Steve Jobs looked at this gadget in front of him. This gadget can play beautiful music, and he had to admit that Aiwa's developers are geniuses.
But Steve Jobs noticed some shortcomings of this MP3 player. For example, the screen is too small, and it can only display two lines of lyrics. There is no internal battery, and it consumes a lot of battery. There are too many function keys on the outside, and it looks messy.
If Steve Jobs were to design this MP3 player, he would design it to be about half the size of his palm, and the screen must be big. The function keys can be made into a ring shape, and the storage capacity must be increased. The MP3 player must be lighter, etc.
Steve Jobs called his staff over and told them about his idea.
Fruit Company is also going to produce this MP3 player. But we will not use this name. We will be following the trend. All our products must let people know that they are from Fruit Company. Hmmm … we can call it iPod. We will use our IMAC naming scheme.
The storage capacity must be large, and it will not be worth it to use flash drives. The cost is too high, and we can use hard drives as storage. This way, the storage capacity will be several times higher, and the selling price will be higher.
Also, the iPod can be used as a portable storage device, and it will be more popular.
Currently, there is a high demand for portable storage devices in the market, and the traditional floppy disk is gradually being phased out. Most of the mainstream PCs no longer use floppy drives. Instead, they use optical drives, and most of them are DVD drives.
This DVD drive is mainly based on Wind & Rain -Philips standards. Most people get their patents from these two companies, and Wind & Rain Electronics has more patents.
So, optical discs become the mainstream portable storage device, and floppy disks have almost disappeared. But optical discs have a major weakness. They are easily damaged.
They are even more fragile than floppy disks. Some of the data cannot be read if there is a small amount of damage. Although technology is improving, and the error correction system is improving, the damaged parts will still cause data to be lost.
Because of this, the demand for portable storage devices has increased, and the portable hard disk was invented. After connecting the portable hard disk to the PC through a USB cable, it can be used.
But this product has a major weakness. If the power is cut, the data will be lost or damaged. Also, the portable hard disk is easily damaged. Sometimes, it might look fine on the outside, but it can't be used.
At this time, flash drives were invented. They are not afraid of power outages, and the cost is much lower than the portable hard disk. Of course, the storage capacity is much smaller.
At this time, a new storage device called USB flash drive appeared in the market. It is small and is only slightly bigger than a thumb, and it is easy to carry.
However, the previous capacity was not large. It was only 128 MB and 256 MB. Because it was too small, not many people bought it. But many people noticed Aiwa's MP3 player, which also uses flash drives as storage and has developed to 512 MB.
Many companies in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and the United States have started to research this product and are trying their best to replace other portable storage devices.
With the popularization of computers, office work tends to be computerized. It is obviously more convenient to use this kind of portable storage device to transfer all kinds of files.
Discs can also be used, but discs can only be used once. Portable hard disks are too expensive, and USB flash drives are the most suitable and convenient.
Apple had wanted to develop this technology, but they realized this technology was patented by a company called Aiwa Electronics.
If they want to develop USB flash drives, they cannot get around Aiwa Electronics' patent barriers. They must pay Aiwa Electronics' patent fees. Apple had sent someone to talk to Aiwa Electronics, but they were not satisfied with the results.
20 million USD for the permanent patent rights. Why don't they rob a bank? Even 2 million USD might not be enough to develop this patent.
At the same time, there are many companies that have successfully researched this technology, but they found out that it has already been patented. They could not afford the patent rights and gave up.
But some companies insist that their technologies are different from Aiwa Electronics' patents. For example, Toshiba, who invented the SM card technology, Shandi, who invented the CF card, Sony, etc. These companies also introduced USB drives or products similar to USB drives. After all, the name of USB drive had been registered as a patent.
In the past, some people felt flash drive technology is useless as it is expensive and complicated. Even after the USB flash drive was introduced, many people felt it is a short-lived technology and will not be widely used.
But after MP3 players became popular among consumers, those companies realized this flash drive technology is very useful.
But some smaller companies cannot get around the patent barriers. So, they had the same idea as Apple. They want to develop MP3 players with built-in hard disks and focus on high storage.
At this time, Feng Yu insisted that Aiwa should not develop hard disk MP3 players and focus on flash drive MP3 players. Aiwa Electronics had developed a 1GB USB flash drive, and Aiwa Electronics wants to use it on MP3 players. At the same time, the LCD screen of the MP3 player will be enlarged. Feng Yu also gave Heitaro Nakajima the design of the iPod in his previous life, using Weather-resistant Design.
The idea of operating the iPod with one hand added a lot of points to the iPod. Even though the iPod was expensive, had poor sound quality, and had many shortcomings, it still became a popular electronic product among young people. In the future, it brought huge profits to the Fruit Company.
At the same time, Feng Yu had asked Aiwa to develop a direct recording function. This function will allow Aiwa to record the songs from a CD into MP3 format through a cable. This will allow Aiwa to convert the songs from a CD into MP3 format without the need to rely on a PC for the MP3 player.
But Heitaro Nakajima frowned when he heard this function. After this function is introduced, the Recording Industry Association of America will sue them in court. They will claim this is infringing their intellectual property rights.
But who cares? This is only an application of this function, and Aiwa does not care how the other party uses it. Why can't the other party convert the original CD into MP3 format? As long as they do not distribute it, it will not be considered copyright infringement.
In the future, MP3 will be developed into MP4, and by that time, the color screen technology will be mature. At that time, Aiwa will continue to lead the industry.
Always be imitated, but never surpassed!
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
