Remember how I talked about the boombox being a very important tool for a young kid in the 90s? The next step up was the Walkman. It meant you could listen to music privately on the go. That's something that we take for granted now, but it was truly something magnificent. I remember the day that road trips changed for the better. It was the day I got my Walkman. No longer would I have to suffer through static radio. I'd have my own music (Metallica) to listen to.
There were other evolutionary steps after the Walkman, but the Walkman was how portable music really took off. Now you can have twenty eBooks, four thousand songs, and a video all playing at once on your phone. Not as impressive when you think about it that way.