What is an iPod
iPod quote: “It’s hard to remember what I did before the iPod,” said Mary J. Blige, GRAMMY Award-winning singer. “iPod is more than just a music player, it’s an extension of your personality and a great way to take your favorite music with you everywhere you go.”
First things first
In this section I’ll try to explain what an iPod thought a sequence of questions, because the iPod is not just a simple MP3 player, or is it? By the way, do you know an MP3 player is?
“What is an MP3 player?”
An iPod is often called an MP3 player (pronounced “emm pee three player”). “And what is that?!” some might ask. An MP3 player is a generic term for a modern day Walkman, or even simpler, a portable music player. The advantage is that instead of using tapes or CDs or minidisks, it plays back music recorded in computer files.
MP3 players have become very popular because computer music files (or any computer file) are easy to share and transfer from one computer to another. Besides the amount of songs you can store in an MP3 player is huge compared to tapes, CDs or minidisks. You could have about 20 songs in a tape or CD, a little more in minidisks, but now days with MP3 players we talk about literally thousands of songs. It’s like carrying your lifetime music library in your pocket, and perhaps you closer neighbors music library too!
I remember getting home all happy with my first, brand new MP3 player, and my significant other asked very intrigued “Why is it called an MP3 player?”. “Well”, I said “It plays M P threes”. But she seemed not to understand and asked “But why is it not called a Walkman?”. Finally I understood the bizarre questions. I needed to clarify what an MP3 file is.
“What is an MP3?”
An MP3 is a computer file. Before the technical bit, an MP3 is the standard by which music and speech is stored on a DVD Video. If you have a computer, it’s a really good way to store your music in general, because the sound can have a very acceptable quality, and it doesn’t hog a lot of space in your hard drive.
The short story of the name MP3 is quite simple. When DVDs were invented back in the 90’s, one of the main concerns was how to store video and music recordings as computer files in a very compact form. This work was coordinated by the “Motion Picture Expert Group”. When they figured out how to store video in a computer in a very compact way, this became known as MPEG encoding. When they figured out how to store audio in a computer in very compressed way, this became known as MPEG layer 3, which got shortened to MP3, and the name has lived on.
So, back to the MP3 players. MP3 players are gadgets that can store and play back MP3 files. There are other possible ways to store music files, and different players can play different types (like WMF files that stand for Windows Media Format), but generically these players are called MP3 players too, probably because of their geeky heritage.
“So, Is the iPod an MP3 player?”
The best way to describe what is an iPod is to say that iPod is to MP3 player as Hoover is to vacuum cleaner. iPod is the brand name Apple Computers decided to give to its family of MP3 players. But since it became so popular the name has been generically adopted to describe devices that aren’t even made by Apple, just like Hoover and vacuum cleaners! So an iPod is basically the 21st Century equivalent of the walkman, and the name is used in the same way the name Walkman was used in the 80’s.
Apple has a whole range of iPods, from tiny ones to small ones (no, there are no big ones!) that can hold different numbers of songs, have different screens, can show photos, play video, etc. You can also store your computer files inside, set agendas, and much, much more. This said, I wouldn’t call the iPod just an MP3 player, more like a portable media player. If you want to know the iPod range, please visit the “Generations to come” section.
“Why is it so popular?”
iPods became very popular because its very easy to use. The interface to browse songs is incredibly well designed and simple, and it’s fully integrated with a jukebox software called iTunes. Just plug the iPod to your computer with iTunes installed, regardless if it’s a Mac or Windows operating system, and it automatically synchronizes all your music with your iPod. It’s like magic! Besides it’s very easy to use, the design is superb and the default headphones that come with it has a very good sound quality. In my humble opinion, it’s satisfaction guaranteed.