How the iPod disrupted the way we enjoy music

A couple of weeks ago Roger Cicala of the Lens Rentals photo gear blog talked about technological disruption and how the mobile phone was an example of such disruptive technology in the world of photography. I posted a comment discussing other ways mobile phones are disruptive technology and thought it would perhaps be good to share that comment on my blog also. Here goes.

In the late 1990s I was an editor for a monthly computer magazine. One day a press release landed on my desk describing how IBM had invented the 1-inch hard drive. I remember thinking what a remarkable feat of engineering that was, but also wondering what somebody would use such a small hard drive for. At the time I assumed IBM had some sort of industrial use in mind. A couple of years passed and lo and behold, suddenly everybody in the world was walking around with iPods (using a slightly larger hard drive).

The story of personal audio started with another disruptive innovation about 100 years earlier. The invention of the record player was of a similar magnitude because it separated space and time. Before the invention of the gramophone you had to go to a specific place at a specific time to hear one of your favourite artists perform. With gramophones you could stay in and listen to the artist whenever you wanted.

The personal audio player (of which the iPod was one of the earliest) took this a step further and liberated you from your own house. All of a sudden you could carry almost your entire music collection with you wherever you wanted.

Ironically the personal audio player (PAP) and the miniature hard drive would soon part ways. Having helped take the personal audio revolution to the next level, the miniature hard drive was soon replaced by flash memory. The very first digital PAP, the Diamond Rio, already used flash but at the time you couldn’t store an entire record collection on the device. At some point people also started using their phones to take photos with, making an entire category of cameras obsolete.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2014 at 9:37 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.