Timeline: Audio Player | Timetoast

Mar 25, 1857

Leon Scott

Léon Scott de Martinville’s 1857 invention called the “phonautograph.”
Dec 24, 1877

Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison created the cylinder phonograph. It was the first human recording in 1877. (He made the claim on December 24, 2012
Jan 1, 1987

First Broadcasting

1987 - The Fraunhofer Institut in Germany began research code-named EUREKA project EU147, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).
Apr 1, 1989

First Idea of MP3

April 1989 - Fraunhofer received a German patent for MP3
Jan 1, 1992

Audio Coding

1992 - Fraunhofer's and Dieter Seitzer’s audio coding algorithm was integrated into MPEG-1.
Jan 1, 1993

First standard publish

1993 - MPEG-1 standard published.
Nov 26, 1996

U.S. issued for MP3

November 26, 1996 - United States patent issued for MP3.
Sep 1, 1998

They issued a license for the MP3

September 1998 - Fraunhofer started to enforce their patent rights. All developers of MP3 encoders or rippers and decoders/players now have to pay a licensing fee to Fraunhofer.
Jan 1, 1999

First portable MP3

1999 - Portable MP3 players appear.
Feb 1, 1999

SubPop was the first company to record

February 1999 - A record company called SubPop is the first to distribute music tracks in the MP3 format.
Oct 23, 2001

Apple created Ipod

It was released on November 10, 2001