term for what I do, and that's thanks 0:51:05.080 --> 0:51:07.640 to Apple for making the iPod and taking MP three 0:51:07.640 --> 0:51:13.000 players mainstream. Now Apple did that not just by concentrating 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:15.720 on the iPod line, but also by launching other brands 0:51:15.760 --> 0:51:18.640 that catered to specific markets. So you had the iPod 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:23.120 Shuffle for example. This was a simplified, stripped down MP 0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:27.600 three player. It had no display, It automatically would shuffle playlists, 0:51:28.280 --> 0:51:30.880 had basic controls that allowed you to skip or replay 0:51:30.920 --> 0:51:34.080 songs and adjust the volume, and that simplification meant that 0:51:34.120 --> 0:51:36.160 the Shuffle could be sold for much less money than 0:51:36.200 --> 0:51:40.040 other MP three players, and the standard one gigabyte model 0:51:40.480 --> 0:51:43.360 was priced at a hundred fifty dollars and two thousand five, 0:51:43.960 --> 0:51:45.960 other companies were still trying to get into the game. 0:51:46.080 --> 0:51:49.839 Dell launched the DJ Diddy in two thousand five, which 0:51:49.840 --> 0:51:52.239 had a small display, had an FM radio, and five 0:51:52.640 --> 0:51:55.520 twelve megabytes of storage space. So it was lagging behind 0:51:55.560 --> 0:51:58.240 a lot of the other players, and by then iPod 0:51:58.320 --> 0:52:00.920 was beginning to define the market it and newcomers were 0:52:00.920 --> 0:52:03.279 having a harder time gaining any traction, so by two 0:52:03.280 --> 0:52:06.560 thousand six, Dell would abandon the Diddy Diddy Dumb Diddy do. 0:52:08.000 --> 0:52:11.480 In two thousand six, Microsoft tried to challenge Apple for 0:52:11.560 --> 0:52:15.240 that heavyweight championship and MP three players, and they launched 0:52:15.440 --> 0:52:19.040 the zooon. Do you guys remember the zoom? Do you 0:52:19.080 --> 0:52:22.400 guys remember what they called sharing on the zoom, Like 0:52:22.440 --> 0:52:25.040 if you had a song and someone else had a 0:52:25.120 --> 0:52:28.399 zoom and you could share one zoom song to another zoom. 0:52:28.400 --> 0:52:32.640 Do you remember Dylan Dylan shaking his head. It was 0:52:32.680 --> 0:52:37.040 called squirting. If you wanted to squirt your song, Dylan 0:52:37.200 --> 0:52:41.480 is a let's say that there's some disbelief in Dylan's reaction, 0:52:41.600 --> 0:52:43.440 but no, that is in fact what they called it. 0:52:43.440 --> 0:52:46.040 It was a method of being able to say that 0:52:46.120 --> 0:52:49.520 I bought a song, I could share it temporarily with you, Dylan, 0:52:49.560 --> 0:52:52.480 if you had your zoom, just by squirting it right 0:52:52.520 --> 0:52:55.680 over to you. I just squirt that song and then 0:52:55.719 --> 0:52:58.319 you would be able to enjoy the squirted song on 0:52:58.400 --> 0:53:00.920 your zoom. Dylan's give me a thumbs up, and he's, well, 0:53:00.960 --> 0:53:05.080 there's at least one finger pointing towards me. Um. Yeah. 0:53:05.200 --> 0:53:08.920 So a lot of people made fun of that, and 0:53:09.760 --> 0:53:13.160 obviously I'm still doing it today, despite the fact that 0:53:13.200 --> 0:53:17.600 the zoon is no longer a thing spoiler alert. Um. 0:53:17.640 --> 0:53:21.600 But you know, the zoon was an impressive attempt to 0:53:21.800 --> 0:53:25.759 challenge the iPod in many ways, it just it came 0:53:25.760 --> 0:53:29.760 a little too late for it to really have a chance. 