Occasionally a product comes along which completely displaces whatever has come before it usually because of a unique combination or form and functional factors which simply put it miles in front of the competition. This has been seen throughout history with technological advances and social trends propelling supply and demand forward at a pace determined by levels of economic prosperity. A prime example of this would be the evolution of music storage which has progressed from vinyl records through cassettes & Cd’s and more recently into a totally digital format in the form of MP3’s etc. A product that has captured a majority share of this new market is the highly regarded iPod from Apple. What makes this gadget unique is its perfect combination of functionality and stylish looks which appeal to a wide market other than just the technically minded.
The iPod is basically a small hard drive in a case with a tiny computer attached to it to provide a means to access its contents. Although it is primarily designed to store music you can use it to store anything you like and with capacities of either 20/40gb thats a fair plenty of room for movies/pictures/documents. Its minimalistic design leaves little to be confused about and can be easily operated one-handedly.
Last week saw the release of the 4th generation of iPod which boasts greatly improved battery life, thinner profile (about the size of a pack of cards) and a new touch sensitive “Click Wheel” for interface navigation. A good move that Apple made early on was not to implement heavily restrictive DRM (Digital Rights Management) as other manufacturers have which limit what you can play and how many times content may be copied. All in all its a pretty nice bit of kit, if a little on the pricey side. I don’t actually have one yet but that may all change considering the amount of overtime I’ve been doing at work recently! Check out the ipodlounge.com for more info.
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