iPoddery Barn 2.0
About ten minutes after my Nano went to electronic heaven, I was already on the Apple Store website, picking out a new model. I had a hundred dollars in birthday money and a little room in my fun budget, so I was pretty limited as far as price was concerned. In other words, I wouldn't be getting a brand new iPod Classic. Hell, I wouldn't even be getting a brand new iPod Nano. (A shame, because I wanted to get "DO NOT MACHINE WASH" engraved on its back.) Nope, I'd be getting a refurbished 4GB 3rd Gen Nano. What I lost in engravability, I made up for in affordability: My refurbished Nano cost fifty dollars less than a new one. Sold!
Now all I had to do was wait.
According to information they gave me, it took one to three days to get it out the door, and about eight days after that to get to mine. I could live without my iPod for nine to twelve days. If I needed a portable music fix, my phone did have an underutilized MP3 player. It'd do. After all, all the people I saw jacked into their phone players on the bus seemed pretty content. While my early trials with the player left me with the feeling that it was little more than a neat trick and a money-making opportunity for Telus, it was also better than nothing. Besides, if I gave the poor thing a chance, it might be better than I originally thought.
Wrong call.
Maybe I'm being unfair, being so used to my iPod and all, but my phone's MP3 player sucks. At best, it's little more than a parlour trick, a look-what-my-phone-can-do diversion to keep me amused for a few minutes. At worst, it's a turd smashed into the phone without much thought. For one thing, if I'm listening to the phone's player, that's all I can use my phone for. While I don't expect to be able to make calls or take a photo while I'm using the player, I do expect to be able to use a few of the phone's functions. Want to use the notebook function to look at the grocery list I wrote? I can't. Want to look at photos? Not allowed. Want to do something even as simple as check the time or date? Forget it. It's a multitasking-free zone. On the other hand, my iPod lived for multitasking. Solitare? Pictures? Date and time? Of course, and always with a kick-ass soundtrack.
The interface couldn't compare with the iPod, either. My thumb, used to scroll-wheeling through hundreds of tracks, had to clickclickclick its way through a few dozen. It was easy to unlock the player, too: an accidental button push here and a hand around the phone there, and suddenly I'd have the Ramones blaring from my pocket. And the less said about the crappy formats for track listing and song information, the better.
The more I used my phone's MP3 player, the more I missed my iPod. About a day and a half into my wait, I was riding the bus to the library when my phone played 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me." All I could do was sigh and think about how my iPod used to play the right song at the right time like that, too. It also used to do the freakiest segues, too--the kind that I knew were merely coincidental, but I wished were something magical and cosmic. The kind that my phone's player could probably also do, but just wouldn't be the same somehow.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait as long as they'd originally told me. My Nano shipped the day after I ordered it, and visited Memphis and Winnipeg en route to Vancouver. I had it by 12:30 pm on Friday. Yes!
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Looking back on the events of the past week, it's scary how one consumer electronics item became so important to my being. While portable music has been a part of my life ever since my mom won me that Sony Walkman twenty or so years ago, having a certain kind of personal stereo wasn't something worth digital drama. Sure, there were features I wanted my music machines to have, but having a Sony or a personal stereo with auto-reverse wasn't vital. To me, a Walkman was a personal stereo, a personal stereo was a Walkman. And auto reverse wasn't necessary when I could just turn the damn tape over. So long as it worked and my batteries were freshly charged, I was a happy girl.
My Nano came into my life because it was free. At the time, I thought having an MP3 player would be neat, but it wasn't necessary. And while I thought iPods were awesome, any MP3 player I did get didn't have to be an iPod. But here I was, with a free Nano thanks to Telus. They could have given me anything and I would have been happy, but they shipped me 2 gigs of luxury. Who could complain about that? Not me. And before long, I was a convert. I'd never had anything quite like this before--and I loved it!
