Creative Zen

The jukebox got bigger drives and faster connections.

And by 2004, there was the Zen Micro, small and cheap and sold in a rack of colours.

Reviewers liked it, and Creative's Zen players were the iPod's closest rivals.

Its advertising talked about sound quality and features.

Apple's advertising showed black silhouettes dancing against bright colors and white wires.

And on August 9th, 2005, the US Patent Office granted it.

Automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata.

Creative called it the Zen Patent.