0:53:30.160 --> 0:53:32.359 It had a color l C D display, and that 0:53:32.400 --> 0:53:35.399 display was gorgeous. I would argue that the original Zoon 0:53:35.920 --> 0:53:38.839 when it came out, its display was better than what 0:53:39.080 --> 0:53:43.560 Apple's iPod line had at that time. It also had 0:53:43.560 --> 0:53:46.200 an FM radio and thirty gigabytes of storage with the 0:53:46.239 --> 0:53:49.719 first model, and like I said, subsequent models would have 0:53:49.800 --> 0:53:53.799 these other features. Microsoft would pair this with a subscription 0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:57.000 based service through the Zoom Stores. The Zoom Store was 0:53:57.040 --> 0:53:58.560 kind of like the iTunes store, but they had a 0:53:58.560 --> 0:54:01.640 different strategy. They said, here's what we want you to do. 0:54:02.480 --> 0:54:05.680 You'll pay a subscription fee of fifteen dollars a month, 0:54:05.960 --> 0:54:07.960 and for fifteen dollars a month, you get all the 0:54:08.080 --> 0:54:13.000 music you can download. Now, that actually sounds fairly reasonable today, 0:54:13.600 --> 0:54:19.439 a lot of streaming music services depend upon a subscription base. Right, 0:54:19.960 --> 0:54:22.239 you might not pay the subscription base, but then you're 0:54:22.280 --> 0:54:26.359 getting lots of ads instead of just an ad free experience. 0:54:26.600 --> 0:54:30.000 But then if you if you opt in to a 0:54:30.040 --> 0:54:33.560 subscription service, then you don't have ads. Well, imagine this. 0:54:33.640 --> 0:54:35.560 Imagine that you pay fifteen dollars a month but you 0:54:35.640 --> 0:54:41.160 can download as much music as you like, putting aside 0:54:41.239 --> 0:54:45.360 things like data caps which obviously and and broadband speeds, 0:54:45.360 --> 0:54:47.560 which obviously makes an impact on how much you can 0:54:47.600 --> 0:54:50.239 take advantage of this. This is the sort of thing 0:54:50.239 --> 0:54:54.200 I would jump on in a second today because you 0:54:54.200 --> 0:54:56.480 wouldn't just have access to music, you would actually get 0:54:56.480 --> 0:55:00.160 to download those tracks, which means if the service ever 0:55:00.200 --> 0:55:02.440 were to go belly up, you could still listen to 0:55:02.480 --> 0:55:06.400 your favorite tunes right like, if the service goes away 0:55:07.160 --> 0:55:09.360 and the service was how you were listening to music, 0:55:09.440 --> 0:55:11.640 you have to find a different service that may or 0:55:11.680 --> 0:55:14.680 may not have access to the same labels that you 0:55:14.760 --> 0:55:17.000 were used to. This would be a way for you 0:55:17.040 --> 0:55:19.880 to actually hold on to those music files and be 0:55:19.920 --> 0:55:23.360 able to listen to them even if the infrastructure went away. 0:55:24.280 --> 0:55:26.440 But the whole idea came a little bit too early, 0:55:26.680 --> 0:55:29.080 I think, and Microsoft's attempts to market the Zoo never 0:55:29.160 --> 0:55:33.759 really captured a large section of the market, and two 0:55:33.760 --> 0:55:37.880 thousand seven, Apple introduced two products that changed the game again. 0:55:38.000 --> 0:55:41.400 First was the iPod Touch, which moved nearly all the 0:55:41.440 --> 0:55:44.640 controls for the device onto a touch screen interface, which 0:55:44.680 --> 0:55:46.960 meant that most of the face of the gadget was 0:55:47.000 --> 0:55:50.719 a screen and it allowed for really impressive video playback capabilities. 