When I left on my mission I had never heard of an ipod. I don't remember seeing one and I know that I never used one. When I returned home I found most of my family and friends having switched over to them instead of CD's. Actually everyone that could afford the ipod made the switch, and the rest were left wanting and planning when to buy one. Then over Christmas I watched as many people were receiving the ipod. (Not in the Foster Family but in the Petzold family we were the only ones who didn't get one). I had not yet become a beleiver. I mean they are nice, but the annoy me. Let me explain.
I would say 75% of students now at BYU have one kind of iPod or another, and about 50% of BYU students put the headphones in as soon as class is over and take them out when the professor starts talking. That means there are a lot of people on campus who can't hear a thing of what is going on around them because they have an iPod. This presents a problem. Imagine 20,000 deaf people trying to get around on a not so big college campus. Needless to say, there are a lot of "accidents" and bumps while trying to get to class. I got to the point where I became an advacate of The ipod license. That is people must be able to navagate deaf, through a room filled with people without bumping into a single one. If able to do this, a license to "use an iPod while in motion" would be issued. This would make people more responsible for their careless deaf walking. If caught in an "accident" without a license, they could be fined or at lest made fun of. Yes, I was a bitter man.
Then yesterday a teammate let me use an iPod because I had to go on a run alone. I ran for a usual 50 minutes, but this time was very different. I spent half the run crying because of Hootie and the Blowfish and their love-ballad "Hold my Hand", and the other half rocking out to J-5 and AC/DC. What a run!!! I was loving it. When I was back in the locker room reflecting on my run, I realized that I was now a believer in the ipod. And sense coming to the realization, my whole world has changed. When I get hit by an ipod user I can now forgive him/her because I have joined them as a ipod lover. When asking for directions, and I get no response or a blank look followed by a loud "What" because they can't hear me, I can laugh it off because I am one of them. The problem is that I am not an ipod owner becuase of certain finacial problems, but just an ipod lover. But like many of you, I have started planning for the day when I can have my own ipod. And what a day it will be!!!!!!!!!
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5 comments:
I was a skeptic initially, too. But one taste of iPod glory was enough for me, baby.
Do you realize that I could listen to my iPod continuously from now until next week and never repeat a single song? That's 3200 songs and counting.
My motto is, "If you ain't got an iPod, you ain't got nothin'. Fool."
Here is my thought on iPods. They are really nice. They save you room, you don't have to worry about scratching, it is portable, etc.. My one beef with the iPod is this, why not have a different dial for volume and moving through the songs. When you want volume you have to wait a few seconds before you can acually get any. It ticks me off.
Well, much like Goose I was skeptical of having an iPod. It seems to put you in another world and is very distracting from anything you are trying to do, especially if someone is trying to talk to you.
Anyway, last year I won a $150 gift certificate from Best Buy and Meggie convinced me to use it on a 30 Gb iPod. I really do like the thing. I have not yet gotten to the point where I take a walk and listen to it, but I love it on an airplane when I want to space everyone out or especially in my car as I go places.
Mark's got nothing compared to me on his iPod. I now have some 5200 songs on it and still counting. I will never listen to it all but is so nice to be rid of my huge CD carrier.
iPod really has a winner in this product. Right up there with the George Foreman Grill
I love it and I agree with Ty about the volume thing. Very annoying. The software is phenomenal and it is very user friendly most of the time.
Goose, I'm glad to see you are a convert.
Dad
You suckas don't even know nothin'. Don't you know that when you transfer your cds to ipod you are downgrading from 16bit/44000khz to 8 bit/22khz digital audio? Doesn't that bother you? Your ipod music is of inferior quality to your cd music. Like I said, you are all suckas.
the audiophile
The iPod has revolutionized the way we listen to music, as well as how music is marketed.
My iPod is of the 1st generation variety, now hopelessly outdated. Wendi gave it to me when she bought a new one for herself last year. I would be jealous, except that it just rocks anyway. The old, upper-tier iPods like mine have just 20 gigs of memory, but that's more than enough for me. I have more than 2500 songs on it, and except for the fact that its battery is now a bit weak (only about 2 hours a charge) for the amount that I listen to it, it is more than adequate.
While it does appear that the album/CD format for recorded music is going the way of the dinosaurs as a result of the digitalization of music, you've got to remember that these formats were themselves the result of the technologies of their day.
The big record companies, which are in their protracted death throes right now, were late in figuring out how to deal with the iPod and the file sharing phenomenon. I don't feel sorry for them, and dance upon on their graves!
They whine about protecting "artists' rights", while they bully their customers with threats of lawsuits and digital rights management software. They have tried everything they can to protect their little fiefdom of exploitation -- the only reason they want to protect "artists' rights" is so they can exploit the artists all by themselves, as they have done for 3/4 of a century -- the length of time their exploitative business model has been allowed to fester. They overcharge for crappy CDs, then tell you that you can't share them with anybody.
Is it any wonder that few people listen to their pleas for mercy?
The thing is, a lot of music consumers (and I am a voracious one) don't really have a problem with paying money for music. If I like an artist enough, I will usually fork over money for a CD. However, I tend to be interested more in music outside the mainstream of over produced, American Idol, Gap-jeans-wearing, factory produced artists that pad the record companies' portfolios.
Independant record labels not only usually charge less for CDs, but they have a knack for discovering bands/artists with genuine talent and creativity, without the giant marketing budgets that record companies extract from their artists' royalties. Do you know how a standard major-label recording contract works? It ain't pretty.
I say the big record companies' demise has been a long time coming and is well-deserved. Let's download them out of business! Long live the iPod!
A caveat: Apple uses its own proprietary Digital Rights Management to prevent you from listening to stuff on other MP3 players, so they are'nt perfect either. However, I think that true interoperability is on the horizon and is only a matter of time. Besides, does anybody really feel passionate about MS's Zune? Didn't think so.
I wish I'd bought Apple stock 8 years ago. D'oh!
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