I was thinking about this last night and remembered the old saw that (depending on which side of the Atlantic you come from) Colmans / Heinz make their money on the mustard / ketchup you leave on your plate.

On that basis, the miracle of iPod adoption for Apple is that the people who have 500 songs only on their iPod are lining up to buy the hardware equivalent of mustard.

I don't own an ipod. never have and i don't see one in my future.

however, i am a mac user and have been since 1985. i've spent tens of thousands of dollars on macs and related peripherals over the years. so, i'm certainly not opposed to "Big Apple", philosophically.

but, i am old school. i've also spent tens of thousands of dollars on audio equipment, speakers, amps, etc. When i listen to music, i like to FEEL the music. i just can't get that rush from a pair of digital q-tips stuck in my ears.

But, that's not the real issue for me.

i love music: i love to make it, consume it, listen to it. But, most of all, I love to discover music, not listen to stuff i already own and have already heard. which, for me, is the biggest drawback to the ipod: it's just an echo chamber.

Satellite radio is my ipod. the geniuses who created satellite radio know what people who REALLY hunger for music want: variety, surprises, serendipity. discovering new music that you never had a clue existed. and, they do it 24/7 from any spot on the planet, or at least, every spot i've been to so far. Now, an ipod with satellite radio and the ability to record what you're hearing, instantly, on-the-fly, that might get my attention, as long as it easily interfaced with conventional audio/computer equipment.

with the ipod, you hear ONLY what you've already heard.

viva variety (i guess it's a male thing).

Manjoo is somewhat dismissive of the loss in audio quality due to compression, and he may be right that a large majority doesn't care. I guess that puts me in the "audiophile" category, but is it elitist to be concerned that a new music technology has led to a downgrading of sound-reproduction technology? Shouldn't new technologies make music sound better? And now I learn that the diffusion of these players has changed the way new recordings are mastered. I should be grateful?

I consider myself a casual music lover. For the better part of a year I've subscribed to Rhapsody, Real's online subscription service. I've used it to get exposed to all kinds of music I never would have previously, since I don't listen to the radio or club. My MP3 player of choice? A Palm Pilot with an SD card. It works fine for that. I buy hundreds of CDs, rip them, enjoy them in their entirety or in pieces. I actually don't get the how iPod is changing the world. Compressed music has certainly changed the world. And I'm a happier music lover for it. But I have no use for the iPod. I live in an alternative world, I suppose, where a good subscription music service, the willingness to buy old fashioned CDs, and a decent Palm Pilot make for a good music setup.

I've never seen an IPod - or however it's spelled - but I know the worst thing about it. It's the same complaint I've had with every other music-storage/delivery medium in history: no compatibility. I know I'm not the only person who had a vinyl collection who quailed at the prospect of replacing it all - on 8-track. And then, again, on cassette. And CD. And now - on something else new. Yes, there's a bit of compatibility between CD and IPod, I guess, since digital connections between them are at least theoretically possible - but who has the time? And what do I do with all the old media? There are times I think that Ludd was a screaming Pollyanna...

I love digging deeper into my albums. I love eclectic and diverse styles of music. In fact that is why I own and love my iPod. Today’s corporate-controlled top-40-obsessed radio stations do not cut the mustard. How long has it been (if ever) that the radio was a friend to the concept of an album? Especially these days with about 5 companies owning all our stations and songs getting played on a payola basis. I think people turn to their iPods because they are sick of hearing commercials and the same songs played over and over. At least that’s why I got an iPod.

Now that I have an iPod I still discover new music in the same ways as I used to: the radio and the ‘listening station’. I sill buy albums, as do the other iPod owners I know – both on iTunes and sometimes in a store. The only difference is that my 'listening station' is now online. Consequently it is now huge (most any album I can think of rather than the few the music store selected) and is conveniently located inside my house.

Yes, sadly, online shopping is meaning the end for many brick-and-mortar businesses – well, that and the Wal-Marts. But if that is the main point of contention then we need to broaden the discussion to the entire retail sector of the economy.

Beyond that, most of the complaints I have read here seem to focus on using headphones, which is really an issue relating to either safety, manners, or personal preference – and not really having to do with the iPod itself.

Maybe the fact that the author of this article, Farhad Manjoo, keeps going back to his old stuff represents more than anything the need for better new music to get heard. That doesn't always happen on the radio these days. I think that legal online music represents the potential of artists and listeners to bypass the corporate filters that plague our current landscape.

Thanks to Farhad for interesting remarks about iPods' submlime effects on us all (or at least iPod owners).

I'm just miffed that his mentioning of songs within the article didn't include iTunes links in the article...and forced me to manually type and search for them after launching iTunes...!

Cheers,

Kamalesh