The Phone Becomes the Stereo
2007 onwardsThe portable player had barely won before it was eaten. What ended it was not a better player but a device that was already in the same pocket for other reasons — and the second-order effects of that, on headphones and on how people listen, are still working through.
Origin
Apple introduced the iPhone on 9 January 2007, and described it as three products in one: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod with touch controls, and an internet communications device.
The middle item is the one that mattered here. The company that had built the dominant portable music player put that player inside a phone, and in doing so began dismantling its own product category.
It went on sale in the United States in June 2007, with Europe following later that year.
Why one device won
A dedicated player is better at being a player. The phone won anyway, because carrying two devices to do one thing each loses to carrying one device that does both adequately — the same logic that had killed the separate camera for most people.
A network connection changed the proposition a second time. A player held whatever you had loaded onto it; a connected phone could reach a catalogue, which is the precondition for streaming and the reason streaming arrived when it did rather than earlier.
The cable goes
Bluetooth audio existed for years before it was good. What made wireless listening ordinary was a generation of earbuds with custom wireless chips, designed to solve pairing and battery life rather than only to carry audio.
Apple announced AirPods in September 2016 and began delivering them that December. The design case made the tradeoff explicit: a low-power chip handling the connection, optical sensors and accelerometers detecting when a bud was in the ear, and about five hours of listening with more in the case.
Wireless audio is compressed audio — the link has limited bandwidth, so a codec sits between the phone and the ear. That is the honest cost, and it is why the same listener can prefer a wire at home and wireless on a train.
What it changed
Listening became more private and more constant. Headphones stopped being something you put on for music and became the default state of being outdoors, with music competing for attention against podcasts, calls and silence.
It also moved the important part of the signal chain. For most people the deciding factor in how music sounds is no longer an amplifier or a speaker; it is a pair of earbuds and the codec talking to them.
Names that mattered
Listed because of what they did, not as recommendations. Velorex Music did not make any of these.
Did you know?
- The iPhone was announced on 9 January 2007 and described, in Apple's own words, as a widescreen iPod with touch controls.
- AirPods were announced in September 2016 and started reaching customers in December of that year.
- Apple rated the first AirPods at up to five hours of listening on a charge, with the case holding more.
- All Bluetooth listening is compressed: the radio link cannot carry an uncompressed stereo stream.
Remember this?
The last time you untangled a pair of wired earbuds out of a coat pocket — and how quickly that stopped being a thing anyone did.
Sources & further reading
- Apple Newsroom — Apple Reinvents the Phone with iPhone (9 January 2007)
- Apple Newsroom — Apple reinvents the wireless headphone with AirPods (September 2016)
- Apple Newsroom — Apple AirPods are now available (December 2016)
Written from these sources, not copied from them. External links open in a new tab.