The Essay.

The Revolution of the iPod, MP3 and its effects.


In 1987, a German company, Fraunhofer, began working on a system for creating digital audio files that used up very little storage while still sustaining its quality (William, 2005)
. The ultimate result of this work was something called the MPEG Audio Layer-3 compression standard or more commonly known now as MP3. Thanks to MP3, a standard four-minute song that would normally take up 40MB of hard drive space will now only use up 4MB(William, 2005).

The availability of more compact and cheaper storage media hard drives made MP3 an appealing option for use on home computers and eventually, portable music players. However, MP3 came to its own thanks to another piece of technology, the broadband internet (Harry, 1971).

In the days when much of the world accessed the internet with extremely slow modems, downloading a 4MB song would take ages(Ryan, 2005). When that file could be downloaded in a minute, it became an interesting plan, particularly among teenage and college kids who get fast-speed internet in colleges and have a keen interest in music (Ryan, 2005).

Given that MP3 was a growing concern among such a significant portion of the population, manufacturers of audio devices began incorporating MP3 technology into their products(Rufus, 2006).

Nearly everyone who keeps up with technology knows about Napster’s file sharing service where MP3 files were swapped across the internet from user to user for free. This created a major problem for the recording industry as they were losing large amounts of money due to this “sharing” service (Hong, 2004). Napster users did not have to pay any money to download their favorite tracks and this was what made it a huge success. From this on, manufacturers realized that although people were pleased enough to play these files on their computer, it would be better if they could do it on the move(Rufus, 2006).

After courts determined that such devices were legal, various MP3 players began entering the market such as the Rio 600. (Hong, 2004)
Unfortunately, such devices could only store less than an hour of music without the addition of expensive media storage cards. Moving MP3 files from the computer to the player over the player’s slow USB connection also took a long time (Geist, 2005). Although the technology was fascinating, only some people were likely to replace their inexpensive CD players with these costly devices.

Even with such limitations, portable MP3 players still sold in respectable amounts(Laughton, 1996). From this, a brand by the name of Apple smelled an opportunity and created a player that had a large storage, fast-transfer rate and free from navigation problems (Techdigest, 2007). What a huge success this was.

On October 23, 2001, Apple held a press conference in Cupertino, California, to announce a new product. Steve Jobs, the head of Apple, announced the iPod. Some of those in attendance were disappointed(Techdigest, 2007). Then Apple did a smart thing by handing everyone in attendance an iPod of their own. Apple realized that to truly appreciate the iPod, you had to hold it in your hand, admire its sleek design, swiftly wheel through its menus and listen to its rich sound (Techdigest, 2007).

The tactic worked and nearly every review gave positive comments (Techdigest, 2007). Despite the $399 price tag which was quite costly and the fact that it only worked with a Macintosh computer, the iPod became the music player to own and they sold 125,000 of them in 3 months and people who never even thought of owning a Mac simply bought it just so that they could use the iPod(Techdigest, 2007).

The iPod expanded by releasing a second iPod model in March 2002 that featured an extra 5GB of capacity. Although many hoped that subsequent iPod models would be less expensive than the original, the second iteration cost $100 more(Laughton, 1996). Apple tried to lessen the sting by accompanying the iPod with a better and faster software and made the it more functional by including a phonebook, on board equalization, the option to shuffle a playback by song or album and other extra little bits here and there(Laughton, 1996).

On October 17, 2002, a new generation of iPods was announced (Geofftech, 2007). They introduced a larger capacity iPod and in addition to that, extra new features such as a calendar, a new touch-sensitive scroll wheel and redesigned earbuds. Subsequently, iPod released different types of iPods to cater to different demographics and is still continuing to do so (Techdigest, 2007). iPod Mini, iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle and iPod video are some of the newer generations (Geofftech, 2007).

The possibilities for Apple are endless and only they can say for sure where the iPod future lies. However, given their inclination for innovation, it is safe to say that today’s iPod is only the beginning(Techdigest, 2007).

It is hard to ignore some of the effects that the above-mentioned technology has caused. This does not necessarily denote that there are only negative ones as positive ones are aplenty.

The wonders of the broadband internet is that everyone in the world can access it. Through online file-sharing, there is an incredible opportunity to listen to music from everywhere in the world. This means that more emerging artists can get their “big break” and record companies will benefit from this.

Internet music stores such as iTunes have enabled people to actually buy music online and for only 99cents per song. This means that consumers are able to choose what song they want instead of purchasing a whole album )
(Geist, 2005). This in turn saves their money and brings profit to record companies because they can reach a wider audience
(Geist, 2005).

Illegal file sharing over the internet does cause several negative effects. As music can be obtained on the internet for free, CD sales have dropped tremendously and record companies are not profiting as much as they were used to(Hong, 2004). Over a billion songs are swapped illegally on the internet in a week and although it makes unknown musicians “known”, record sales for famous and well-renowned artists drop (Rufus, 2006).

In conclusion, it is fascinating what technology is capable of and how it is evolved over the years. One can only wonder what lies 20 years ahead. As for Apple, we can only wait in excitement for what they have to offer in time to come.







References.


Duckworth, William (2005). Virtual Music: How the Web got wired for sound. Great Britain: Duckworth.

Lincoln, Harry (1971). The computer and Music. UK: CUP

Breen, Christopher (2005). Secrets of the iPod and iTunes. USA: Pitchpit

Williams, Ryan (2005). Digital Music for Dummies. Canada: Wiley.

Pollock, Rufus (2006). P2P, Online Sharing and the Music Industry. http://www.rufuspollock.org/economics/p2p_summary.html

Geist (2005) Piercing the peer-to-peer myths: An Examination of the Canadian Experience http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_4/geist/

Hong (2004) The Effect of Napster on Recorded Music Sales: Evidence from the Consumer Expenditure Survey.
http://siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/03-18.pdf

Geofftech (2007). A history of the Apple iPod, iTunes & the Music Store
http://www.geofftech.co.uk/obsessions/ipod/ipod_history.htm

Techdigest (2007).A brief history of the ipod.
http://techdigest.tv/2006/10/a_brief_history.html

Laughton (1996).Apple Computer The Early Days A Personal Perspective
http://www.laughton.com/Apple/Apple.html






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