Hey Ho, NANO!

I have 439 songs on my iPod right now. That is over a day of music. Unbelievable isn’t it? It sure is especially when you look at the evolution of the device.
First came Walkmans, a clunky radio with headphones. Do you remember those things? They weighed about 5 pounds and sounded like garbage.
Then there were cassette Walkmans. Wow. You could have up to 30 songs on a 90 minute tape. Impressive, but the cassettes degenerated after a while, and the tape deck would get hungry sometimes and them.
Then there were portable CD players. The sound was great, but try walking with one. It was a good 10 years before anti-skip technology came along and allowed people to take digital sound anywhere - even jogging.
Then there was iPod, and it was good.
My iPod nano holds 500 songs, about 50 CDs worth of music. It doesn’t skip, it doesn’t eat the music, and I don’t have to fast forward through the six bad songs that are on every disk. They aren’t there because I didn’t put them into iTunes.
A few weeks ago I saw a cassette Walkman at an estate sale. It was so heavy. It seemed so antiquated. This device that reads information off of a magnetic strip, it’s so old. Phooey. Then, I saw someone listening to a portable CD player.
Whoa. How old is that? A device that reads information off of a metal disc encased in plastic with a laser, that’s so old. We’ve come so far.
The nano is almost indestructible. The larger iPods still have hard disc (which can be scratched if dropped), but the nano — it’s a flash drive. You can shake it, drop it, and even step on it and it will be fine (BUT DON’T DO THESE THINGS — YOU MUST LOVE THE IPOD).
I’m on song 159 out of 439, “Faded Flowers” by Shriekback off of their “Oil and Gold” CD. It sounds great. On random, it leads into Death Cab For Cutie’s “I Will Follow You Into The Dark.” I’m in an office. I can hear my coworkers talking over the walls of their cubicles. Yet, I have a perfect soundtrack.
Oh yeah. I don't think it will ever get any better than this ... or will it?


Photo courtesy of Apple Computers