Tech on Deck: MP3 Players Tailor Tunes For Your Taste

MP3 players remain among the most popular holiday gift items, but American buyers have changed their tune when it comes to snapping them up the way they once did. According to NPD's Household Penetration Study, 50 percent of U.S. households now have at least one MP3 player.

Facing new challenges, MP3 player manufacturers must do what they can to keep the market fresh.

(ABC News)
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Furthermore, cell phones have stepped up their game when it comes to playing music. According to NPD's Mobile Phone Track, 65 percent of handsets sold in the second quarter were able to play music, and 62 percent had a removable memory slot.

In partnership with the four major music labels, SanDisk recently announced an initiative called slotMusic designed to fill those slots with a modern-day equivalent to the CD -- much smaller, of course, and with more capacity to include digital goodies such as art, liner notes, music videos and more.

So MP3 player manufacturers must do what they can to keep the market fresh. In Apple's history of market-leading MP3 players, no product has gone through as many revisions as its flagship iPod nano, which itself replaced the very popular hard-drive-based iPod mini.

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In its first three generations, the nano progressed from a black or white polycarbonate shell, to one that used aluminum, as the mini did, to a squat tapered version that brought the screen close to the scroll wheel and finally gained the ability to play video.

In the fourth generation, Apple has gone back to the narrower form factor, rounded the edges into an oblong perimeter that includes a curved screen, and lengthened the display to restore a sense of proportion. It has also greatly expanded the color palette of choices to nine, covering nearly every hue in the rainbow and labeling the selection "nano-chromatic."

It's also looking to shake up the market in a literal way. By use of a sensor called an accelerometer, consumers can initiate song shuffling by shaking the player.

But the most important change from a software perspective is the addition of a feature called Genius that allows for tailored playlists on the fly. Genius looks at what you and other iTunes users are doing in terms of listening to, buying and rating different songs.