1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to digital music players and more particularly to a cradle for supporting and holding one of a selection of music players.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital music players are well known in the industry. Generally, these devices have internal storage for storing songs in digital format, a display for providing user feedback and controls for accepting user inputs to direct the music player to convert one or more of the songs from digital format into analog so that the user can listen to the audio with headphones or through an amplifier and speakers.
Predominately, portable music players utilize songs or other audio content in the form of compressed digitized audio files (e.g., content). Music or other audio is converted to digital by an audio-to-digital converter (ADC), then sampled at a given rate, then compressed using a particular encoding standard such as MP3 (MPEG-2 layer 3) or WMA (Windows® Media Audio).
When used in a portable mode, digital music players are predominately used with earphones for a single user's pleasure. Although portable music players are perfect for use in a portable mode such as when walking or exercising, often such players are used in a stationary mode. There are two primary modes of stationary use: connected to an audio system for amplification and reproduction of music from the digital music player and connected to a computer for management and loading of content.
For connection to an audio system, often the audio input of the audio system is connected directly to the headphone jack of the digital music player and the music normally heard on the user's headphone is amplified and delivered to one or more speakers for the user's listening pleasure. Alternately, a connector, usually located on the bottom of the digital music player, interfaces to a mating connector and some of the pins on the connector carry the analog audio output from the digital music player to a cable that connects to the input of the audio system. There have been several docking systems designed for popular digital music players such as those marketed by Apple corporation. Additionally, some manufacturers market audio systems with docking cradles for specific digital music player such as the Apple Corporation iPod®. For example, Apple Corporation markets an alarm clock and amplified speakers called “XtremeMac Luna Speakers.” The “XtremeMac Luna Speakers” have a docking cradle that accepts an iPod®, but users with different digital music players cannot use the docking cradle and must use this device's auxiliary audio input connected to the earphone jack of their music player. When connected in this fashion, the digital music player does not receive power from the audio system and is not supported or protected from damage or scratching.
For connection to a computer system, often a data cable is connected to the connector located on the bottom of the digital music player. Often, some of the pins on this connector include power pins to power the digital music player while connected to the computer as well as data pins for transferring digitized audio files to the digital music player from the computer. Often, the data pins conform to a computer interface standard such as Universal Serial Bus (USB), a standard supported by many existing computers. Such a standard often provides for two-way data transmission as well as power, usually 5 volts, DC.
There have been several computer connection docking systems designed for certain popular digital music players such as those marketed by Apple Corporation. For example, Apple Corporation markets an iPod® nano docking station for supporting the iPod® nano and connecting it to a computer system. Unfortunately, this docking station only accepts the iPod® nano and no other digital music players, not even other digital music players from the same manufacturer. A user having two different digital music players would need two different docking cradles.
Some docking cradles, such as those provided with digital music player from Apple Corporation, hold more than one variety of digital music players. For example the Apple Universal iPod® Dock holds any of the iPod® nano, 30 GB iPod®, 80 GB iPod®, etc. It does this with five different adapter inserts, requiring the user to swap inserts depending upon which digital music player they are currently using.
What is needed is a digital music player cradle that supports more than one class of music player.