-
Researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Society achieve real-time audio compression, sparking the idea of the mp3 player
-
The MP3 standard is publicly released, allowing for significant file size reduction.
-
The MP Man F10 (by Saehan) becomes the first portable MP3 player, playing MP3 files directly. -
The Rio PMP300 and Eiger Labs F10 make portable MP3s popular, by storing hundreds of songs on flash memory. -
Apple launches the iPod, that had a large capacity (for the time), and iTunes integration, popularizing digital music. -
Archos introduces the first devices to play video and display images alongside music.
-
The market explodes with flash-based players like the iPod Mini and hard-drive players, offering thousands of songs.
-
Microsoft release the Zune, incorporating music subscription models.
-
Players get smaller like iPod Nano, add video, and companies like Technicolor release other formats like mp3HD for higher quality. -
Smartphones with robust music apps and streaming services like Spotify begin to replace the MP3 players as the primary way to listen to music.