Name: LGR Oddware - 1997年のAudible MobilePlayerシステム (LGR Oddware - The 1997 Audible MobilePlayer System)
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T08:51:35.000Z
Duration: 16 min 27 s
Description: VoiceTubeの動画で発音を聞きながら英語表現を覚えよう！学べる英語：

関係詞節（制限と非制限）

Greetings and welcome to LGR Oddware, where we're taking a look at hardware and software

And today we have the Audible MobilePlayer, from 1997.

They've been around for a long time, but back in the earlier internet days, there were just

a website that happened to sell audiobooks, and speeches, and all sorts of different things

through the website that you could download and put onto this device right here.

And yeah, this is before app stores and just sticking Audible on whatever thing you have,

Or even before the days of consumer mainstream MP3 players.

Yeah! This is a fascinating device so let's take a look at it.

And man it feels like I should be sponsored for saying that, but nope!

We’re talking pre-Amazon, mid-90s startup Audible.

And in late 1997 they released their first product: the Audible Player, also called the

MobilePlayer, at an asking price of $199 US dollars.

“Audible, the revolutionary new www-based spoken audio technology.

Audiobooks, conferences, radio programs.”

Aw yeah, it’s a digital audio player that connects to a Windows 95 PC through a serial

cable and plays back audio downloaded from the world wide web.

Despite Audible’s considerable success as a content provider in the 21st century, Audible’s

success making hardware was... eh, they tried.

After half a year on the market Audible had sold around one thousand Audible Players,

so they weren’t exactly flying off the shelves.

Partly because they weren’t on store shelves at all.

The only way to buy an Audible Player was to order one directly through the company,

And keep in mind, this was late 1997, early ‘98!

E-commerce was in its infancy, and not everyone wanted to hand over their credit card number

Plus, hardly anyone understood what the darn thing actually did.

What even was an "internet-based spoken audio system” anyway?

Such is the cost of arriving early to the portable media player party.

The Audible Player predated the Apple iPod by nearly four years, and MP3 players like

wouldn’t release in North America until later on in 1998.

So the Audible Player stood alone as a glimpse at the future, a tantalizing piece of tech

Otherwise, it was an oddity in an era where most folks were satisfied

Then once early adopters and gadget columnists got their hands on it, critics praised the

Player for its convenience and the ease at which you could download new audiobooks, but

dinged it for its steep upfront cost, low audio quality, cheap-feeling plastic components,

Yeah the first Audible Player only packed four megabytes of flash memory, which equated

to around two hours of audio thanks to Audible’s proprietary audio compression.

Yet even after the MobilePlayer-Plus was made available, an upgraded $300 model holding

seven hours of audio, critics still ended up comparing Audible Players

A Walkman was more affordable, could play audio in stereo and at higher fidelity, had

the ability to record, took mere seconds to swap material without a computer, had better

battery life, and didn’t require an internet connection.

Despite this, Audible kept on truckin’ through some seriously rocky times.

In 1999, Audible’s president and CEO, Andrew Huffman, suffered a major heart attack and

suddenly passed away at just 40 years old.

And even if this tragedy hadn’t occurred, the dot-com bubble was near bursting point.

Like so many internet startups, Audible’s public shares were plummeting by the end of

the year 2000, sinking 73% in value eleven months after going public, eventually dropping

to just 15 cents a share in February of 2003.

They managed to survive though, partnering with companies like Diamond to allow Audible

downloads on the Rio 500 MP3 player, releasing their own MP3 player, the Audible Otis, in

2002 to somewhat middling reviews, until finally: iTunes happened.

In October of 2003, Audible became the exclusive provider of spoken word audio to the iTunes

Music Store, apparently stemming from Steve Jobs being a fan of theirs

And then he basically said 'I really want to have a meeting' and so we had a meeting.

And he basically told me that he completely admired this and that’s

why I wanna work with you guys and have your service on the device I wanna make.”

With Audible leaving the hardware business behind and Apple iTunes sales contributing

to five years of growth, culminating in the entire company being purchased by Amazon in

2008 for 300 million dollars, then proceeding to sponsor any content creator with a pulse

because screw you they got that Jeff Bezos money now.

Uh but yeah, anyway the Audible Player from 1997!

Humble beginnings indeed, arguably a total flop on its own, yet it set the groundwork

Let’s unbox this rare creature and give it a go!

Right, so there’s the Audible Player itself, weighing just 2.5 ounces or 71 grams.

There’s a rechargeable nickel-metal hydride battery that originally boasted three hours

of battery life, a nice leathery carrying case with a visor clip around back, a docking

station for charging and syncing the device to a PC with a little spot for charging a

spare battery on its own, a 16-watt AC adapter that plugs into the dock, a serial cable that

goes between the dock and your computer, and a CD-ROM containing the Audible Manager and

related software, amusingly distributed on a CD-R

with a cheap CD Stomper printed label on top.

Finally there’s the manual, or “listening guide,” with 47 pages of guidance on listening.

And it’s a good thing mine still had this in the box because the buttons on the device

It also came with this printout letting you know that there’s some audio already loaded

onto the Player featuring a welcome message from Don Katz.

And the previous owner also printed out some stuff from their old website, like how to

download and install the desktop version of Audible, along with some of the content available