I've been following the mp3 player landscape for a good while now. I've owned an iriver flash-player for years, bought my brother an iriver IHP-120 years ago and i bought my first iPod a month ago: an 8GB nano. Is it the best mp3 player i've owned? Yes. I bought the nano mainly because it was the cheapest, smallest 8GB player out there and the first mainstream player to do gapless playback (the Rio Karma was not mainstream). I miss the radio playing ability of my iriver and i think the usability of the ipod could be enhanced by having a couple more buttons. I tried iTunes (the software) and did not like it; i am still managing my music with winamp and use it to load my ipod. I do love my nano, but i'm not cultish about it. It's a music player and it does it's job well.

The iPod hasn't changed the way i listen to music, or buy music either. I've worked at a college radio station while doing my graduate studies at the end of the 90s. That's when i discovered music. I was immersed in music for four years, discovering and exploring music styles i was not familiar with. Then, it all stopped. I got a good job and music took a back seat to life. Not working at the radio station, I lost the means to explore all that was out there. Of course, you have friends (still in the music biz), mags and file sharing but it's not the same as digging yourself in the music collection of a college radio.

Then i found emusic.com at the beginning of 2006. The mojo was back. I've downloaded stuff i did not know was out there. Music that was outside my radar's range. Music i would not have found on p2p since i did not know the artists or that i loved that genre. Music-wise, Emusic has been the closest thing to my college radio experience. Emusic's library isn't as large as iTunes', but it fits my style. Finding something new and good is difficult on p2p networks; at emusic, you get reviews, recommendations based on your playlists and buying habits. It has a pinch of last.fm social networking coupled with a music store. Emusic is easy to use, the mp3's are quality encoded (lame VBR) and there is no DRM.

That's what has changed my buying habits in the realm of digital music. Not my player (ipod), but the hability to find music i liked easily.

Somebody gets paid to wax semi-rhapsodic about an mp3 player? Maybe we all have a bit too much time on our hands...

just testing this thing.

Though I like to consider myself a technology early adopter, I purchased an iPod for the very first time just a couple of months ago. And now I ask myself each day what took me so long to admit this marvel into my life.

I am not a typical iPod user (and this is why it took me so long to get one). I've never listened to music on it. Music has never been that important a part of my life, though I do appreciate the notion of the iPod allowing us to provide the customized sound track to our real -- and sometimes fantasy -- lives.

I bought the iPod to listen to spoken word content: some books, some lectures, and a lot of newspaper, magazine, and radio programs. We're all awash in too much content to absorb on any given day. Podcasts give me, on the one hand, even more content to choose from, but also a much more efficient way of filtering and compressing the content I really care about. My iPod is the audio equivalent of my TiVo; I have more options, I record more television, I might even watch more television than I did before, but it takes me less time.

Podcasts allow me to timeshift and zip through the boring or irrelevant (to me) content.

I don't spend that much time in my car, which is where I'd normally listen to the radio. And even when I do drive, the programs I'd want to listen to aren't necessarily on. Now I can listen to Tom Ashbrook ("On Point," a great NPR daily discussion show out of Boston which my local NPR station doesn't carry) or Garrison Keillor ("The Writer's Almanac") or Dan Patrick/Keith Olbermann ("The Big Show") whenever -- and wherever -- I like.

Here's something else that's great: I've never had to pay a nickel for my content. All of the podcasts are free to download, even the books (I just had to join my public library and then download the books online).

It's probably true that listening to spoken word content on the iPod creates even more isolation from my environment than would music. But do I really need to care about my environment when I'm standing in line, or grocery shopping, or running errands? (No, I don't wear earplugs when driving. I bought a cheapie $15 cassette device that plays my iPod through my car speakers).

And I find myself doing certain things more easily, those chores that without some sort of sensory stimulation or intellectual incentive just don't get done: i.e., vacuuming, cooking, working out. I've lost 3 pounds since I got my iPod, because now I actually look forward to my daily workout. I exercise longer and more often.

The article's author treats his iPod as this permanent reservoir of content. As a result, he seems to want even more, more, more. He's never mindful of his music of the moment. While listening to song A, he's already thinking about songs B, C and D.

My iPod content is ephemeral, transitory, fleeting. What I don't have time for today doesn't matter. There will always be something new, something suprising, something to amaze and delight tomorrow.

At the fair in Key West, I used to use all of my allotted concession allowance to buy a night's worth of tickets to ride the ferris whee. Many nights I was the only person riding the ferris (according to the ferris wheel operator this was because the locals were uncomfortable with heights living on inches from sea level). The wheel operator learned he could simply stop me at the top and take his break. I would sit up above the island, looking out across the apparently endless ocean with my transistor radio pressed tight against my ear, cranked up to maximum volume and listen to a Miami station I normally would get in static-ridden bursts. The transistor brought me new ideas, new sounds, new thoughts. Throughout my childhood the transistor radio was what made many days bearable, consoled me, comforted me, inspired me, encouraged me.

During the past three years my iPod has done the same for my late middle-age that my iPod did for my childhood. And in many ways better. It's allowed me to share my music and to avoid conflicts. My iPod has been used in my store for the past two years where my staff consisted of retired women from a wide range of economic and cultural backgrounds. We have playlists customized for each day and each combination of staff from the woman who can't abide Jodi Mitchell ot anything classical to the staff member who loved celtic and bagpipes to the woman who loved classical and to The Rightous Brothers to my eclectic taste that included everything from Mraz to opera to Tongue and Groove to world beat. I introduced my staff members to folks like the Barenaked Ladies to Astor Piazzolla. They found works on the iTunes Store I would never have considered. I have exchanged playlists recommendations with strangers (a terrific icebreaker at those awkward convention luncheons where you are randomly seated with 7 other people from all over the world).

My elderly (10 gigabytes, mechanical scroll) iPod is still going strong and is not yet filled (perhaps it's my age, but I'm much more selective about what I store on it). I still purchase physical CDs from artists or collections I know I will want to migrate to any other technology that comes along, but I use the web and iTunes to find new music.

My iPod and iTunes *have* changed my music experience in another significant way -- I can no longer tolerate commercials and DJ chatter. I find new artists from recommendations, reviews and largely by listening to selections from iTunes (I miss the radio station playlists and individual collections. The new Just for You hasn't found too many winners for me so far.)

Was the magic because of Jobs and Apple? No, and yes. As with many other cultural phenomenons, it is a combination of the right people with the right creation at the right time. Star Wars (the original trilogy)? The Lord of the Rings? Rap? Rock? Television? The Interneet?

The only object I love more than my iPod is my iBook.