My iPod died, it is an ex-Pod

May 31st, 2006 · No Comments

In August 2004 I bought my first iPod, a 20GB grey screen fourth generation iPod. I got it for listening to music on the go, which is why people buy the iPod after all. They don’t buy it to club monkeys senseless, that’s just a happy by-product.

What I didn’t expect was how integrated into my life the iPod would get. I quickly found that I didn’t listen to music on it very much, I listened to audio books. Lots of audio books. Each workday I listen to my iPod for three hours during my commute and quite often I fall asleep listening to it night. Listening to the iPod in bed beats keeping my wife awake by having a light on to read a book.

If I’m reading a good book that I just can’t put down I go and read downstairs. The cold downstairs. More often than not though I iPod my books at night in my warm bed.

My iPod died yesterday, I’d dropped it a couple of times and my daughter had dropped it quite a few more.

“iPod daddy, iPod.” Toddle, toddle, toddle, thunk.

My fault entirely for leaving it in places where she can get to it. When the HDD powered up it just did a looping click of death and didn’t bring up the menus. My PC won’t see it at all, my Mac sees it but thinks it is an unformatted drive and is unable to format it. Click, Click, Click. It’s a dead iPod, an iPod no more. This is an ex-pod.

Unable to imagine a commute without an unabridged audio book - or having the ability to club monkeys should the need suddenly arise - I went out during my lunch and bought a black 30GB Video iPod, the nano was too small a storage space. Plus the monkeys would laugh. I know this generation of iPod is nearing its end but I needed one now, not in six months.

I won’t review the iPod, that’s been done to death, it’s shiny, black and I love the screen. I like dropping video into iTunes and right clicking ‘Convert to iPod Format’. Simple - the essence of Apple. I hate the packaging in comparison to the old iPod packaging, its nice but very weak compared to the nice square box of the older iPods. Tiny and black. When I spend this much on an electrical device I want bigger packaging.

So I’m back to my podding again, I can’t believe how much I use this little device, it makes life, and specifically my commute, more bearable. I lasted all of about four hours before I had to buy another iPod.

Addictive little devils. Oh yes, and I so need a hard case.