free ringtones
free ringtones is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Computer and launched in 2001. Devices in the free ringtones range are primarily music players, designed around a central scroll wheel (although the free ringtones shuffle has buttons only). The full-sized model stores media on an internal hard drive, while the smaller free ringtones nano and free ringtones shuffle use flash memory. Like many digital audio players, free ringtones can also serve as external data storage devices. Apple chose to focus its development on the free ringtones's simple user interface and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability.
As of October 2005, the lineup consists of the video-capable 5th generation free ringtones; the smaller free ringtones nano; and the display-less free ringtones shuffle. These models were updated in September 2006.
The bundled software used for transferring music is called iTunes. As a jukebox application, iTunes stores a comprehensive library of music on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. It can also sync photos and videos.
The free ringtones is currently the world's best-selling digital audio player and its worldwide mainstream adoption makes it one of the most popular consumer brands. Some of Apple's design choices and proprietary actions have, however, led to criticism and legal battles.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History and design
* 2 User interface
* 3 Software
o 3.1 iTunes Store
o 3.2 File storage
o 3.3 Additional features
o 3.4 Open-source alternatives
* 4 Connectivity
* 5 Chipsets and electronics
* 6 free ringtones models
o 6.1 Special edition and color variants
* 7 Criticisms
o 7.1 Battery life advertising
o 7.2 Non-replaceable battery
o 7.3 Bass response
o 7.4 Equalizer
o 7.5 Reliability, quality control & hearing loss
o 7.6 Worker exploitation
* 8 Patent disputes
* 9 Sales
* 10 Advertising
o 10.1 Earphones
* 11 Accessories
o 11.1 Car integration
o 11.2 Airliner integration
* 12 See also
* 13 References
* 14 External links
[edit] History and design
The free ringtones came from Apple's digital hub strategy, as the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. While digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, the company found digital music players lacking in user interface design and decided to develop its own. "free ringtones" was a name that Apple registered for Internet kiosks, but never put it to use[1]
Apple's hardware engineering chief Jon Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design it, along with engineers Anthony Fadell and Stan Ng. They built the product in less than a year, and it was unveiled on 23 October 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1000 songs in your pocket."
Uncharacteristically, Apple did not develop the free ringtones's software in-house. Instead, Apple used a Design Chain and contracted with PortalPlayer, who already had a reference design (based on 2 ARM cores) with rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. PortalPlayer had previously been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones.[2] Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to create and refine the user interface, under the direct supervision of Steve Jobs.
Once established, Apple continued to refine the software's look-and-feel. Starting with the free ringtones mini, the Chicago font (once used on early Macintosh computers) was replaced with Espy Sans, which was originally used in eWorld and Copland. The most recent free ringtones switched fonts again to Podium Sans — a font similar to Apple's corporate font Myriad. The free ringtones with color displays have adopted some Mac OS X themes like Aqua progress bars and brushed metal in the FM tuner and lock interfaces.
[edit] User interface
A mock-up display of the 5th generation free ringtones, playing the song Feel Good Inc. by the band Gorillaz
Enlarge
A mock-up display of the 5th generation free ringtones, playing the song Feel Good Inc. by the band Gorillaz
The free ringtones with displays use high quality anti-aliased graphics and text, with sliding animations. These free ringtones have five buttons: and newer generations have the buttons integrated into the scroll wheel, an innovation which gives an uncluttered, minimalistic interface. The buttons are:
* Menu — to traverse backwards through the menus, and toggle the backlight on older free ringtones
* Center — to select a menu item
* Play / Pause — this doubles as an off switch when held
* Fast Forward / Skip Forward
* Fast Reverse / Skip Backwards
The Click Wheel has become the standard form of input for all new free ringtones, largely because of its space-efficient design.
Enlarge
The Click Wheel has become the standard form of input for all new free ringtones, largely because of its space-efficient design.
