From Edison’s Phonograph to Jobs’ iPod: How Design Brought Music to the Masses

Texas Instrument’s Regency TR-1 Transistor Radio

To this day, the transistor radio is the most popular audio device still in production. While improvements were made throughout the years to audio quality, the Regency TR-1’s portable size (a compact for the time 3″ x 5″, 1¼” thick rectangle with rounded corners) and limited edition colors made it the template for devices to come in years and decades ahead (notice any similarities to early iPods?).

The 8-track and the Cassette Tape

When it comes to music selection, there are few things better than a good DJ. On the move, finding one was still a matter of endless tuning and searching through various stations. On the road, the 8-track was the first widely adopted system that made self-selected music an option while driving. Though the sound quality originally wasn’t as good, the cassette tape took the shape that made music portable, and brought it down to an even smaller size that would dominate the mass music market for more than 20 years.

The Compact Disc

While portability made the design of tapes successful, compact discs took inspiration in shape from earlier wax records, which proved to be a better design for sound quality. Thanks to improvements in car sound systems and the Discman, which replaced Sony’s best selling Walkman, it eventually became the format of choice for home and away.

The iPod

Until the iPod. While it wasn’t the first MP3 player, it was the first to offer a significant amount of storage for albums of music in high fidelity sound. Like the companies behind the Victrola and early phonographs, Apple took a cue and took control of the experience from hardware to content. As storage capacity grew, the iPod gave a solid nod to the devices that came before it while getting smaller, thinner and faster.

And while it’s the ubiquitous music device of our time, history tells us that in another decade or two it’s just as likely that the next great music device (and by association, the next great technology company) is probably one you haven’t heard of yet. One thing’s certain: whatever it is, whoever it is that changes the way we listen won’t be able to do it on innovation alone. Science will make it work, design will make it matter.