The Walkman turns 30 years old, ancestor dell'iPhod

More than 380 MILLION units sold, but defeated by the digital age.
The music in your pocket is 30 years, an eternity 'for the technological age: a long time and' passed by the worldwide debut in Japan, 1 July 1979, the Sony Walkman, the first portable music player in history and venerable ancestor of modern digital gadgets, among them the ubiquitous Apple iPod.
Developed in a hurry in the first six months of 1979, the original model of the Walkman has seen the light almost by accident, as a last resort sort of division of Japanese giant audio recorders, which risked a profound downsizing in light of disappointing sales of its products, high quality 'but too expensive.
Legend has it that it was himself the founder of Sony, Akio Morita, betting heavily on the innovative product, with the precondition that the final price to the public did not exceed a psychological threshold of 40,000 yen, a figure already 'all high' period for a product designed to capture a young clientele.
The Miracle of Sony engineers and 'materialized in June 1979: baptized TPS-L2, the first portable cassette player in history weighed just under 400 grams, had a brand new audio jacks for sharing music between earphones, and factor decisive, was priced at little more 'than 30,000 yen, thanks to the use of low-cost components.
The success, first in Japan and then the rest of the world, and 'was immediate, thanks to a massive promotional campaign, which aimed effectively on the news' absolute music in your pocket. In the decades since the Walkman brand and 'become synonymous with portable music (currently over 380 million copies sold), reincarnating into a myriad of models (from Sony and competitors) and different media (CDs, minidiscs, memory cards).
The downward spiral of the Walkman, however, and 'hopelessly began in late 2001, because of another revolutionary idea: the debut of the Apple iPod, recently returned under the leadership of Steve Jobs, who resumes full of Japanese tape hand the concept of portability 'extreme, adding the new technologies of digital storage, plus support for popular Internet MP3 format.
In the age of the domain iPod, Sony has tried to more 'shooting back in the digital music market, taking advantage, with limited success, the brand' Walkman 'in a series of new products, despite an uphill climb.
The last, baptized Nw-x1000, which the company is focusing on, and 'a player which, paradoxically, chasing its rival Apple presenting characteristics similar to the best-selling iPod touch / iPhone: touchscreen, wi-fi and Internet browsing.
Source: Reuters

Related Articles

• March 26, 2012 - Discovr Music, and Movie Apps: discover new music, applications, and starting from your favorite movies - The review and video review for iPhoneItalia
  All three applications allow you to rapidly search Discovr starting from an artist (or band), application or a favorite movie. Subsequently ...
• June 29, 2011 - SampleWiz, a wonderful sampler on your iPhone
  SampleWiz is a new application for iPhone and iPad (universal) that brings a real sampler (or samplers) on your device. With it you can ...
• June 29, 2011 - The songbook comes on the iPad
  Musicians and strimpellatori, even on the iPad comes Canzoniere, a collection of texts and songs to liven up the summer nights with the guitar (and run out ...
• June 22, 2011 - New update for robust TuneIn Radio
  The iDevices, we know, do not have radio. With this application we have so many stations available to us. TuneIn Radio, available in ...

(No Ratings Yet)

Loading ...

Tags: Apple , iPhone , iPod , Music , Technology

Print this article