The Ipod Junkie's Dilema

Before the ipod, MP3 players were the best portable players around. Primarily a flash drive, these devices had
limited features. The screen size was small and only text is allowed. The colored screen was optional and the
memory size only went up to 1 GB. But with the introduction of the ipod and its succeeding generations, music
lovers were transported to another realm. A world where they can only listen to all the songs that they want to
hear. Once they put on their ipod, they have total control over what tunes should fill their heads. Call it
listening to their daily-personalized soundtrack.
Is all this ipod play list personalization good for its users? Apparently some detractors don’t think so. They
argue that too much personalization limits the listener to the new genres of music. Constantly listening to Eminem
or Christina Aguilera on your ipod can deny you the pleasure of discovering new artists like Ne-yo or new music
styles like trip hop. Ipod users become islands of their own, trapped in a floating music bubble of their own
making.
Not only that, frequent users have become oblivious to their surroundings making discovery of new sounds very
difficult. It can be of grave concern especially for those emergency cases when one is not able to hear a call for
help because the other person is too distracted by their ipod. Such cases may seem extreme but turn to Hollywood
movies and you’ll see how prevalent such instances are.
Ipod fans say otherwise. They say they can be as entertaining as the FM radio that has more content and users are
exposed to more styles and artists on a regular basis. Plus there are some trivia and entertainment news that you
cannot get from this device without buying accessories. Because of this, a new trend was born through the ipod
called podcasting. Podcasting is a radio-style program that can be shared to other people through the Internet and
played back in their ipod. You can create your own program and broadcast it to the World Wide Web.
Ipod users and fans have come up with ingenious ways of making their toy into more than just a digital audio
player. Some have opened up it up and tinkered with its hardware and software. The result? An ipod that has an
organizer function that stores addresses and calendar events in its memory. While it does need some getting used
to, fans are thrilled at the devices’ limitless possibilities. Apple Computers then gave us the fourth generation
of ipod more commonly known as the ipod photo.
This generation boasts of a colored display and photo transfer capabilities. As the company realized the need for
something more innovative, the fifth generation was released. This ipod series is currently the hottest model
because of the video function. Ipod video can play MPEG-4 and H.264 video with resolutions of up to 480 x 480 and
320 x 240. Its potential as a marketing and advertising tool is so huge that even Apple is overwhelmed with the
idea. One possible product for this is the selling of video formats like music video clips and television show
reruns.
The personalization of ipod is not a big issue among its many patrons. It is this quality that makes the device so
appealing to them. Our age today holds value to the importance of self-expression. Ipod can deliver that self-
expression through personalized covers, skins, accessories and a host of other complimentary software. It becomes
an extension of one’s taste in music and other multimedia formats. The only real dilemma for any ipod junkie
nowadays is getting the money to buy all those accessories.