Now I can't ever go back to any other MP3 player. Sure, they might be better than the thing that's in my phone, but I don't plan on doing the research to find out. It may be a tad pricey, but my iPod does what it does rather well. Had I not laundered it that fateful night, it might have lasted another year or two. Who knows? But now it's in the box, waiting for me to take it to the Apple Store for recycling. And my new Nano is fully charged, loaded with a mix of old favourites and new downloads, and ready to provide a soundtrack for my daily travels.
Centre button, scroll wheel to shuffle songs, click.
Now all I had to do was wait.
According to information they gave me, it took one to three days to get it out the door, and about eight days after that to get to mine. I could live without my iPod for nine to twelve days. If I needed a portable music fix, my phone did have an underutilized MP3 player. It'd do. After all, all the people I saw jacked into their phone players on the bus seemed pretty content. While my early trials with the player left me with the feeling that it was little more than a neat trick and a money-making opportunity for Telus, it was also better than nothing. Besides, if I gave the poor thing a chance, it might be better than I originally thought.
Wrong call.
Maybe I'm being unfair, being so used to my iPod and all, but my phone's MP3 player sucks. At best, it's little more than a parlour trick, a look-what-my-phone-can-do diversion to keep me amused for a few minutes. At worst, it's a turd smashed into the phone without much thought. For one thing, if I'm listening to the phone's player, that's all I can use my phone for. While I don't expect to be able to make calls or take a photo while I'm using the player, I do expect to be able to use a few of the phone's functions. Want to use the notebook function to look at the grocery list I wrote? I can't. Want to look at photos? Not allowed. Want to do something even as simple as check the time or date? Forget it. It's a multitasking-free zone. On the other hand, my iPod lived for multitasking. Solitare? Pictures? Date and time? Of course, and always with a kick-ass soundtrack.
The interface couldn't compare with the iPod, either. My thumb, used to scroll-wheeling through hundreds of tracks, had to clickclickclick its way through a few dozen. It was easy to unlock the player, too: an accidental button push here and a hand around the phone there, and suddenly I'd have the Ramones blaring from my pocket. And the less said about the crappy formats for track listing and song information, the better.
The more I used my phone's MP3 player, the more I missed my iPod. About a day and a half into my wait, I was riding the bus to the library when my phone played 13th Floor Elevators' "You're Gonna Miss Me." All I could do was sigh and think about how my iPod used to play the right song at the right time like that, too. It also used to do the freakiest segues, too--the kind that I knew were merely coincidental, but I wished were something magical and cosmic. The kind that my phone's player could probably also do, but just wouldn't be the same somehow.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait as long as they'd originally told me. My Nano shipped the day after I ordered it, and visited Memphis and Winnipeg en route to Vancouver. I had it by 12:30 pm on Friday. Yes!
--------------------------------------
Looking back on the events of the past week, it's scary how one consumer electronics item became so important to my being. While portable music has been a part of my life ever since my mom won me that Sony Walkman twenty or so years ago, having a certain kind of personal stereo wasn't something worth digital drama. Sure, there were features I wanted my music machines to have, but having a Sony or a personal stereo with auto-reverse wasn't vital. To me, a Walkman was a personal stereo, a personal stereo was a Walkman. And auto reverse wasn't necessary when I could just turn the damn tape over. So long as it worked and my batteries were freshly charged, I was a happy girl.
My Nano came into my life because it was free. At the time, I thought having an MP3 player would be neat, but it wasn't necessary. And while I thought iPods were awesome, any MP3 player I did get didn't have to be an iPod. But here I was, with a free Nano thanks to Telus. They could have given me anything and I would have been happy, but they shipped me 2 gigs of luxury. Who could complain about that? Not me. And before long, I was a convert. I'd never had anything quite like this before--and I loved it!
Now I can't ever go back to any other MP3 player. Sure, they might be better than the thing that's in my phone, but I don't plan on doing the research to find out. It may be a tad pricey, but my iPod does what it does rather well. Had I not laundered it that fateful night, it might have lasted another year or two. Who knows? But now it's in the box, waiting for me to take it to the Apple Store for recycling. And my new Nano is fully charged, loaded with a mix of old favourites and new downloads, and ready to provide a soundtrack for my daily travels.
Centre button, scroll wheel to shuffle songs, click.