A Short History of Digital Media Players

We can probably all agree that digital media players have come a long, long way since they were first introduced. Like all other forms of technology, digital players have went through a series of extreme changes that transformed them from clunky and slow to sleek with lightning speed. The almost microscopic size that makes your current media player portable obviously hasn't always been a part of a digital player's design. Let's go back in time to highlight the history of the digital media player:

Kane Kramer presented the earliest version of a digital audio player in 1979. He called this device the IXI. The IXI was able to play back for 3 1/2 minutes; an amazing feat at the time. Kramer's IXI was never officially released to the public, but he did obtain a patent for it in 1981. Later, he was hired as a consultant at Apple and went on to influence the design and implications of digital audio players of the future.

Moving forward to 1996, digital media players started to make even more progress in their evolution. This was the year that the first portable MP3 player was officially released by a company called Audio Highway. This was the first portable media player that allowed music to be directly downloaded onto a PC. Audio Highway's Listen Up player won an Innovations Award at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1997. Although Listen Up's accomplishments are impressive for that time, the capabilities of it were still very limited. The device had a storage capacity of 32 MB; this means that it fit about six songs. However, Listen Up sparked interest from the general public in digital music and paved the way for bigger (okay, smaller) and better things to come along.

In 2000, Archos pioneered and released the first hard drive based MP3 player. The Archos Jukebox 6000 allowed people to carry entire music collections in their pockets. Then, in 2001, Apple quickly followed with the first generation iPod growing the market and capturing the majority of its share. This set the stage for the next evolution of digital media players. Archos responded two years later with the first portable media player and allowed users to play videos, record television, and upped the ante with wireless technologies and touch screens. Apple then came out with the iTunes store and eventually with a video capable player of their own. Today through miniaturized designs, savvy marketing, and leveraging iTunes; the Apple iPod is the market leader in digital media players.

Susan Slobac is a consultant in the handheld electronics industry. Susan writes about trends in digital media player & media player portable.