The iPod Age

So Andrew bought me an iPod a few weeks ago and while I can’t say it’s been a life-altering event, it has changed a few things I do, and I’d imagine many people have probably made similar discoveries.
I wasn’t really pushing to get one, as it’s expensive and I wasn’t sure how much use I’d get out of it, but I think it’s been a good decision. Specifically, I have a 4GB iPod nano. The decision was between this or a 30GB iPod (not promoted anymore — now they have a 60GB and the brand-new 80GB). Since I only have about 6GB of music (I know, not much compared to most, and no videos), and the nano is a lot smaller than the other iPod, and it was about $40 cheaper, I picked the 4GB nano and just went through and selected my favorite music to put on — I ended up only using about 3.2GB.

However, what I’ve now been using it the most for is podcasts. Now when I have a chance during the day, while biking or doing something not requiring all my attention at work, I listen to NPR podcasts, such as the 5 minute news summary, story of the day, or Science Friday, or some other science-related podcasts. This has probably been the biggest change it’s brought to my life — I find myself listening to podcasts more often than music on it.

What about other people? Anybody with strong feelings about using iPods? Some of my friends make fun of the iPoders and criticize their hearing-damaging ways, though I think that might be a bit short-sited for the potential of iPods. Andrew has a video iPod and has lots of videos on it, but that ability is a bit harder to use while trying to do work… so he hasn’t looked at them in about a year, but still listens to podcasts frequently. Are there other podcasts people would recommend, or is there other audio, but non-music, that people listen to a lot? I feel like I’ve joined the iPod age a bit late in the game, and still have a lot to learn about its possibilities.

3 Responses to “The iPod Age”

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I take my podcast to work daily. A third of the time I listen to music on it, another third I listen to podcasts (including lots of those NPR podcasts), and the last third I listen to audiobooks. Mmmmmmm… audiobooks.

Owen - September 28th, 2006 at 10:37 am

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I know this is probably really stupid, but one of the things I love the most is that I can buy a single song on iTunes for 99 cents, and then listen to it all I want…. usually they’re songs that I miss from the late 60s, that I don’t want to get a whole CD for. But, on the other hand, I bought a 99-cent live version of the Kinks doing Lola, and I loved it so much that I turned around and bought the whole CD (for $5.99 from yourmusic.com, which i recommend).
Haven’t tried the NPR ‘podcasts’ yet, but I’ll have to soon….

Meg - October 3rd, 2006 at 3:43 pm

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Not stupid at all, Meg– that’s precisely what i use the iTunes Store for. I’ve bought more single tracks than I would ever have bought “singles” CDs. Then again, I’ve never cared much about album art, etc– downloading whole CDs on iTunes works just fine for me.

…provided that I remember to strip the Digital Restrictions Management off the songs immediately after purchase (easy way for the lay-person: burn a CD of the new music, delete the music out of your playlist, insert the CD and have it rip the songs… viola! No DRM restrictions on sharing your new music, for the dime it cost to buy a CD). I forgot to do this for a few songs I got from you, Meg, and now my computer hiccuped and I can’t play them. D’oh!

Podcasts are awesome. http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststips.html

Paradoxdruid - October 4th, 2006 at 1:07 pm

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