Embracing the new iPod

I have a confession to make. It’s kind of uncomfortable for me, but I just have to get it… I have a confession to make. It’s kind of uncomfortable for me, but I just have to get it off my chest. So, here goes: I want an iPod. Not just any iPod, mind you, but the brand new iPod Touch with the super-high-tech touch screen, 16GB of flash memory and all that other awesome stuff.

Now, probably 99 percent of you out there are saying, “Who cares? Just go buy the thing then,” but it’s more complicated than that. Ever since the iPod became popular, I’ve looked down on it as inferior technology that only caught on because of its design.

To me, the iPod has become less of a piece of technology and more of a status symbol: Having an iPod makes you cool, just like everyone else who has an iPod. Getting one is your initiation into the “iPod Club,” where everybody compares songs and walks around with little white earbuds to let everyone else know how cool they are.

So I rejected the iPod and became a proponent of alternative MP3 players. The way I saw it, there were far superior devices that might not have been as pretty to look at but had better battery life, more storage and cost less than a comparable iPod.

I’ve been the owner of several MP3 players over the years, including a Creative Zen Touch and a Toshiba Gigabeat, both of which outstripped the iPod technically while still costing less money. I scoffed at the puny four hours of video battery that iPods got, or their measly 20GB when I had 30 for the same price. I felt superior and “underground” for bucking the system and doing things better in pretty much every category I could think of.

Which is why I have such a hard time admitting I want an iPod Touch. I mean, it’s only got 16GB of memory on board, which isn’t much at all compared to most other MP3 players. The battery runs out fast when you’re watching movies, and they scuff and scratch so easily that I’d have to baby it like it was made out of eggshells.

But I still want one. The touch screen is so cool! It’s got Internet! And it’s hard to argue against the fact that the iPod Touch is like the MP3 version of Jessica Alba: It’s small, slim and unbelievably sexy. The only thing is that I feel like a complete hypocrite. I know that the iPod Touch isn’t even the best iPod that Apple makes right now (that honor would have to go to the Classic, which is sturdier and has a better battery for less money), but I don’t care.

I don’t care that I could find an MP3 player with better specs for more than $100 less. And I don’t care about the fact that for the last five years or so, I’ve been telling people that they should have bought something other than an iPod.

I’m even kind of ashamed of that, really. I’d never gotten too huge a kick out of the click wheel on the original iPods, so I never thought it was an especially wonderful thing, even when all my friends were going “Man, it’s so awesome” to each other as they scrolled through their song lists. I would stubbornly play with multiple buttons and harder interfaces and tell myself that they only had iPods to be clique-y and to fit in with each other.

But now I realize that it’s possible to just be so overcome with something that it literally infects you and makes you want it just so you can have the same thing your friend has. It was never a case of being part of a “club” – or at least, it wasn’t entirely the case – but instead the most effective implementation of design and viral marketing the world has ever seen. Apple made something that anyone – not just tech nerds and computer jockeys – could use and appreciate and even think was cool. When one person got his hands on one, everyone else would see it and say “Wow! I want that too!”

It’s just that I never thought the first iPods were that great, so I never had that thought. But now with the Touch I realize what it’s like to really want something just because of the coolness factor, regardless of the technological side. It’s like how lots of people want a Lamborghini, even though they’re difficult to drive and don’t handle half as well as cars that cost far less.

So, to anyone whom I ever told not to buy an iPod, I’m sorry. I know where you’re coming from now that I’m experiencing the same thing. And I’m sorry to Apple too, since I basically slandered and maligned their products without ever really experiencing them.

I know it’s a hard thing to come back from such hypocrisy, but hopefully you’ll all forgive me. I’m saying it to the whole world: I want an iPod, and I don’t care who knows about it.

Now I just need to figure out how I’m going to afford it.

If you think Jessica Alba holding an iPod Touch would be the best thing in the history of the world, e-mail Richard at rab53@pitt.edu and tell him about it.