The other operations such as scrolling through menu items and controlling the volume are handled by the scroll wheel in a rotational manner, with clockwise denoting downward movement and counterclockwise signaling upward movement. The first generation used a "Scroll Wheel" that physically turned, with the buttons clustered around it. The second generation replaced it with a "Touch Wheel" that reacts to human capacitance. The third generation rearranged the buttons, but the touch wheel was left in place. On the fourth generation free ringtones forward, and all minis and nanos, the buttons are integrated directly into the wheel, now called a "Click Wheel". The wheel is still used for scrolling, and buttons, which must be physically pressed, control playback. This innovation gives an uncluttered, minimalistic interface.
The free ringtones shuffle is the only free ringtones without a screen and consequently its five buttons that function differently than the larger models. It has a Play / Pause button in the center, surrounded by four buttons; two control volume while the other two control track skipping.
A Hold switch on the top of all free ringtones prevents accidental button presses. Newer free ringtones automatically pause playback when the headphones are unplugged from the headphone jack, but playback does not resume when the headphones are re-inserted. An free ringtones that has crashed or frozen can be reset by switching 'Hold' on then off, then holding Menu and Center (Menu and Play on the 3G free ringtones) for 6 seconds.
[edit] Software
The free ringtones can play MP3, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless audio file formats. The 5th generation free ringtones can also play MPEG-4 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC), .mp4 and QuickTime video formats, with restrictions on video dimensions, encoding techniques and bitrates. Apple does not support Microsoft's WMA audio format — unlike most other media players — but a converter for non-DRM WMA files is provided with the Windows version of iTunes. MIDI files cannot be played, but can be converted to audio files using the "Advanced" menu on iTunes. Alternative open-source audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are not supported.
Each time an free ringtones connects to its host computer, iTunes can synchronize music playlists or entire music libraries and the user can choose for automatic or manual synchronization. Song ratings can be set on the free ringtones and synchronized later to the iTunes library.
[edit] iTunes Store
Main articles: iTunes and iTunes Store
The iTunes Store (formerly iTunes Music Store) is an online media store run by Apple and accessed via iTunes. It was introduced on 29 April 2003 and it sells individual songs relatively easily and cheaply, with typical prices being US$0.99, EU€0.99, or GB?0.79 per song. free ringtones are the only portable music players that can play the purchased music. TV episodes and sometimes TV movies are available for $1.99, though prices vary. The store became the market leader soon after its launch[verification needed] and Apple announced the sale of videos through the iTunes Store on 12 October 2005. Full-length movies became available on 12 September 2006, ranging in prices from US$9.99-$14.99.[3]
Purchased audio files use the AAC format with added encryption. The encryption is based on the controversial FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) system. Up to five authorized computers and an unlimited number of free ringtones can play the files. Burning the files onto an audio CD removes the DRM, at a cost of reduced quality when re-compressed from one lossy format to another.
free ringtones cannot play music files from other competing music stores such as Napster or MSN Music which use rival DRM technologies like Microsoft's protected WMA or RealNetworks' Helix DRM. RealNetworks claims that Apple is creating problems for itself,[4] by using FairPlay to lock users into using the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs stated that Apple makes little profit from song sales, but Apple uses the store to promote free ringtones sales.[5]
[edit] File storage
All free ringtones can function as mass storage devices to store data files. If the free ringtones is formatted on a Mac OS X computer it uses the HFS Plus file system format. If it is formatted on Windows, the FAT32 format is used because Windows cannot access HFS filesystems. The user must use iTunes or a compatible third-party software to load audio, videos, and photos in such a way that they are playable and viewable on the free ringtones. Unlike PlaysForSure-compatible and other MP3 players, simply copying files to the drive will not allow the free ringtones to properly access them. Some third party free ringtones software allows this however.
An free ringtones formatted as HFS Plus is able to serve as a boot disk for a Mac computer, allowing one to have a portable operating system installed. The older free ringtones with FireWire ports could additionally function in FireWire Disk Mode. With the advent of the Windows-compatible free ringtones, the free ringtones's default file system was switched from HFS Plus to FAT32, although they can be reformatted to either filesystem (excluding the free ringtones shuffle which is strictly FAT32).
iTunes cannot transfer songs or videos from device to computer (although iTunes 7 allows it for music purchased online). The media files are stored on the free ringtones in a hidden folder, together with a proprietary database file. The hidden content can be accessed on the host operating system by enabling hidden files to be shown. The audio can then be recovered manually by dragging the files or folders onto the iTunes Library or by using third-party software.