0:55:51.040 --> 0:55:54.840 The base model was sixteen gigabytes and it cost about 0:55:54.880 --> 0:55:58.200 four hundred dollars. But they also introduced another product that 0:55:58.480 --> 0:56:02.680 really disrupted thing, and that was the first iPhone that 0:56:03.000 --> 0:56:07.520 came out in two thousand seven, and Steve Jobs when 0:56:07.520 --> 0:56:10.120 he introduced it, talked about the fact that it was 0:56:10.160 --> 0:56:13.439 a computer, a phone, and an MP three player all 0:56:13.480 --> 0:56:16.719 in one and had the capability of acting as an 0:56:16.800 --> 0:56:19.319 MP three player, and it really spelled doom for a 0:56:19.320 --> 0:56:22.600 lot of standalone MP three devices. That smartphones became more 0:56:22.640 --> 0:56:25.759 popular and started to have larger amounts of storage, and 0:56:25.880 --> 0:56:31.400 the price wasn't ridiculously expensive or was sometimes supplemented depending 0:56:31.480 --> 0:56:35.280 upon what service provider you were using and where you lived. 0:56:36.719 --> 0:56:39.520 People started seeing fewer reasons to purchase a dedicated MP 0:56:39.600 --> 0:56:43.800 three player, and the company that had dominated the market 0:56:44.120 --> 0:56:48.760 stood poised to kill that market. But that market didn't 0:56:48.840 --> 0:56:52.760 totally die. There's still plenty of dedicated MP three players 0:56:52.760 --> 0:56:54.480 out there, and there are a lot of reasons to 0:56:54.520 --> 0:56:57.120 buy one. You might want to pair an MP three 0:56:57.120 --> 0:57:00.120 player with your car, for example, and just have it 0:57:00.280 --> 0:57:03.000 be like an enormous mix tape for road trips, and 0:57:03.040 --> 0:57:06.560 that way you don't have to wear down your phone's battery. 0:57:06.680 --> 0:57:09.279 Or you might want a simple MP three player that 0:57:09.360 --> 0:57:12.160 you can wear while you're exercising, which removes the need 0:57:12.200 --> 0:57:15.239 to carry a bulky and expensive smartphone as you jog 0:57:15.320 --> 0:57:17.600 or hit the gym. But a lot of people are 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:20.320 moving away from those dedicated devices and relying more heavily 0:57:20.400 --> 0:57:23.120 on their multipurpose smartphones, so they act as a phone, 0:57:23.160 --> 0:57:28.480 a computer, and NB three player, among other things. Now 0:57:28.480 --> 0:57:31.560 the NP three players history has a few more stories. 0:57:31.720 --> 0:57:34.760 I didn't mean to just end with the iPod Touch. 0:57:35.160 --> 0:57:39.400 That same year, Samsung launched the yp dash P two 0:57:39.560 --> 0:57:43.000 MP three player, another fantastic name, but this was a 0:57:43.040 --> 0:57:46.240 really pretty device. It had a touch screen interface, came 0:57:46.240 --> 0:57:48.400 out the same year's iPod Touch. A lot of people 0:57:48.400 --> 0:57:50.520 at the time thought it was a superior device to 0:57:50.560 --> 0:57:53.760 the iPod Touch. Not everybody, but a lot of people did. 0:57:53.880 --> 0:57:56.480 It had Bluetooth capabilities, which meant that you could pair 0:57:56.560 --> 0:57:58.160 it with a phone, and you could even use it 0:57:58.200 --> 0:58:01.880 to answer calls that were coming in from the paired phone. 