This history of the music player can be traced back to the times of when Sony produced its first walkman. This player was able to pick up music frequencies and play magnetic cassette tapes for music enjoyment. In 1979, the walkman was introduced in Japan and soon made its debut in the United States in the early 1980s.
Ten years later, the Sony Compact Disc Walkman came into existence. This was a simpler device that played only CDs and not as bulky as the Walkman. One of the problems of this invention is the size of it was nowhere as comfortable to carry around. The best way in transporting it was to put it in a backpack. Another challenge was the amount of disk that had to be carried around. The average disk can hold only 20 tracks at a time. Skipping tracks and not playing at all were problems as well, due to the sensitivity of the CD.
Fortunately, Karlheinz Brandenburg and other inventors created the MP3 player that is still popular today! MP3 players minimized the amount of storage needed to play a song. Comparing this to a CD, the average space that is needed is about a ratio 1/10. This makes it more user friendly to store more and have a bigger library in the palm of your hand. As flash technology became cheaper, companies developed more of the devices. A company called Rio produces the PMP300, which held 32MB and a Smart Slot for extra storage.
Today, the Apple iPod player has taken over portable music. The first iPod came with 5GB and came with a click wheel control, which later became touch sensitive. Now, with much advancement, iPods have storage up to 160GB. Apple made a smarter move by integrating an Apple Store and iTunes for downloading music right on the iPod for convenience. Buyers can download one song at a time and build their own libraries.