[edit] Additional features
The larger models also have limited PDA-like functionality and can display text files. Contacts and schedules can be viewed and synchronized with the host computer, and some built-in games are available including Brick, Parachute, Solitaire and Music Quiz. Brick (which is a clone of "Breakout") was originally invented by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in the 1970s.
A firmware update released in September 2006 brought several new features to 5th generation free ringtones including downloadable games, adjustable screen brightness, and gapless playback.
[edit] Open-source alternatives
The free ringtonesLinux project has ported an ARM version of the Linux kernel alongside an interface called "Podzilla" to run on all free ringtones, although only the first, second and third generations are officially supported by the developers. The free ringtones shuffle is not supported.
An open-source firmware called Rockbox allows the free ringtones nano, mini, and all display-capable free ringtones after the 3rd generation (except for the updated video free ringtones) to play Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Musepack, WavPack, Shorten, and MIDI files, but not FairPlay-encrypted files. Rockbox also offers gapless playback and a more sophisticated equalizer but is in a testing stage as of September 2006.
[edit] Connectivity
Originally, a FireWire connection to the host computer was used to update songs or recharge the battery. The battery could also be charged with a power adapter that was included with the first 4 generations.
The 3rd generation began including a dock connector, allowing for FireWire or USB connectivity. This provided better compatibility with PCs, as most of them did not have FireWire ports at the time. However, the device could not be charged over USB, so the FireWire cables were nonetheless needed to connect to the AC adapter. The dock connector also brought opportunities to exchange data, sound and power with an free ringtones, which ultimately created a large market of accessories, manufactured by third parties such as Belkin and Griffin. The 2nd generation free ringtones shuffle uses a single 3.5 inch jack which acts as both a headphone jack and a data port for the dock.
The 4th generation free ringtones allowed recharging via USB and eventually Apple began shipping free ringtones with a USB to Dock connector cable instead of a FireWire cable. A FireWire cable was available separately from Apple however. The 4th generation free ringtones could use either FireWire 400 or USB 2.0.
[edit] Chipsets and electronics
Some electronic components used in free ringtones Model Storage medium Microcontroller Audio chip
free ringtones 1G, 2G, 3G 1.8 inch (46 mm) ATA hard drives (with proprietary connectors), made by Toshiba Two ARM 7TDMI-derived CPUs running at 90 MHz. Various audio codecs manufactured by Wolfson Microelectronics
free ringtones 4G, 5G Variable speed ARM 7TDMI CPUs, running at a peak of 80 MHz to save battery life.
free ringtones mini 1G, 2G 1 inch Microdrives manufactured by Hitachi
free ringtones nano 1G Flash memory from Samsung, Toshiba and others 2 ARM 7TDMI CPUs @ 80 MHz
free ringtones nano 2G Samsung System-On-Chip, based around an ARM processor[6]
free ringtones shuffle Flash memory SigmaTel STMP3550 chip that handles both the music decoding and the audio circuitry.[7]
The free ringtones's operating system is stored on its dedicated storage medium. An additional NOR flash ROM chip (either 1 MB or 512 kB) contains a bootloader program that tells the device to load its OS from the storage medium. Each free ringtones also has 32 MB of RAM, although the 60 and 80 GB 5th generation have 64 MB. A portion of the RAM is used to hold the free ringtones OS loaded from firmware, but the majority of it serves to cache songs from the storage medium. For example, an free ringtones could spin its hard disk up once and copy about 30 MB of upcoming songs into RAM, thus saving power by not requiring the drive to spin up for each song.
The current free ringtones models use internal lithium-ion batteries. The 1st and 2nd generations used lithium polymer batteries. The larger models use touch wheels provided by Synaptics.
