It is not a mystery anymore why technology is as advanced today as it is, though many still do not know why. Almost all of the evolution in portable electronics can be followed back to the origin of the iPod, since it had capabilities far in advance of other devices during the time. The issues that the iPod introduced hurt the music industry, and it is still moving to recover today.
Around the year 2000 there were a couple of major shifts that created a lot of technological change. The first was the expansion of storage technology, which became large enough for a user to have everything they wanted on a computer with more than enough free space. High speed Internet connections were also introduced during that time which allowed the Internet to thrive more than it ever had before. High speed Internet connections gave birth to the power to share music amongst people considerably more quickly than ever before, opening up a new method of pirating.
The arrival of MP3 players was huge because it allowed someone to carry around so much music, but at first did not burst with popularity. About a year after the entrance of the first MP3 players onto the market, Apple introduced the first iPod to the public. These units were unique because they could store gigantic amounts of music with their internal hard drives instead of flash memory. The control wheel and ease of use of the interface were massive innovations. Previous MP3 players utilized a button based design, which made it tough to go through huge amounts of music. There are a tremendous amount of accessories available today, although an iPod case was the first accessory that started the trend.
The development of the iPod marked the first time the MP3 player and music pirating market sky rocketed. This put an enormous hurt on the music industry since they were still only selling music on compact discs. It was much easier to sell digital music after all this, and Apple released their music store which evolved the way music was distributed.
The iPod Touch is the most sophisticated and popular kind of the iPod today, mimicking the design of the iPhone. Many people can hold their entire catalogue of music on them, though they have less storage than their iPod Classic brothers. An iPod Touch case is often necessary to purchase, since it is the first accessory that people recognize they need after breaking theirs.
