iPod turns 10

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DÉCOUVERTES
SOCIÉTÉ
Musique
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ENJEUX
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[8] A2-B1
iPod turns 10
LA REVOLUTION IPOD. Le 23 octobre 2001, Steve Jobs présentait au monde
entier le premier iPod. Ce baladeur d’un genre nouveau a marqué une génération.
Non seulement est-il parvenu à lui tout seul à sortir la société Apple de la
crise, mais il a, associé au logiciel iTunes, révolutionné l’industrie du disque.
Régulièrement remis au goût du jour, cet objet devenu culte n’en finit pas de surprendre…
CHICAGO TRIBUNE/MCT
iPod turns 10
L’iPod fête ses 10 ans
shift changement / eventually finalement / landslide raz-de-marée / to notice remarquer / to
roll out sortir, lancer (sur le marché) / to dub
baptiser / promising prometteur / opening quarter premier trimestre / to drop chuter.
2. pocket-sized de poche, petit / ear bud oreillette
/ to endorse appuyer, soutenir, promouvoir /
commercial spot publicitaire.
3. retailer vendeur, distributeur / track morceau,
titre / available disponible / to download télécharger / launch lancement / by far de loin / to
command imposer, ici représenter / to pile up
accumuler / staggering stupéfiant, renversant.
4. longtime de longue date, ancien / holdout
bastion, ici rebelle / consumer consommateur.
5. previously auparavant, jusqu’ici / convenience
aspect pratique, commodité / ease facilité, simplicité / to replenish réapprovisionner / somewhat quelque peu, plus ou moins / disposable
jetable, ici facilement remplaçable.
cultural shift that eventually became
a landslide began 10 years ago, though
almost no one noticed at the time. Apple Inc. rolled out a portable MP3 player it
dubbed the iPod, and after a promising opening quarter in 2002, sales dropped more than
50 percent.
2. The next year, Apple opened the iTunes
digital music store; even though it held only
200,000 songs, a natural synergy was created
with the iPod. Sales of the portable player
quadrupled in 2004 to more than 4 million
units. The pocket-sized player with the white
ear buds was endorsed in iconic television
commercials by bands and artists such as U2,
Gorillaz, Feist, Daft Punk, Black Eyed Peas
and Coldplay.
3. Now the iTunes store is the single biggest
music retailer in America, with more than
20 million tracks available and 160 billion
songs downloaded since its launch. And the
iPod is by far the most popular digital music player, commanding nearly 80 percent of
the market and piling up a staggering 300
million sales since 2001.
4. “Even artists who were longtime holdouts, like the Beatles, are now part of the (Apple) ecosystem,” technology analyst Michael
Gartenberg says. “They realize this is where
consumers are listening to their music and,
more importantly, buying their music.”
A
Consumerism?
5. Undeniably, the iPod and iTunes have
brought a previously unimagined portability and convenience to musichungry consumers, but at
24 • VOCABLE Du 1er au 14 décembre 2011
what price? Has the ease of distributing, listening and replenishing music made it all
feel somewhat disposable?
6. Technological shifts in how music is made
and delivered are nothing new. They created
entire industries over the last 100 years. The
invention of the phonograph led to the rise
of record companies, and radio’s emergence
widened their reach exponentially. The introduction of the cassette and then the compact disc culminated in a $16 billion business by the end of the 20th century, and
fueled the rise of portable players such as the
Walkman and Discman.
7. Now the iPod has been central to a new
way of making, distributing, and listening
to digital music. The iPod was not the first
portable MP3 player,
but it was the one
that changed the
Apple Computer Inc.
music business
unveiled the iPod on
and the culture
October 23, 2001.
around it. In a
(REUTERS/STRINGER)
few short years,
i
6. to deliver fournir, offrir / emergence apparition
/ to widen élargir, accroître / reach portée,
champ, influence, ici public / to fuel (fueled, US=
fuelled, GB) alimenter.
BY GREG KOT
lem buying and replacing their iPods, putting hundreds of dollars in Apple’s pocket
for the hardware. But they fill them with
music acquired free through illicit channels, which the music industry says has
contributed mightily to its huge revenue
losses in the last decade. Yet in recent years
there are indications that as a wider variety of music has become available at legitimate digital stores, a viable digital music market is finally emerging.
(KIYOSHI OTA / REUTERS)
The iPod has been central to
a new way of making,
distributing, and listening to
digital music.
the ability to pack an entire music collection
in a device that fits in your pocket made the
rituals of dropping a needle on a vinyl album, rewinding a cassette or figuring out
how to strip the cellophane wrapping off a
compact disc seem so quaintly 20th century.
10. Despite its massive success, the 10-yearold iPod likely won’t be around to celebrate
its 20th anniversary. Stand-alone portable
music players are increasingly being replaced by iPhones, smart phones and
tablets, as technology companies strive to
serve consumers who increasingly want to
access their music through cloud-based
streaming services rather than having them
tied to their hard drives. The iPod landslide
has only just begun. ●
SOCIÉTÉ
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DÉCOUVERTES
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7. ability capacité, possibilité / to pack entasser,
caser, introduire / device appareil / to fit in entrer,
se loger dans / to drop ici abaisser, placer / needle
aiguille, ici pointe de lecture, saphir / to rewind,
rewound, rewound rembobiner / to figure out
(parvenir à) comprendre, trouver / to strip off
enlever de / wrapping emballage / quaintly
étrangement, bizarrement, so quaintly 20th century d’un autre siècle, tellement désuet, vieillot.
8. to matter compter, être important / below
the mainstream radar peu connu, non commercial (qui ne font pas partie des standards) /
akin to tenant de, analogue à, (it) involved... to
(cela) relevait un peu de, ressemblait vaguement
à / treasure hunt chasse au trésor / virtually pratiquement / no matter how obscure même peu
connue / to locate dénicher / pundit pontife,
expert, spécialiste / cool branché / sleekly designed au design raffiné / marginally modérément, à peine, peu / file fichier / sonic sonore /
to complement accompagner.
9. retail outlet magasin, ici site vendeur / filesharing partage de fichiers / hardware matériel
/ channel canal, filière, ici site / mightily fortement, énormément / revenue chiffre d’affaires /
loss perte, déficit / legitimate légal.
10. likely probablement / stand-alone dédié (non
couplé avec un autre appareil), monofonctionnel / to strive, strove, striven s’évertuer (à), s’efforcer (de) / cloud nuage (informatique), stockage
de données sur des serveurs distants pour le
compte d’utilisateurs / streaming lecture en
continu d’un flux audio/vidéo à mesure qu’il est
diffusé (par opp. à la diffusion par téléchargement) / to tie attacher, (re)lier / hard drive (lecteur
de) disque dur.
Does music really matter?
8. In the pre-digital music world, acquiring music below the mainstream radar
involved something akin to a treasure hunt.
Now that virtually any song, no matter how
obscure, can be located with a couple of
clicks, some pundits argue that the iPod has
become cooler than the music it contained.
Consumers fill their sleekly designed, increasingly compact music players with thousands of songs that are continually recycled.
The tracks are listened to over marginally
adequate ear buds on an inferior format
(MP3 files contain less sonic information
than a CD or vinyl album), often to complement other activities.
9. Despite the emergence of the iTunes
store and other on-line retail music outlets,
the vast majority of music acquired digitally is done through file-sharing. Many
first-generation iPod listeners have no probDu 1er au 14 décembre 2011 VOCABLE • 25