On 26 April 2006, EE Times reported that Samsung had won the contract to provide the media processor for a future model free ringtones, replacing Apple's previous design supplier PortalPlayer.[8]
As of October 2005, the lineup consists of the video-capable 5th generation free ringtones; the smaller free ringtones nano; and the display-less free ringtones shuffle. These models were updated in September 2006.
The bundled software used for transferring music is called iTunes. As a jukebox application, iTunes stores a comprehensive library of music on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. It can also sync photos and videos.
The free ringtones is currently the world's best-selling digital audio player and its worldwide mainstream adoption makes it one of the most popular consumer brands. Some of Apple's design choices and proprietary actions have, however, led to criticism and legal battles.
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History and design
* 2 User interface
* 3 Software
o 3.1 iTunes Store
o 3.2 File storage
o 3.3 Additional features
o 3.4 Open-source alternatives
* 4 Connectivity
* 5 Chipsets and electronics
* 6 free ringtones models
o 6.1 Special edition and color variants
* 7 Criticisms
o 7.1 Battery life advertising
o 7.2 Non-replaceable battery
o 7.3 Bass response
o 7.4 Equalizer
o 7.5 Reliability, quality control & hearing loss
o 7.6 Worker exploitation
* 8 Patent disputes
* 9 Sales
* 10 Advertising
o 10.1 Earphones
* 11 Accessories
o 11.1 Car integration
o 11.2 Airliner integration
* 12 See also
* 13 References
* 14 External links
[edit] History and design
The free ringtones came from Apple's digital hub strategy, as the company began creating software for the growing market of digital devices being purchased by consumers. While digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, the company found digital music players lacking in user interface design and decided to develop its own. "free ringtones" was a name that Apple registered for Internet kiosks, but never put it to use[1]
Apple's hardware engineering chief Jon Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design it, along with engineers Anthony Fadell and Stan Ng. They built the product in less than a year, and it was unveiled on 23 October 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1000 songs in your pocket."
Uncharacteristically, Apple did not develop the free ringtones's software in-house. Instead, Apple used a Design Chain and contracted with PortalPlayer, who already had a reference design (based on 2 ARM cores) with rudimentary software running on a commercial microkernel embedded operating system. PortalPlayer had previously been working on an IBM-branded MP3 player with Bluetooth headphones.[2] Apple contracted another company, Pixo, to create and refine the user interface, under the direct supervision of Steve Jobs.
Once established, Apple continued to refine the software's look-and-feel. Starting with the free ringtones mini, the Chicago font (once used on early Macintosh computers) was replaced with Espy Sans, which was originally used in eWorld and Copland. The most recent free ringtones switched fonts again to Podium Sans — a font similar to Apple's corporate font Myriad. The free ringtones with color displays have adopted some Mac OS X themes like Aqua progress bars and brushed metal in the FM tuner and lock interfaces.
[edit] User interface
A mock-up display of the 5th generation free ringtones, playing the song Feel Good Inc. by the band Gorillaz
Enlarge
A mock-up display of the 5th generation free ringtones, playing the song Feel Good Inc. by the band Gorillaz
The free ringtones with displays use high quality anti-aliased graphics and text, with sliding animations. These free ringtones have five buttons: and newer generations have the buttons integrated into the scroll wheel, an innovation which gives an uncluttered, minimalistic interface. The buttons are:
* Menu — to traverse backwards through the menus, and toggle the backlight on older free ringtones
* Center — to select a menu item
* Play / Pause — this doubles as an off switch when held
* Fast Forward / Skip Forward
* Fast Reverse / Skip Backwards
The Click Wheel has become the standard form of input for all new free ringtones, largely because of its space-efficient design.
Enlarge
The Click Wheel has become the standard form of input for all new free ringtones, largely because of its space-efficient design.
The other operations such as scrolling through menu items and controlling the volume are handled by the scroll wheel in a rotational manner, with clockwise denoting downward movement and counterclockwise signaling upward movement. The first generation used a "Scroll Wheel" that physically turned, with the buttons clustered around it. The second generation replaced it with a "Touch Wheel" that reacts to human capacitance. The third generation rearranged the buttons, but the touch wheel was left in place. On the fourth generation free ringtones forward, and all minis and nanos, the buttons are integrated directly into the wheel, now called a "Click Wheel". The wheel is still used for scrolling, and buttons, which must be physically pressed, control playback. This innovation gives an uncluttered, minimalistic interface.
