Tuesday, January 08, 2008

iPod Initiation

I have a history of staying somewhat close to the forefront of practical technology in the electronics genre, but I must confess that I completely missed the boat with iPod. My last portable music, I'm embarassed to admit, was a CD Walkman. All that changed on Christmas morning when, to my surprise, my three sons gave me an 80GB iPod Classic. It was empty, of course. Must fill it up!

This laptop just happened to have iTunes on it, and I had imported a few of my own CD's and purchased a few more tunes from Apple - so I didn't need to start from scratch. I started from scratch + a trivial amount of music. But I own a small mountain of CD's, so the giant import of the century began almost immediately and continues to this day. Fortunately, the end is in sight and the iPod will have about 7GB of tunes when I'm done.

All through this process I've been wondering if there would be a payoff to all the effort, and I'm happy to report that there is.

Previously, I found it difficult to sort through my CD's and choose a particular one to play on my stereo system. The CD's were stored here and there in little cabinets that each held about 40 of them. Now, they are all stored in this little black thing that I can hold in my hand. I just tap and spin, and - it's magic - all my tunes are there, sorted in any number of ways. I can take the time to choose, or I can listen in random fashion. No muss, no fuss. That's the magic of iPod. Thanks, boys, for a great present!

The bonus will be on my next long plane flight to Phoenix, when I plan to watch a full-length movie to kill the time. Pretty incredible, Mr. Jobs!

To all of you who are laughing your butts off at my belated iPod epiphany, I wholeheartedly agree that I deserve whatever ridicule you are dishing out. But I will not spring for an iPhone just to get back near the front of the wave. I'm so busy listening to my lost tunes that I can't be bothered by phone calls.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My niece had a little iPod Shuffle- 250 songs on a gadget the size of a 50-cent piece! I admit, I am tempted.

The last portable music player I bought- and still have- is a little Sony Walkman. It plays cassettes.

I feel like such a luddite.

Dave said...

What's behind a luddite?

I own some cassettes and some CD's. When I want music, I listen to the radio, or more recently, XM music stations which are part of the DirecTv package I have.

Further confession. Music is almost always background for me. Driving and reading go better with music. Beyond that, not much.

Woozie said...

Oh I know what you mean. I just got one of those new-fangled "televisions" all the kids are talking about. I still don't know how to change the volume on the radio speakers, but I'm loving these crisp black and white pictures!