MyPropaganda!

About 6 or 7 years ago I declared portable MP3 players to be a waste of time. The devices at the time were either the chunky cd player type or then even chunkier hard drive based ones with horrible battery life, interfaces and painfully slow transfers over USB 1.0. "Only linux nerds will use" them I proclaimed. I was really into Mini-Disc at the time (that format certainly went places) and had just purchased my second player, the MZ-E909, which was not much larger than a minidisc with amazing battery life. Of course getting music onto mini disc was always a pain along with carrying a realistic amount of minidiscs limiting your music choice but such problems should never get in the way of a good bit of technology evangelism.

The iPod was announced not long after. At first I didn't pay much attention to it. The biggest problem was that, despite being a fan of Apple products, I didn't own any and the iPod, at the time, required a mac. This changed the next year when I got my iBook (after I ebayed my few month old chunky Dell laptop). The iPod was suddenly an attractive proposition - all my music (at the time) in a wee box the size of a deck of cards to carry around with me at all time. The christmas of that year (2002 I think), my parents very generously got me a 2nd generation 10gb iPod (along with a George Forman grill - damn those things are handy). I was in heaven - the interface, the choice, the speed music transferred over firewire, the iTunes integration!

The other great thing back then was that an iPod was a rare thing - most people started to jump on the iPod train around the time of the 3rd generation (when they became Windows compatible) or when the mini was released - it was nice to have such a unique device. You also used to get a decent amount of stuff in the iPod package as well (firewire cable, dock, wall charger, headphones, remote).

Time went on and I kind of migrated away from my iBook and back to the PC due to it's speed. Our MP3 collection (George (and later Pete) and I have roughly the same music taste so we have a collective flat MP3 collection) had also grown (about 90% from legitimately bought CDs and vinyl). Due to these factors, in 2004, I upgraded to a 4th generation 40gb iPod and sold my old one. It wasn't a difficult decision as in my opinion no other portable MP3 player had come close to the iPod in terms of form factor, interface or ease of use.

Things were fine and dandy until earlier this year when my iPod kept crashing. Eventually the hard disk went completely. Argh, what to do! I wasn't exactly rolling in money at the time and it had been quite a while since the last iPod refresh and I didn't want to buy a 5th generation for it to be replaced by a better model a month down the line. I decided to buy a 2nd generation iPod shuffle as a stop gap measure until new iPods were released and I had more money.

I started off well with the shuffle - It's super tiny, conveniently clips to your clothes, has easy to access controls and is virtually indestructible - however a few things began to bug me. Firstly the sound quality is quite poor and there is a lot of background hiss. Secondly I missed not having all my music with me so that when I felt listening to something I could listen to it. Thirdly, you'd listen to a song which flows into the next when listening to the whole album and then be disappointed as it switched to the next random tune (I did try to copy whole albums to it to use in non-shuffle mode but I could never get that working properly as the shuffle tended to play the songs in the reverse order). Lastly, there is no way to see the artist and track name which can leave you with an irritating case of "what the hell was that song damn this is going to bug me all day"-itis.

On the 5th of September, Steve Jobs announced the latest generation of iPods. I couldn't decided between the mass storage (but with the risky harddrive - a possible failure point like my old iPod) of the iPod classic and the oh-so-sexy (but with only 16gb of storage and slightly more expense) iPod touch. The pros and cons were mulled over in my head for most of the night and so I proposed (to myself, in my head of course) to wait until I saw both in the flesh and make my choice. My resolve was broken the following day when someone posted a money off coupon for the Apple online store - I ordered a touch there and then.

As with all things on the Apple store, although you've ordered something, that doesn't mean it's going to arrive anytime soon (see the experience I had when buying my Macbook Pro). Almost a month later it arrived and what a lovely wee beast it is - I can't believe how thin and light it is.

I had already prepared a meaty playlist which contained about all the music I'd actually want to listen to and would still leave some room to spare in the 16gb allowance and I also made sure to get album artwork for everything so I was ready to go as soon as I got it home. The interface is just such a pleasure to use - from the satisfying inertia when you flick your finger up or down on the album list to rotating the touch to display coverflow mode and the smooth transitions between each mode. Videos look great and store your progress so you can pick up where you last left off. Safari works amazingly well - rendering my webpage with ease and the novelty of pinching to zoom in and out never gets old. Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to explore youtube or the iTunes music store yet as the internet in our flat has been broken for a while and my Safari use has been limited to when I can find an open wireless network whilst wandering about. The only negative I've found thus far is that it's a finger print magnet.

So there you go, an extremely boring essay on my history with iPods that I'm sure you didn't want to read and a wee bit of showing off about the fact I've got a sexy new iPod. I'm sure this was well worth your time.