An MP3 player is also called a digital audio player. It is a consumer electronics device. The device stores audio files, organizes and plays them. Portable media players are also digital audio players (DAPs). But these, in addition, support image-viewing. Some of them also support video-playing. The first mass produced DAP was MPMan player manufactured by SaeHan Information Systems in 1997. The first hard drive based DAP was brought out by Compaq in 1998. It has a capacity of 4.8 GB. Later in 2001 Apple unveiled its first generation 5 GB hard drive iPod. Apple’s second generation update was released in the next year. But it was the iPod series that emerged as the market leader and it included microdrive and flash players.
Archos introduced Archos Jukebox Multimedia in 2002. This was the first portable media player to be launched. Viewing images and playing videos were introduced later. It was in 2003 that MP3 players were first installed into mobile phones in South Korea. Soon enough by 2005 the other major mobile phone companies such as Motorola, Nokia, LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson introduced musicphones globally. Apple followed with their iPhone. Over half the mobile phones in the world now are musicphones.
Flash-based players now have a memory ranging up to 32 GB. They use less battery power and have no moving parts. The hard drive-based players have a higher capacity of up to 250 GB making it capable of storing tens of thousands of songs. There are the MP3 CD portable players playing MP3 audio files that are stored on CDs. There are also the networked audio players which can receive and play audio files connecting to the Internet through the WiFi network. Some DAPs have iFM radio tuners also. DAPs such as Sandisk M250 2GB also have, in addition, a built-in microphone.
In 2003 the iTunes Store began to sell albums and songs in the downloadable digital format. Along with the Internet and software programs that can easily transfer files, unauthorized sharing of files too has become quite widespread. Music in the digital format also began to be sold extensively by many companies. The popularity of the digital audio player increased phenomenally as they are also compact.
Technology has embraced all aspects of people’s lives, their careers, hobbies just like music, for example. With the advent of digital audio players, people can go to different places and still enjoy listening to music at the same time.
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