mp3 players of the past

firstplayer2.jpg With the iphone and ipod touch SDK coming out next month, I thought we should look into the past of mp3 and media players. It wasn't that long ago that if you wanted to listen to your favorite snoop song you'd have to throw in a CD. Now we can take all are song with us wherever we go. We can clip 'em to our belt and go running. We can hold all are favorite tv shows and movies in our hand. We can even "buy on the fly" and not have to wait to hear the latest single. (Seen above is the first ever mp3 player, the Saehan's MPMan next to the first ipod.)

It has been less than a decade since the first mobile media devise was mass produced. But compared to today, these are dinosaures. With more storage than you know what to do with you can easily take your entire music library and more in your pocket. The closest thing to compare with the ipod today (storage wise) back then was the hango/remote solutions personal jukebox pjb-100.


It held a unprecidented 6GB of music, while other players of the time held a small 32MB. The down side was it was very heavy and felt like a brick. You couldn't walk around the mall listining to your favorite tunes with this bad boy clipped to your belt unless if you wanted your pants to fall down. But the personal jukebox era was short lived when something bigger (and by bigger I mean smaller) and better would come out.


That's when the First Ipod Came out. Combining storage with ultra portability (by yesterday's standards.) Soon apple would have the portable media market in a choke hold. And it's one that not many want to get out of. The first ipod could hold 1000 songs in your pocket. On a relatively simple and sleek devise. Never before possible. They would continuously up the ante with ipod mini, Ipod video, Ipod nano, Iphone, and Ipod touch. And this is just the beginning.