The iPod Part II

PASADENA, CA - In another article I mentioned that one of the reasons for the purchase of the iPod was that I would exercise more.  Now that I own one, do I exercise more?  The answer is … yes! 

One of my joys of owning an iPod is walking around the city I live in, Pasadena, and escaping from the moment through the magic of the music.  With the tunes that I want to hear a few quick flicks of my fingers away, I wander the neighborhood slowly, window shopping, observing my fellow pedestrians, casting an indifferent eye at traffic, all while enjoying the serenity of the iPod experience.  I’ve entered the local record shop (yes, it still exists and it does sell some records) listening to the new Gorillaz album Demon Days, and exited later immersed in the Overture from Tannhäuser.  I have the freedom, which wasn’t possible before my iPod, to listen to any of the 5300 + songs on it, all of which I own legally, at any place and at any time!

After purchasing the iPod and using it for awhile, I inexplicably started spending more and more time at the Apple Store, looking at the various accessories I could buy for it.  One of the other positive things about the iPod is that there is a complete dedicated industry for accessories.  I’m not sure if any of the other personal MP3 players have as many nifty toys and add-ons that the iPod does.  I suspect that the iPod is far in the lead for this.  I was itching to accessorize my Photo, but where to start?

For my first purchase, I decided that I should share the joy of my iPod with the rest of the family, and for this I bought an extra docking station and cables so I could connect it to the home stereo.  Now I can easily connect the iPod to my stereo, switch the input to the one I labeled “iPod,” and I can crank my tunes for everyone in the house!  I used to like swapping cds in and out of my DVD player, listening to a song or two, then on to another one, but now with the iPod being connected, I can simply put together a playlist of what I want to hear from my entire collection and let ‘er rip!   When the grandparents come over, I can put on my Classical Smart Playlist for some background music.  For my sister-in-law and her husband, it’s one of my Party Mixes (hey, I know it sounds cheesy, but that’s what I titled them originally).

While hooking it to the stereo was great, I had to go up to the iPod to start and stop it or change tracks.  It was time for me to buy a remote control for it, so back to the Apple Store where I picked up a Griffin Airclick Remote Control.  The Airclick can control Play/Pause, the volume if you’re using the headphone jack on the top, and can go to the next or previous track, which for me was all I needed, and it was less than 40 bucks.  Since the remote uses radio frequencies, I’m able to control it from another room where I don’t have any line of site.  Also, I’m able to code the remote to work specifically with the included receiver, which is necessary for me because I bought my son one to use with his iPod Mini (until I coded them, he’d be two rooms away changing tracks on his Mini and on my Photo, as well).

The remote turned out to be a lot more usable than I originally thought it would be.  It works great in the car, where I hook up the iPod to the minivan’s sound system through an inexpensive car cassette adapter from Sony.  The small remote control is usually clipped to my breast pocket where I can easily access it to change the song playing, or pause the playback so I can answer one of my five-year-old’s questions (like what would happen if a black hole hit the earth).  The remote is also useful when I take one of my many walks with the iPod.  I toss the iPod in the front right pocket of my shorts, clip on the remote, and off I go.  I did get some unusual looks from the fellow pedestrians the first night I did this, and I wasn’t sure why until I realized that every time I changed a track, the backlighting on my iPod came on, causing my shorts to light up.  I could turn the backlighting off, but I found that it’s easier to put the iPod in facing the rear, which dims the light to an unnoticeable level.

While the included earbuds are okay, I read a good review of some earphones from Etymotic Research, the ER-6i isolators, so I had to get them.  Back to the Apple Store once again…  The ER-6i took a while to get used to since the are more like earplugs than the earbuds included with the iPod, but they produce a very accurate and enjoyable sound once I got them inserted correctly.  The problem I have with them, though, is that they block out almost entirely all other sound, which makes me somewhat nervous when I walk around the neighborhood.  Call me old-fashioned, but I am a lot more comfortable when I can hear the cars coming up behind me.  Because of this, I use them for around the house when I don’t have to worry about being able to hear anything besides my tunes.  I’m still in the market for another set of earphones that have better sound but will still allow me to hear the world around me.

My next iPod related purchase will probably be a set of speakers for my bedroom. 

My family has gone iPod crazy since we purchased an iPod Mini for my twelve year old son.  My wife has a one gig shuffle that she uses when she takes the train to the office where she works.  The size and the weight of it are excellent for when she exercises, and she uses the Autofill feature to randomly fill the tunes on it every time she plugs it to charge it, which is about once a week.  Apparently, this makes for some interesting musical experiences since it adds songs she’s never heard, along with her favorites.  My nine-year-old son, due to his diligent work at school and for making the honor roll, is going to be getting a Mini from us soon.  Unfortunately, this is going to cause a problem with our youngest son, who at five, believes he should have one, as well.  Truthfully, he’ll probably use it more frequently that his older brothers will.  My father, who retired a few years ago, received a Mini, as well, for Father’s Day.  He and my mom are planning to use it for when they travel so that they can bring books on cd ripped to the iPod, as well as their favorite cds, without having to lug them all around.  They’ve already picked up a set of speakers for it so they can listen to it in the hotel rooms along the way.

As skeptical as I was initially about the iPod, as cool as they were, they seemed like a novelty.  Now, a few short months later, we own four and are planning for more of them.  They truly are wonderful devices, worth every penny of the price, and if you are someone that likes listening to music, it’ll change your world.

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By John Conrad
Mr. Conrad is a writer based in Southern California

Keywords and misspellings:  I-Pod aplle I-Tunes