I Pod, You Pod, Wait A Minute, I Don’t I Pod

What is it about the iPod? Why am I drawn to it like Ralphie to the Red Ryder BB Gun? Sure, they are sleek, cool and fashionable to own (at least as fashionable as a geek toy can be.) But really, they are little more than a damn mp3 (aac) player! Believe me, I have searched the depth of my soul for justification to make the leap. “Hey it’s 4/20/40 GB of portable USB storage!” “I can download my schedule and task list to it (although creation/upload is not an option.)” “iTunes, Nuff Said.” “U2 endorses them, and they are still cool, right? I should buy one and be as cool as them.” So far I have not found the magic combination to pull the trigger.

Some history…. I was an Apple Devotee many, many moons ago. In the early 1980’s I purchased my first computer, an Apple IIe. For the times it was way cool (an expression we kids used back then.) I joined Apple Users’ Groups, read books about Steves Jobs and Wozniak, believed WYSIWYG computing was the greatest thing since sliced bread, was a beta tester for AppleTalk — basically I “drank the Kool-Aid.” The Apple IIe was the computer which launched me into my current career (fourteen years and counting.) In college I was ready to move on to the Next Greatest Apple Product, the Macintosh — perhaps you have heard of it? A funny thing happened to my consumer’s bliss, I couldn’t afford the damn thing! Yep, Apple in their infinite wisdom priced me out of their market and I was forced to purchase a PC (an Intel 286 running DOS — stop laughing, remember this was back in the 1980’s.) Ever since I have been a scorn former Apple user. I have tried to muster up the desire to jump back onto the bandwagon. I drooled over the NeXT computer — the product of the company started by Steve Jobs upon his ousting from Apple. It was cool, but also too expensive and not targeted at cosumers. I was tantalized by Apple’s Newton, one of the earliest forays into PDAs, but not enough to become a believer (I correctly chose Palm instead.) Will iPod be the one? Still not sure although if I can get five people to do the free iPod thing… Just kidding.

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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