In 1978, Sony released a portable audio cassette player named the Walkman, which forever changed music listening habits by allowing people to bring music with them and listen to it through lightweight headphones. By the late 1990s, the cassette-based Walkman started being phased out in favor of emerging digital technologies such as CD, Digital Audio Tape and MiniDisc. Evolution eventually brought us to the age of the iPod, a line of portable media players and multi-purpose pocket computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first of these was released on October 23, 2001, and the rest is history.