The rise, fall, and rise of portable MP3 players

This is The Stepback, a play newsletter breaking down 1 indispensable communicative from the tech world. For much connected the illness and the resurgence of the portable media player, follow Terrence O'Brien. The Stepback arrives successful our subscribers' inboxes connected Sunday astatine 8AM ET. Opt successful for The Stepback here.

How it started

We are spoiled for choice, musically. Most of america locomotion astir with entree to hundreds of millions of songs successful our pockets. But it wasn't until 1998 that portable integer euphony was adjacent a thing. Before that we lugged booklets afloat of CDs connected the autobus oregon stashed a fistful of cassettes successful our backpacks. With the advent of the MP3 subordinate successful …

Read the afloat communicative astatine The Verge.