Life–changing? Yeah, sure… whatever
I’m always fond of those moments when you realize a technology has inexplicably altered the way your life works; when some little thing you’re playing with starts to affect all the other things. They aren’t Holy Shit moments, per se, but they’re special nonetheless. Memorable, even. I like ‘em.
A lot of them happen inside–the–box: CSS design and web standards, NetNewsWire and RSS consumption, tabbed browsing, popup blocking, spam filtering, multi–protocol–instant–messaging, desktop blogging; the list goes on. Strangely, although perhaps not surprisingly, most of my recent moments are Mac–related; when iSync was released for general consumption it immediately influenced the purchase of my next mobile phone. Bluetooth was suddenly a had to have item… and the connection was made from inside the box to the outside. With the phone and its syncing came the video camera and its digital editing, then came the digital still camera and its photo management. Then, of course, came the iPod.
Before now, iTunes was king of my musical underworld. It replaced my stereo more than a year ago, and has managed my music quite happily ever since; quite simply, it was the center of my musical universe. Enter the iPod, and iTunes becomes peripheral to this… computer peripheral. The ‘Pod rides in my pocket while I’m on the hoof, then plugs into my car stereo for the ride. Walking into my house, it hops into its dock and continues to blast its merry tunes through the connected amp and speakers. Suddenly, iTunes is just for ripping and creating new Smart Playlists… the listening happens elsewhere.
Saddening, yes. But exciting… moreso.