A Latecomer’s iPod Conversion
Admittedly, I am not an “early adopter.” I have trouble thinning my herd of dusty gadgets. I still have a Walkman (somewhere) and cassettes and my turntable and boxes of vinyl. I even have fond memories of driving around listening to 8-tracks.
But I don’t miss my first PC. When I took a job with a company that used Apple computers, my conversion was quick and complete. The talk about Apple’s ease-of-use was true. Clicking and dragging was suddenly fun and, best of all, I had iTunes. Access to music was never so fast and easy. I made my own mix CDs and discovered podcasts, letting me hear radio broadcasts on my own schedule. And I had yet to scratch the surface.
As most parents learn, it’s your kids that wind up dragging you into the future. When the apple ipod arrived with much fanfare, the early-adopter price tag made me wince. My son had no such hesitancy. He “needed” to have one. Fortunately, prices came down as Christmas came nearer. We bit the bullet and bought the iPod. Before long, our younger son tired of being left out. He got an apple ipod nano for his birthday.
I was still content with my CDs, but my wife quickly became jealous. “I’ll just get an ipod shuffle,” she said. And after being shown how to load it, she was off on a power walk, ear buds in, contentedly listening to her favorite tunes, skipping past any that didn’t match her mood.
Then her mother bought a new TV that just happened to have an iPod port. “Well, I don’t think I’ll ever use that,” she said. That was until my son showed her how. Now, at age 80, she listens to her big band classics on the iPod plugged into her TV sound system.
As for my immediate family, my wife has moved up to the apple ipod touch. The thing is loaded with features that make the original look primitive. She still doesn’t know what to do with half of them, but the big selling point was the workout feature. It works with new equipment at our health club, and though it requires Nike shoes with sensors and a Wi-Fi transmitter, she really did need a new pair of trainers.
I happily inherited my son’s original player. Maybe I’ll graduate to the ipod touch someday, but for now I’m loving being able to walk the dog while listening to music or podcasts of my favorite radio shows.
Now, the heart of our home computer center is a laptop, an HP all-in-one printer (how did I ever live without a copier AND a scanner?), and at least one iPod charging or loading. And even though our musical tastes diverge, intra-family tune swapping does occur.
Finding our ipods was easy. We’ve had good luck purchasing online from superwarehouse.com. I’m sure there are others, but in addition to the full Apple line, superwarehouse.com has all the computer supplies and accessories we’ll ever need.
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Add comment October 30th, 2008