Inserting your fully wireless headphones into your ears, taking out your favorite smartphone from your pocket and turning on a playlist with your favorite music compositions in the mobile application of the streaming service is a typical scenario for a modern music lover. However, it is important to understand that he did not appear yesterday. The history of portable music began in the late 70s and was transformed to the modern level about 5 years ago. Today it is difficult to say how else it can change in the foreseeable future, but it will be very interesting to watch this. In the meantime, it is curious to consider a retrospective – for example, in the context of key devices.
Cassette player Sony Walkman TPS-L2 (1979)
The legendary portable device and the first device ever to be branded as the Walkman. Yes, this gadget is older than most readers of the site – however, for many of them it may seem very familiar. The thing is that it was him in the movie “Guardians of the Galaxy” from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that Star-Lord, the main character of the picture, played by Chris Pratt, used to listen to music. James Gunn, the blockbuster director, chose this model for a reason. It was the Sony Walkman TPS-L2 that once became a symbol of portable music. The manufacturer “only” managed to make it attractive in appearance and accessible to the masses – this is his secret.
💡 It is important to understandthat the TPS-L2 was not the first portable cassette player of its kind. Before him, at least the Stereobelt was on the market. But this device turned out to be too bulky, very expensive and extremely difficult to acquire. In its Walkman, Sony got rid of all these shortcomings.
Sony Discman D-50 portable disc player (1984)
Unlike the previous gadget in the collection, which was not the first of its kind, Discman D-50 is considered a real “pioneer”. Before him, players could only play cassettes, and in those years, many did not even think about discs. However, Sony managed to make another revolution in the world of portable music. Of course, this device can only be called “portable” conditionally. Moreover, it usually had to be used with a connected power supply, which made a rather large device even more cumbersome. As for the functionality, it, in principle, repeated the Walkman players of that time: start-pause, switch tracks, display the name of the current one.
💡 Interestingthat at the time when the Sony Discman D-50 was released, open copying by competitors was quite commonplace. Therefore, Philips, Sanyo and many other electronics manufacturers did this without tangible consequences. And the name Discman, which eventually became a household name, was not registered as a trademark in the early 80s.
Portable MP3 player SaeHan MPMan F10 (1998)
The full name of the South Korean company that produced this gadget is SaeHan Information Systems. The device became the world’s first solid-state portable MP3 player. Flash memory was used as a drive, which could not be expanded with external cards. The standard storage was 32 MB, the extended storage was 64 MB. In order to transfer digital music converted from discs to the gadget, it was necessary to install it on the docking station, connect it to the computer and wait for the files to be copied. The process could hardly be called convenient, and there were few tracks. However, the device was really small and amazed the public.
💡 curiousthat heat the device was immediately accepted only by users, but not by copyright holders. The latter claimed that the device was created only to play pirated content. However, in the end, even they agreed that the digital transformation of portable music is a big step forward for the entire industry.
Phone with MP3 player Samsung SPH-M100 (2000)
The first mobile phone with MP3 support. Today, this feature in portable devices seems to be something ordinary and even banal – they say, who needs separate files when there is streaming ?! However, more than twenty years ago, the device could not be called anything other than a breakthrough. With it, you could not only make calls and send SMS – it also allowed you to listen to music. In the central part of the device, right below the screen, there was just a button to launch the player. For tracks, by the way, 64 MB were allocated. This, at best, was enough for a couple of dozen songs – according to the manufacturer, exactly for an hour of listening in CD quality.
💡 It is important to notethat the Samsung SPH-M100, despite its apparent primitiveness, is considered by many to be a breakthrough. The mobile device, among other things, was included in the selection of the most significant inventions since 1923, according to Time magazine. The relevant material on its pages was published in 2010.
MP3 player with iPod digital music store (2001)
Some mistakenly believe that the iPod was the first music player, but this is absolutely not true. Even from this material, it should already become clear that he was delayed by at least a couple of years. However, the revolution was not so much the mobile device itself, but the accompanying software. We are talking about the virtual music store iTunes, which convinced the copyright holders that it would also be possible to earn money on digital content without any problems. At one time, users also liked it, who no longer needed to look for CDs and other media in stores. A couple of clicks would be enough to purchase a new album of your favorite artist.
💡 Need to understandthat for its time, the very first iPod had a very capacious storage for musical compositions. Apple offered two versions of the device: 5 GB and 10 GB. At the same time, the first version of the portable player could only be used with the manufacturer’s computers – they were useless for Windows users.
- To the point: Where Tuna Went to – 18 Years of iTunes That Changed Music
iPhone Multimedia Device (2007)
The first smartphones could not replace individual portable players. Most of them did not allow you to connect normal headphones, did not please you with the quality of playback, and annoyed you with software. Everything really changed when the iPhone hit the market. During the presentation of the original model, Steve Jobs emphasized several times that this device combines the capabilities of an iPod, a phone, and many other chips. In practice, it was. By and large, for the first time, users got the opportunity to fully listen to music directly from their mobile device. Plus, it was possible to download all the tracks purchased from iTunes on it.
💡 curiousthat the first phone with the ability to download music from iTunes was by no means the iPhone. Initially, Apple tried to promote the digital store through the Motorola ROKR with an iPod-like player. However, the device was very weak in technical terms, so it did not become popular.
AirPods True Wireless Headphones (2016)
Those who are keen on technology will agree that the difference in sound quality between wired and wireless headphones was seriously discussed by many only before the start of AirPods sales. However, when the TWS category appeared on the market, most realized that usability was much more important. The complete absence of wires gave freedom of movement, and a comfortable fit made you forget that the headphones were in your ears at all. After the release of AirPods, I seriously thought that any such electronics should be perceived as an electronic implant that expands the capabilities of the human body.
💡 Worth noticingthat the Bluetake i-PHONO BT420EX model, which went on sale in 2004, is considered the first wireless headphones. They had an overhead design and, by and large, were positioned as sports. Due to the old version of Bluetooth, it will not work to connect them to modern sound sources.
Source: Trash Box
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