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| From | "bob" <segarini@rogers.com> |
| Subject | Re: Why no iPod? (was Re: an iPod question (xposted)) |
| Date | Wed, 20 Sep 2006 00:08:07 -0400 |
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More on the iPod from Canada's National Post...
Why iLove modern luxury
Is my portable music player the greatest invention of the 21st century?
Robert Fulford, National Post
Published: Tuesday, September 19, 2006
There was a business meeting recently, not tragic but mildly depressing, and
when it ended I escaped with gratitude into the subway. I reached into my
pocket, drew out a tiny device and in a moment was transported to precisely
where I wanted to be: Town Hall, New York City, 1945. Bebop, that great
American art music, was alive, its architects at the height of their powers.
Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker filled my ears and lifted my spirits.
Every owner of an iPod, bebop lover or not, knows what I'm talking about.
You carry a slice of plastic, about three times the size of the chocolate
that some hotels leave on your pillow. Because a generation of inventors
have dedicated themselves to nanotechnology, the plastic wafer contains a
world of sound, some 1,000 separate items, all of which you have chosen.
This object has been in my possession for only about six months, but it's
already hard to remember how I managed without it.
It delivers Mozart horn concertos and a collection of Johnny Mercer songs,
many Ben Webster solos and the wondrous 18th-century cello concertos of
Leonardo Leo, great quantities of Ellington and Monteverdi, and hundreds of
other items. Then there's the spoken-word material -- podcasts. Every week
National Public Radio, that earnest network, sends me its best items free of
charge, on which dedicated American liberals try to educate me. But I've
only started exploring podcasts.
Like many electronic devices, the iPod divides people into two groups. Some
find it outlandish and can't imagine why anyone would want it. This element
frequently gives moral or even spiritual reasons. "When I'm alone I prefer
to dream my own dreams," an acquaintance remarked recently, with an
unmistakable air of superiority, like Plato talking to a teenager. Others
listen with disdain to your naive enthusiasm. They acquired an iPod several
months or even years ago -- after all, the first version appeared in
October, 2001.
In the world of electronics, every period is a transition period, which
makes life endlessly profitable for manufacturers but frustrating, as well
as exciting, for the rest of us. For some people the swift pace can be
exhausting, like habitually boarding a moving train; others rise eagerly to
the challenge. I shift between these two reactions until the argument
resolves itself in calm acceptance. It's at just this moment that the
manufacturers will strike, delivering a new version that creates new
anxieties.
The iPod seems to me the finest private luxury object of this century so
far, and I hope I never lose the sense of wonder it induces. Though the
price is remarkably low, usually under $200, I feel spoiled every time I use
it.
Naturally, the people at Apple, its proprietors, now want to sell me still
more remarkable iPods.
My iPod Nano seemed impossibly slim and astonishingly capacious -- and it
was, in 2005, when it appeared. But in San Francisco last Tuesday Steve Jobs
introduced a new version and set in motion the inevitable process of making
me feel obsolete. The latest product is smaller and slimmer than mine, holds
2,000 items instead of 1,000. It comes in silver, pink, green, blue and
black and its battery runs 24 hours, as opposed to the pathetic 14 of mine.
Jobs also unveiled the latest iPod Shuffle, which will sell for something
like US$79. It's the world's smallest music player, aside from the human
vocal chords. It holds up to 240 songs and resembles an aluminium brooch; a
clip attaches it to shirt, jacket or dress. Jobs has also confirmed plans to
sell movies for use on the iPod, as well as TV shows. So far he hasn't
produced a cell phone that plays music, shows your photo album, takes
pictures and plays Little Miss Sunshine in a format that allows you to
transfer it to your TV set. But he will.
Jobs has sold 60 million iPods (about one every second last year) and
conquered 75% of the market for music players. But why stop there? The kind
of tycoon who could be satisfied with that accomplishment would never have
given us the iPod in the first place.
Other entrepreneurs, eager to get in on the iPod business, have created a
subordinate industry that produces something like 2,000 different
accessories. Yasukuni Notomi's The iPod Fan Book (O'Reilly Media), a huge
success in Japan and described by its American publishers as a "guide to
living the fullest iPod lifestyle possible," has a whole chapter on
accessories, including the one that powers an iPod from a car cigarette
lighter socket. For $200 you can get a python-skin iPod holder produced by a
manufacturer of leather handbags; or you can spend $10 or so for a case made
of the synthetic rubber called neoprene. Last winter The New York Times
reported the existence of a stroller from Kolcraft with a slot for an iPod,
and a belt called the TuneBuckle with an iPod holder as the buckle.
Hammacher Schlemmer offers US$4,000 Triode-Tube iPod speakers with
old-fashioned vacuum tubes that glow through see-through panels. There's a
$700 iJoy massage chair, with iPod holder in the armrest.
A good many universities now provide lectures on iPod. When the University
of Missouri signed on with Apple to run a pilot project, one of its
executives explained, "Our students are digital natives. We seek to meet our
students where they are." In 2004, Duke University turned many lectures into
podcasts and gave every new student a free iPod. After two years it stopped
giving them away but made them available cheap. Those who didn't like the
Duke Digital Initiative said it was an Apple public-relations trick (true)
and would go nowhere (false). By this spring 47 courses at Duke were using
iPods.
Still, certain problems arise. This summer the Chronicle of Higher Education
reported that librarians at the University of Illinois were upset one
evening when a dozen students in the undergraduate library failed to react
to a tornado siren. They were listening to their iPods, set at volumes
higher than the blast of the siren. As it turned out, the tornado missed the
campus, but before that became clear library staff members had to rouse the
students, table by table, to break the news that there was something in the
environment even more important than what they were hearing on their iPods.
robert.fulford@utoronto.ca; www.robertfulford.com
© National Post 2006
----- Original Message -----
From: "AssociationWorks" <AssociationWorks@comcast.net>
To: <audities@smoe.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 11:26 PM
Subject: Re: Why no iPod? (was Re: an iPod question (xposted))
>I get the feeling alot of the Anti-iPod respondents here are under the
> impression its
> sole purpose is a portable listening device. Not for me.
>
> I use it primarily as I would a mix tape. Downloading songs I like and
> creating a long, streaming
> set of continuous music. I agree the earphones are an annoyance (and
> undoubtedly bad
> for your ears). I just plug mine into a dektop speaker or the Aux input in
> the car stereo and go.
> It's also great for parties where you can mix and match your own musical
> sets for hours of uninterrupted play.
>
> While I lament the death of the "album" due to the surge of digital
> downloading, as a consumer (and artist) I'd rather spend $1 on one good
> song
> than $15 on a whole CD that has maybe one or two good songs.
>
> Jeff
>
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