Last year, I bought an iPod from a friend who was embracing the iPod Video. It's an iPod mini, and it has 6GB of storage. I paid about $50, which was good, but I must admint that I was not buying it to use; it was more of a collectable to me. So it sat there for a while, and it was great. It was great because it had it's nice packaging, the earbuds, and all the cables. And I had to hand it to Apple: they got the packaging right.
So the iPod died a slow death, because the battery is constantly being drained. At some point, months after the purchase, I plugged it into the computer and put two albums on it, just for the sake of doing it. I had to see what the big fuss was. I listened to those two albums. I wasn't overly impressed.
The problem is, I have no real need for portable music. I never really have, either. I turned my phone into a 1GB music player and listened to it on the bus to North Bay a couple of times, but after I got my car, there was no need for that.
So then something happened: I got a job, and saw that people were listening to music, with headphones on, at work. This was something that I could do, I had a portable music player! So I brought the iPod to work, and it was glorious. The little thing really came to life, and I couldn't be happier with it!
I always recommended people not get the iPod, as I really thought you were paying for the name. You could just get the same functionality elsewhere, right? Well, that may still be true, but the next portable music device I buy will most definitely be an iPod. I'm sold!
"I'm just glad it's getting some use."