Are you happy now Apple? I bought an iPod! You’ve officially broken me. Let me back up. I don’t use a mac. I don’t use a mac because I don’t like them. I’m a very hands on PC user who like to be able to muck around with the inner workings of his machine and OS enough to get it to do the things he wants it to do. I’m not so obsessed however that I need to hot wire the damn thing in order to get work every time I want to use it. That makes me a Windows user as opposed to Linux and certainly not a mac user. Macs are for people who want to use a PC and not think about it. I read in a book somewhere once a great analogy for the OS’s. A mac is an Italian sports car, it’s stylish, and performs exceptionally well, but it costs a lot and if something ever goes wrong with it you need to bring it to a specialist. Linux is like a Sherman Tank. It’s ugly, you need extensive knowledge of it’s inner workings in order to get it to do what you want it to, but once you get past all that, you can blow shit up real good. Windows is the family station wagon, not very stylish, not the best performance, but it’s good for everything and you can get it repaired at any corner gas station. Add to that the fact that I’m a PC Game Developer and you can’t hardly play let alone develop games on a mac and the decision is simple. I own a windows PC.
Now for years I’ve had to listen to the PC vs mac debates and I’m sick of it. Apple won’t let it go however as evidenced by over a decade of various manipulative ad campaigns urging people to “switch” from mac to PC. The most recent of these campaigns featuring John Hodgman (PC) and some hipster dufus (mac). Personally, given the choice between being a hipster and John Hodgman, I choose John Hodgman every time. Anyway, Apple pisses me off is the point I’m trying to make, but I’m a music snob and I was working the MP3 section of CompUSA when the iPod was first released several years ago. At that time I had yet to rip my entire CD collection to my hard drive but even then I recognized the potential the iPod held for carrying one’s entire library with them at all times. When the time finally came a couple years later that I was ready to buy a large capacity MP3 player I was all set to by the iPod … all set that is until I found out that the iPods of that time (this must have been 2004) only came with Firewire connections and that in order to use it on a PC I would have to purchase a special iPod USB cable for another $25. Well I was on a bit of a budget at the time and the iPod was already expensive so rather than buy into Apple’s proprietary bullshit, where they stuff they make is only allowed to function with the other stuff that they make, I bought a Creative Zen at the same capacity for $100 less.
When my Zen died a year later I bought another Zen, but when I finally filled that Zen about a month ago, a Zen would not be in the stars. The time had finally come where the iPod was the cheap alternative MP3 player so I swallowed my pride and bought one. I always knew it would happen eventually and the only thing keeping me from doing it was Apple. The iPod itself is fantastic and it lets me do a lot of things that I could never do with my Zen. For instance, with the Zen I could never fully keep track of my listening habits because the player itself didn’t track anything at all. I could only monitor my listening through a LastFM or Mublo plugin on WinAmp or iTunes. With the iPod however, I can keep track of what I’m listening to and have it uploaded to my LastFM profile to be tabulated on my big list. This is important to me both because I like to know what it is I’m most listening to and because it will hopefully allow LastFM to recommend me new stuff, which has become a pain in the ass since Punk Planet ceased publication last year.
So I have an iPod now and I enjoy it. I still hate Apple and you won’t see me using their OS anytime soon, but their hand held products are excellent an if it let me be more of a music snob, well then I’m all for it.
Posted by quovadimus 
Posted by quovadimus 
