Superdrewby September 2004
The hottest gadget on the planet at the moment is the Apple iPod music player. There is a virtual sub culture of those who own an iPod and it’s growing by the day. It’s a culture that you can’t escape from, as you walk down the street, go to the gym, sit on the bus you are surrounded by people sprouting the distinctive white and silver earbuds.
Unless you have been living in a cave for the last few years you’ve been swamped by the hype surrounding this amazing gadget. The iPod is so much more than simply a music device and its following has take on an almost religious meaning!
The allure of the iPod starts with it’s sexy sleek white almost translucent design and simplicity of use. But then it’s ability to store up to 10,000 of your favorite music tracks is phenomenal and has seen rise to some people claiming an “80gb Portable Storage Device” otherwise known as an Apple iPod as a business expenses!
Granted the iPod is not the first portable digital music player or the cheapest, but simply put the iPod is the best. With over 1.5 million units sold in 2003 Apple claims that it has almost 25% of the market share for portable digital music players throughout the world. Although this figure is debated at somewhere between 10 – 15% of the market share it is still a force to be reckoned with.
Top Ten Reasons to get an iPod
The iPod has seen the rise of several new cultural phenomena, these including Jacking In and The Music Magic Shuffle.
Jacking In is a relatively recent occurrence and is when you share your music with someone else, usually a person that you don’t know. Although Jacking IN is not common yet, I am sure it will be on the up and up and rise greatly!
The Magic Music Shuffle is an old favorite of mine. When you have a collection of tens of thousands of songs you often only listen to a small selection of your favorite, But when you entire music collection is stored on one device, there is a great feature of letting the iPod decide what to play next. So that old song that you loved in tenth grade all of sudden gets played. As music shufflers say it’s great to allow the iPod to be your DJ!
The hype surrounding the iPod wouldn’t be their without the great gear that you can buy for your iPod. Starting from multicolored jewel cases so you can personalize the look of your iPod to suite your own taste to speakers so you never need another stereo system!
Some of the very cool iPod Gear is displayed below:
With all good things there are some bad as well and the iPod is no exception. The two most common complaints about the iPod are the price and the battery life and inability to change the battery.
The iPod is relatively expensive at between 400 – 700 Australian Dollars and 200 – 300 American dollars a pop! But when you look at the features and number of music tracks that can be stored on the device then it becomes a bit of a non issue.
The other complaint is the battery life which lasts at about five hours of playing between charges and the life span of the battery. The battery is built in so once the rechargeable battery dies the device is dead, but Apple are working on this problem. The other issue of battery life is a so what issue? Five hours of non stop music between charges is still pretty damn special and the iPod will charge itself whenever it’s connected to your computer!
If you want a device that is cool, easy to use and can store almost your entire music collection then the Apple iPod is definitely for you!
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