0:58:03.600 --> 0:58:06.160 We also saw in two thousand seven a smaller Zoom 0:58:06.440 --> 0:58:09.640 and a third generation iPod Nano. Didn't really talk about 0:58:09.680 --> 0:58:11.920 the introduction of the nano, but the Nano was yet 0:58:11.960 --> 0:58:17.040 another very small uh I iPod or m P three player, 0:58:17.160 --> 0:58:20.600 meant for you know, easy on the go use. And 0:58:20.760 --> 0:58:24.240 the iPod Nano that came out in the third generation 0:58:24.280 --> 0:58:27.760 also had a color video screen, so you can watch 0:58:27.840 --> 0:58:30.120 really tiny video on your nano if you wanted to. 0:58:30.240 --> 0:58:32.840 For some reason, in two thousand and eight, we saw 0:58:32.880 --> 0:58:37.080 the sand Disc Sands of Fuse debut, also the Sony 0:58:37.120 --> 0:58:40.320 E series Walkman. These were both devices that when a 0:58:40.360 --> 0:58:42.960 totally different route. They were aiming at the budget market 0:58:43.200 --> 0:58:45.760 for folks who were unwilling or unable to shell out 0:58:45.760 --> 0:58:48.840 the big bucks for something like an iPod Touch or 0:58:48.880 --> 0:58:51.400 even an iPod Classic, which was still around at that point. 0:58:52.600 --> 0:58:57.800 These cost about seventy five much less expensive than these counterparts. 0:58:58.480 --> 0:59:00.400 On the other end of the spectrum where the iPod 0:59:00.400 --> 0:59:03.600 and Zoom models that included WiFi connectivity, which turned them 0:59:03.600 --> 0:59:08.440 into something approaching a smartphone, but without the cellular connectivity. 0:59:09.160 --> 0:59:11.040 This is kind of how it went for the following 0:59:11.120 --> 0:59:14.840 years until I think something else I should mention in 0:59:14.880 --> 0:59:17.720 the history of MP three players, and that's the year 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:21.680 two thousand fourteen. That was the year that Apple quietly 0:59:22.280 --> 0:59:26.960 killed off the iPod Classic. The iPod Classic lasted thirteen 0:59:27.080 --> 0:59:30.600 years two thousand one to two thousand fourteen, but in 0:59:30.640 --> 0:59:33.360 two thousand fourteen you could not any longer by the 0:59:33.400 --> 0:59:36.880 standalone MP three player with that classic form from Apple. 0:59:37.520 --> 0:59:39.640 And as I said, there's still MP three players out there. 0:59:39.640 --> 0:59:42.240 If you go to any store or you go on 0:59:42.320 --> 0:59:44.440 Amazon or anything like that and you do a search 0:59:44.480 --> 0:59:47.200 for it, you'll find tons of them, but they are 0:59:47.200 --> 0:59:50.960 a much smaller niche market, and they're generally aimed at 0:59:51.000 --> 0:59:56.000 things like the the exercise crowd or stuff along those lines, 0:59:56.040 --> 1:00:00.400 as opposed to people who are more used to using 1:00:00.440 --> 1:00:04.680 their devices just to stream music online. But I'm curious 1:00:04.720 --> 1:00:07.439 to hear from you guys. Did you own an MP 1:00:07.520 --> 1:00:09.920 three player and what was your first MP three player? 1:00:10.600 --> 1:00:13.360 And also what eight songs would you include on your 1:00:13.600 --> 1:00:16.120 MP man if you had one? You can let me 1:00:16.160 --> 1:00:18.680 know by sending me an email. You can just use 1:00:18.680 --> 1:00:22.440 the address text stuff at how stuff works dot com. 1:00:22.480 --> 1:00:24.880 You can also give me a shout on Facebook or Twitter. 1:00:25.320 --> 1:00:28.080 The handle you can use is text stuff hs W 1:00:29.040 --> 1:00:31.640 as the handle that you use to contact me not 1:00:31.800 --> 1:00:35.040 you use personally, you use your own handle. That's just 1:00:35.080 --> 1:00:39.360 the one I use for the show. Anyway, I'll talk 1:00:39.360 --> 1:00:47.960 to you again. Release soon for more on this and 1:00:48.000 --> 1:00:50.560 thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot 1:00:50.560 --> 1:01:00.520 com