The free ringtones shuffle is the only free ringtones without a screen and consequently its five buttons that function differently than the larger models. It has a Play / Pause button in the center, surrounded by four buttons; two control volume while the other two control track skipping.
A Hold switch on the top of all free ringtones prevents accidental button presses. Newer free ringtones automatically pause playback when the headphones are unplugged from the headphone jack, but playback does not resume when the headphones are re-inserted. An free ringtones that has crashed or frozen can be reset by switching 'Hold' on then off, then holding Menu and Center (Menu and Play on the 3G free ringtones) for 6 seconds.
[edit] Software
The free ringtones can play MP3, AAC/M4A, Protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless audio file formats. The 5th generation free ringtones can also play MPEG-4 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC), .mp4 and QuickTime video formats, with restrictions on video dimensions, encoding techniques and bitrates. Apple does not support Microsoft's WMA audio format — unlike most other media players — but a converter for non-DRM WMA files is provided with the Windows version of iTunes. MIDI files cannot be played, but can be converted to audio files using the "Advanced" menu on iTunes. Alternative open-source audio formats such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC are not supported.
Each time an free ringtones connects to its host computer, iTunes can synchronize music playlists or entire music libraries and the user can choose for automatic or manual synchronization. Song ratings can be set on the free ringtones and synchronized later to the iTunes library.
[edit] iTunes Store
Main articles: iTunes and iTunes Store
The iTunes Store (formerly iTunes Music Store) is an online media store run by Apple and accessed via iTunes. It was introduced on 29 April 2003 and it sells individual songs relatively easily and cheaply, with typical prices being US$0.99, EU€0.99, or GB?0.79 per song. free ringtones are the only portable music players that can play the purchased music. TV episodes and sometimes TV movies are available for $1.99, though prices vary. The store became the market leader soon after its launch[verification needed] and Apple announced the sale of videos through the iTunes Store on 12 October 2005. Full-length movies became available on 12 September 2006, ranging in prices from US$9.99-$14.99.[3]
Purchased audio files use the AAC format with added encryption. The encryption is based on the controversial FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) system. Up to five authorized computers and an unlimited number of free ringtones can play the files. Burning the files onto an audio CD removes the DRM, at a cost of reduced quality when re-compressed from one lossy format to another.
free ringtones cannot play music files from other competing music stores such as Napster or MSN Music which use rival DRM technologies like Microsoft's protected WMA or RealNetworks' Helix DRM. RealNetworks claims that Apple is creating problems for itself,[4] by using FairPlay to lock users into using the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs stated that Apple makes little profit from song sales, but Apple uses the store to promote free ringtones sales.[5]
[edit] File storage
All free ringtones can function as mass storage devices to store data files. If the free ringtones is formatted on a Mac OS X computer it uses the HFS Plus file system format. If it is formatted on Windows, the FAT32 format is used because Windows cannot access HFS filesystems. The user must use iTunes or a compatible third-party software to load audio, videos, and photos in such a way that they are playable and viewable on the free ringtones. Unlike PlaysForSure-compatible and other MP3 players, simply copying files to the drive will not allow the free ringtones to properly access them. Some third party free ringtones software allows this however.
An free ringtones formatted as HFS Plus is able to serve as a boot disk for a Mac computer, allowing one to have a portable operating system installed. The older free ringtones with FireWire ports could additionally function in FireWire Disk Mode. With the advent of the Windows-compatible free ringtones, the free ringtones's default file system was switched from HFS Plus to FAT32, although they can be reformatted to either filesystem (excluding the free ringtones shuffle which is strictly FAT32).
iTunes cannot transfer songs or videos from device to computer (although iTunes 7 allows it for music purchased online). The media files are stored on the free ringtones in a hidden folder, together with a proprietary database file. The hidden content can be accessed on the host operating system by enabling hidden files to be shown. The audio can then be recovered manually by dragging the files or folders onto the iTunes Library or by using third-party software.
