iPod Idiocy

[annuin]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/5/36649.html

West Midlands police have issued a stark warning to iPod users: ditch the white headphones or pay the price.

Fashion-conscious music lovers are apparently being targeted by muggers. The Times tells the sorry tale of 22-year-old language student Roland Baskerville, who lost his 20GB model on the mean streets of Birmingham: "I was walking down the road near to my home when a man who was walking the other way pointed at my headphones."

The thief then asked Baskerville if he was listening to an iPod and, receiving an affirmative answer, he "pulled a knife out and started waving it at me, saying: ‘Well hand it over, then.’ I gave it to him and he ran off. He must have known I was wearing an iPod because of the white headphones."

The police are advising iPod junkies to use less distinctive headphones, something which is apparently akin to asking Victoria Beckham to shop at Oxfam. The Sun quotes one iPod representative as saying: "There are guys who’d rather be robbed than change the colour of the headphones."

Quite right. What's the point of buying a must-have fashion accessory unless everyone within a 300-yard radius can enjoy it too? As one poster to an Ipodlounge.com forum puts it: "I always pick out the iPod people when I'm walking down the street. I know who all the cool people are."

Yes, it's certainly lovely to stand out from the crowd. ®

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Now I have an iPod, and I'm considering switching the standard white earphones on them. I've considered this since day one, because first of all they are hideously visible when I wear them thanks to my predominantly black wardrobe, and secondly that mugging thing is a concern as well. I most certainly don't want this expensive piece of gadgetry taken from me.

I'm also really glad that unlike the person in the above article I don't feel the need to show off this piece of gadgetry and try and "belong" to some group. It's like being the kid on the playground with the newest marbles or other fad toy... I wasn't interested in that when I was a kid either.

Yes, I too can pick out who the iPod owners are when I'm on the train to or from Grand Central or walking around Manhattan, and most of those people are definitely not the "cool" people... they're executives or business people with large expendable wads of cash, or fashion victims. It's also not like I'm going to walk up to them and start up some conversation because we both have an iPod. I could care less what kind of music device people have, and I could care less whether people see if I have one or not, in fact I'd rather they didn't see, mostly because I am a tad paranoid about theft. While my iPod is "teh purty" I'm not interested in showing it off to the great wide world, I'm more interested in it doing what I have it for... playing music.

And so I'll be switching out my standard iPod headphones for the headphones I had on my Walkman, they're slightly molded too and as a result fit my ear better than the standard round iPod headphones anyway.

Comments

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

You *do* have volume control on the iPod. You adjust the volume with the big round button when a song is playing.

And you don't control the volume with the headphones, you need to have a little remote control connector for that, which isn't necessarily standard on the iPod, it depends on what model you have (and as such may be an extra accessory... PreZ says it was standard on mine).

I have the remote control, but that is only a connector from the iPod up to that remote pad, then you have to stick actual headphones into that remote control pad. So that part is the one I'm replacing.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Would you get earbuds or actual round headphones that cover the ear?

You need to start reading better :P I did already answer that in my original post you know:

"And so I'll be switching out my standard iPod headphones for the headphones I had on my Walkman, they're slightly molded too and as a result fit my ear better than the standard round iPod headphones anyway."

And they're earbuds, not cover the ear ones... I don't like the big ones.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

I said they were molded and fit better than the standard round iPod ones... and you know what they look like ;) so therefore it follows that they're similar kinds of headphones.

Plus the big round ones that sit ontop of ones ears don't really need molding.

[katherynne.livejournal.com]

Oh, I want an iPod so bad... it would save me a lot of work with all the music downloading I do, not to mention the fact that at the moment I don't have a portable CD player. And they are awfully cute ^^;;;;;;;;;

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

I never had a portable cd player... I was too cheap at the time, plus they had a habit of skipping and running out of battery power relatively quickly, and they're large and bulky.

So up until not that long ago, I had a radio/cassette tape walkman. The only reason I stopped using that is because I didn't have a stereo, so I couldn't mix tapes for my walkman anymore...

[http://users.livejournal.com/beyond_/]

I've been wearing the same headphone with my iPod that I did with my old CD player. I never liked the headphones that came with it. Their the kind that you put inside your ear, (not sure if those are standard or not) and I've always hated that kind. They hurt my ears and I have to take them out ever five minutes or so.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the in-your-ear ones are the standard ones.

I take it you didn't get the little remote control pad with your iPod?

[captainflux.livejournal.com]

Now, i don't have an iPod.... *hangs head in shame at his non-1337ness* ...but I do have a really nice set of headphones for my current portable music device, a cd-mp3 player... nice cheap TEAC jobbie... imho, the headphones are way more important anyway. I have a giant black pair of Sennheiser phones, big-arse comfortable things the size of your hand (almost)... they ARE the shiznit. Any damn thing sounds good through those, and they attenuate ambient noise really efficiently, and have excellent bass response, so you don't need to crank it up to Permanent Hearing Loss to get good sound quality. I'll be replacing the cd-mp3 player, but I'll be keeping the Sennheisers till they get irrevocably sat upon. :D

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've got a pair of Sennheiser's here at home... the big cover-your-ear kind. They're also RF which is good in the house :)

[trejkaz.livejournal.com]

The past couple of days I've been getting similar paranoia about my shiny new GBA-SP. It's not as valuable as an iPod, but it sure is shinier. And shiny == good, in the mind of the idiot. Bling bling.

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

You can't really see my iPod when I wear it. I have it in the little iPod carrying case that Apple made for it which is black (plus I clip it onto my pants under my coat). But then you don't really need to actually see the iPod to know that someone has one with those very recognisable white earphones/wires sticking out of people's jackets/clothes.

And yeah, anything that's a new gadget is going to be popular for someone to want to mug you for.

[jetsetcharm.livejournal.com]

i'm glad i read your post. i'm waiting 'til after tax season, then i'm definitely picking one up. now i know. ;) which model is best for someone with LOTS of music? i mean, is the 40gb model really worth $500?

[tanthe.livejournal.com]

Well, iPod's aren't the cheapest mp3 players out there, but personally I do think they're the prettiest ones. They're also very small, lightweight and slender. My husband has an mp3 player too, by Archos, his is larger, heavier and thicker than mine but I believe it's cheaper too. His Archos can also store other media types on his player than just mp3s (digicam pics, .ogg files, regular files etc.), whereas my iPod will only take mp3s. So what you want to use the gadget for also will narrow down your selection.

He was also more interested in its function over its style, and he got me the iPod because of its style, because it was pretty (and as such he said it would suit me ;))

I have the 30gb version which gives me about 27gb usable space. So far I've used 2.67 gb which is 557 songs and 1.6 days worth of music (going through the playlist it's something like 40 cd's of varying lengths). It's by no means my entire music collection, and I'll add more later... it's just ripping my cd's and tagging the mp3s properly that's time consuming.

If you keep mp3s on your computer, just check to see how much space they take up. Your average mp3 song takes up something like 3-6mb, depending on length of track and ripping quality.

Personally 30gb is more than enough for me. It'll be a while before I use up the remaining 25gb. Unless you have thousands upon thousands of cds, then I think 20/30/40gb will be sufficient :)

PreZ did consider the 40gb one, but I think the 30gb one was $100 cheaper, and the difference was only 10gb, and considering how much space that already is, he stuck with 30gb for me.