Fact is, I’m behind on the gadgetry. I don’t buy anything in its first year, and sometimes it’s several years. I am not enchanted by the new. I’m running 10.4 on my matte-screen iMac on my desk next to my rotary dial phone. So just as the iPad came out, I bought an iPod Touch. I figured it would be cool to load it with music and movies (well, one movie – I got the 8 GB). And, in wi-fi range, I could get on the internet and do, well, everything else. (I also figured they’d start phasing it out with the iPad coming.)
I have not had an Apple mp3 device since the Shuffle. Since then, for my audio I’ve used my beloved Phillips mp3 player/recorder/FM radio for everything. For movies, I borrrowed a DVD portable player (also, as it happens, a Phillips).
On my little Phillips, I have become accustomed to making my own folders, dragging and dropping my audio files. I use iTunes for burning CDs and converting audio to MP3 — I don’t have a zillion iTunes proprietary folders. So I now have this beautfiul $200 device (it really is gorgeous) and I’m so impressed that I can hold a movie (coverted with VisualHub, of course) in the palm of my hand! But I have to use iTunes to load it up. Um, OK. Then I realized I can’t even really access the files on the sucker. I can only create packages in iTunes and upload to the iPod. Can’t go the other way. Can’t even see the iPod’s files listed in iTunes. It isn’t independent.
I knew the software was proprietary. I knew I had to connect it to the iMac to fiddle with its files. I had no idea the entire device was tethered to iTunes, a proprietary piece of software inside a proprietary piece of software, like a pacifier to a baby. What the hell is this?
So now I understand the complaint about the iPad, and the iPhone (here’s a good article at Gizmodo, begging for an iPad killer). Up to now I didn’t really get the big deal. Most computers are Windows whether I like it or not, so for a toy (it really is just a toy) who cared what the system was? And you have to plug it into some computer anyway. I really didn’t get all the people up in arms about a piece of cool-looking gadgetry.
Well, now I do. I have just read a great article in Wired on how Radio Shack, which used to be for the electronic DIY folks, now sells (since it’s Tandy days) mostly pre-made gadgets. This leaves tinkerers with nowhere to get parts and build stuff. Tinkering and putting stuff together is what made America great (trust me, I’m a historian), and I can’t even move around the files on an entertainment device? I either have to be three full steps away from the real technology, or I have to go underground and jail-break the sucker?
Yes, I’m still happy about a movie in the palm of my hand. But I feel I was deceived about what this iPod device truly is. It’s a peripheral. I thought it was a computer.
You sound like you really wanted a MintyMP3 (soldering required)
http://www.ladyada.net/make/minty/
Yes, I’d heard of that! Totally cool! 🙂
Sorry to hear it Lisa. I’m like you, I wait a bit before I jump into a new gadget, if I jump at all. The tidbit I heard about the Pad, before it was available was that it was primarily for consuming not producing. That stuck with me.
Yes, I heard that too about the iPad, but it didn’t make sense to me, since I “produce” so much on the web, and the iPad accesses the web. Now I understand better.