Is an MP3 player the same as an iPod?

Question

What exactly is an MP3 player? Does MP3 stand for a generic term where as iPod Nano is a specific brand from Apple? Is that the way it works?

Thanks.

Answer 1

MP3 stands for mpeg-audio layer 3 which is the type of encoding that is used to encode the songs that you put on your player. Any player that can play songs that end in .mp3 would be an MP3 player, which is almost all portable digital audio players. Wikipedia has a comparison chart (see below)

Most players can play mp3 files (often freely traded) as well as other types of music files. Files with DRM in them (protected so you can't copy them illegally) are in other formats.  The ipod plays files from the itunes store that use the ACC format.  Some other players use the Windows WMA format.

Answer 2

yea you pretty much got it