Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: Back & 4th

Media Credit: Jim Moldenhauer / Daily Vidette Photo Editor

What was going on in the world four years ago? A number of ISU students were still in high school while some were just entering college. Other changes were happening in the electronic world.

There were certainly a number of popular electronic products emerging during the year 2004. One of these includes the world's largest PDP (71 in) TV produced by LG electronics, released near the end of November 2004.

2004 also marked the year when Motorola and Apple teamed up. Together they created the standard music application of Apple's iTunes mobile music player to all of Motorola's mass marketed phones.

Sony launched a similar service called Connect, which was an online music service offering easy-to-use means of purchasing and downloading songs, in order to transfer them to Sony devices.

"If you had to summarize Apple's focus in 2004 in a single word, it would be music," Eric Bangeman, press contact for the "The iPod" and "iTunes Music Store", said. "People were iPod crazed for quite some time and put in such a large demand for these digital music players that [Apple] had a hard time keeping up with the customers' demands."

The original iPod had already been popular for three years by this time (its release date was in 2001). As for its counterpart, the iPod mini was just getting its feet wet within the music industry and market. In order to better market the iTunes Music Store, Apple joined with Pepsi in order to launch a promotion that would give away 100 million songs via bottle caps. Although this goal was not met until July, when it originally began in January, more attention was given and received by the music store.

"iTunes is now the most widely-used Apple Software," comments Bangeman. Windows as well as Mac users accept and reap the benefits from this music store, which continues to stay on top of the music store craziness along with the other "70 percent of the legal download market and its businesses."

Accessories for the iPod and its nano counterpart did not stop there. Bose released a speaker system for the iPods which was called the Bose SoundDock system. This system delivered "clear, full sound across the entire musical spectrum" says Mark Mitford, press contact and editor for the "Bose SoundDock for iPod".

"The equalizers and speakers are matched so that the music sounds natural at any volume," Mitford adds.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools