By Samantha Nwaoshai
Neil Carter, a senior audio/radio major at the University, is like the people in the commercials with their silhouettes dancing to Stereogram’s Walkie Talkie Man on their I-pods. He’s like the people on the subway who listen to their I-pods to make the trip more bearable. He’s is one of the students at the University who listens to his I-Pod while walking to class.
Celebrities are talking about their I-pods on television. Even here at the University, you can’t look both ways without seeing at least one. It seems like they are everywhere.
Why the omnipresence of these things? What’s so great about the iPod that it has people so transfixed? Well for one thing, it can hold from 5,000 (on a 20GB I-pod) to 10,000 songs (40GB). The 40GB I-pod weighs 6.2 ounces. It also charges within four hours and its battery can last up to 12 hours. Those are the basic things that its known for but it does a cornucopia of things besides play Britney Spears’ “Toxic” on repeat. It has an alarm clock, sleep timer, contacts list and a variety of languages. It can be set from English to German to Croatian to Japanese. Like any product, iPods now come with a world of accessories that make your life easier and your iPod a best friend, such as the must-have carrying case, I-trip (a tool that you attach to your I-pod to play music through your radio), and the Griffin, which is an I-talk voice recorder which helps you leave voice memos on your I-pod.
Since the I-pod can do a variety of uses, its not surprising that it doesn’t come cheap. The I-pod can range from $300 for the 20GB version to $400 for the 40GB version. Though the price tag is pretty hefty for the average citizen, let alone a college student, there is still an abundance of I-pods on campuses everywhere. Why would a student shell out the $300 to $400 for the iPod instead of dealing with other expenses? “It’s convenient,” was a common reply from students at the University.
“I didn’t want to carry around my CD case that weighs 90 pounds,” Michael Winters, an undecided freshman who owns the 40GB I-pod, said. “I need to carry all my songs.”
Another thing that also is a favorite among students is the shuffle feature the I-pods have. People mostly use the shuffle option on their iPod to play stereo tracks in random order.
“It’s great to have one song playing then have another totally different song afterwards without changing CDs,” Carter said.
The only pet peeve about this wonderful device is battery life. However, convenience is worth the money.
Of course another feature about the iPod is that it’s compatible with the I-tunes jukebox. The I-tunes jukebox helps organize music tracks into playlists. It also helps you burn mix CDs and CD inserts. Even though a number of people have gotten their tracks either from CDs they already own or from the Internet via ways not approved by the RIAA. I-tunes offers the I-tunes Music Store for people to buy single tracks for 99 cents. The I-tunes download library has a variety of songs that are legal to buy and download. Their music library contains 1,000,000 songs from the major five recording labels, including Virgin and Capital, as well as 600 independent labels such as Sub-Pop and Matador.
“I use I-tunes because they are legal,” Winters said. “I feel like a thief if I were to get it for free illegally.”
“A musical dream com true,” Apple states on its company Web site. “The fourth generation I-pod offers huge capacity and letting you easily slip up to 10,000 songs into your pocket.”
The I-pod was not the first digital player to make the scene, but I-pod is the first product of its kind to be easy to use as well as powerful. Nowadays, the I-pod is facing competition for the title of “digital player supreme.” Now there are several companies trying to bank on the digital music craze. Philips and Dell are just a couple. The big competitor that hopes to end the Apple I-pod’s monopoly is the Sony Network Walkman. The Sony Network Walkman offers 20GB, 30 hours of battery life, and can store up to 13,000 songs. Like the I-pod, the Network Walkman has its own online music store where you can download tracks to add to your musical library. At 3.88 ounces, it’s much lighter than the I-pod. As an added incentive the company Web site claims a free carrying case with purchase. Digital Music is the new revolution. The revolution is very profitable and everyone wants to cash in. The I-pod is changing the way people are listening to music. Don’t be surprised if CDs end up going the way of the cassette tape and become obsolete. The question now is what’s next?