divulge from the norm

So in a brief break from my typical spiritual and/or faith related musings, I just have to shoot out a quick blog about Apple and their super cool new stuff. First of all, when the ipod was introduced I really wasn't even paying attention to the digital music player market so I didn't really know what it was or how cool it was going to be. Once I saw one and saw how crazy consumers went for it, I kind of figured out that it was going to take something impossibly innovative to knock the ipod off the throne of digital music players. To date, the only thing I've ever seen is company after company attempting to mimic the ipod, albeit with some minor twist (thumbwheel, touchpad, indiglo screen, brushed metal skin, etc). However, no matter what the competition did, Apple always seemed ready with the one-up trump card -- ipod mini, ipod color, ipod shuffle. Now I think Apple has once again proved why they are on top of the digital music world.

Enter the ipod nano. It's smaller than the ipod mini in every aspect, but it packs the features of a regular ipod - such as a color screen, picture storage, and calendar/contacts. It utilizes the extreme featherweight concept of the shuffle (including the flash memory, not hard drive), but is as fully-featured as the heaviest ipod with long battery life to boot. And to top it all off, it comes in white or black (for now, I assume). Now while I do have a music player already, mine just doesn't have as much of a whiz-bang gadget impact as this newest ipod. I use a Sony netMD N510-S -- using those Sony proprietary minidiscs. It is cool in that technically speaking I can't run out of space for songs, but the downside is that I have to buy more discs if I want to carry more music -- which translates into carrying more stuff overall. Maybe one day I will treat myself to something cool, new and gadgety... but not today, I have too much will-power and recognition of my lack of need for it. Although, it would be nice...

Now couple that with their partnership with Cingular and Motorola to provide the ROKR - an iTunes enabled phone with functionality similar to an ipod shuffle - and I think the future dominance of Apple in the digital music world has been secured for quite a while longer.

If only honest, loving Christian faith were as prolific, contagious, and sought after.....