[edit] Additional features
The larger models also have limited PDA-like functionality and can display text files. Contacts and schedules can be viewed and synchronized with the host computer, and some built-in games are available including Brick, Parachute, Solitaire and Music Quiz. Brick (which is a clone of "Breakout") was originally invented by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in the 1970s.
A firmware update released in September 2006 brought several new features to 5th generation free ringtones including downloadable games, adjustable screen brightness, and gapless playback.
[edit] Open-source alternatives
The free ringtonesLinux project has ported an ARM version of the Linux kernel alongside an interface called "Podzilla" to run on all free ringtones, although only the first, second and third generations are officially supported by the developers. The free ringtones shuffle is not supported.
An open-source firmware called Rockbox allows the free ringtones nano, mini, and all display-capable free ringtones after the 3rd generation (except for the updated video free ringtones) to play Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Musepack, WavPack, Shorten, and MIDI files, but not FairPlay-encrypted files. Rockbox also offers gapless playback and a more sophisticated equalizer but is in a testing stage as of September 2006.
[edit] Connectivity
Originally, a FireWire connection to the host computer was used to update songs or recharge the battery. The battery could also be charged with a power adapter that was included with the first 4 generations.
The 3rd generation began including a dock connector, allowing for FireWire or USB connectivity. This provided better compatibility with PCs, as most of them did not have FireWire ports at the time. However, the device could not be charged over USB, so the FireWire cables were nonetheless needed to connect to the AC adapter. The dock connector also brought opportunities to exchange data, sound and power with an free ringtones, which ultimately created a large market of accessories, manufactured by third parties such as Belkin and Griffin. The 2nd generation free ringtones shuffle uses a single 3.5 inch jack which acts as both a headphone jack and a data port for the dock.
The 4th generation free ringtones allowed recharging via USB and eventually Apple began shipping free ringtones with a USB to Dock connector cable instead of a FireWire cable. A FireWire cable was available separately from Apple however. The 4th generation free ringtones could use either FireWire 400 or USB 2.0.
[edit] Chipsets and electronics
Some electronic components used in free ringtones Model Storage medium Microcontroller Audio chip
free ringtones 1G, 2G, 3G 1.8 inch (46 mm) ATA hard drives (with proprietary connectors), made by Toshiba Two ARM 7TDMI-derived CPUs running at 90 MHz. Various audio codecs manufactured by Wolfson Microelectronics
free ringtones 4G, 5G Variable speed ARM 7TDMI CPUs, running at a peak of 80 MHz to save battery life.
free ringtones mini 1G, 2G 1 inch Microdrives manufactured by Hitachi
free ringtones nano 1G Flash memory from Samsung, Toshiba and others 2 ARM 7TDMI CPUs @ 80 MHz
free ringtones nano 2G Samsung System-On-Chip, based around an ARM processor[6]
free ringtones shuffle Flash memory SigmaTel STMP3550 chip that handles both the music decoding and the audio circuitry.[7]
The free ringtones's operating system is stored on its dedicated storage medium. An additional NOR flash ROM chip (either 1 MB or 512 kB) contains a bootloader program that tells the device to load its OS from the storage medium. Each free ringtones also has 32 MB of RAM, although the 60 and 80 GB 5th generation have 64 MB. A portion of the RAM is used to hold the free ringtones OS loaded from firmware, but the majority of it serves to cache songs from the storage medium. For example, an free ringtones could spin its hard disk up once and copy about 30 MB of upcoming songs into RAM, thus saving power by not requiring the drive to spin up for each song.
The current free ringtones models use internal lithium-ion batteries. The 1st and 2nd generations used lithium polymer batteries. The larger models use touch wheels provided by Synaptics.
On 26 April 2006, EE Times reported that Samsung had won the contract to provide the media processor for a future model free ringtones, replacing Apple's previous design supplier PortalPlayer.[8]
posted by red at
12:04 AM
0 Comments
