The iPod is Coming: the Story of a Vicitim
I deliberated for a long time over which totally awesome portable music player to purchase. My initial reaction was the video iPod. Clearly I am a victim of Apple’s awesome marketing tactics, because I had no reason to want it other than it’s the only one I’d really heard much about. Good things about it, too.
Ben asked my why I wanted the iPod more than its competitors. "What competitors?" I asked (only partially sarcastically). So then I started researching.
30G is enough for me, I said to myself. That’s the max on all brands besides the 60G iPod video right now, anyway. Most of the competitors weren’t really competitors, and it came down to the iPod and the Creative Zen M. This morning when I woke up, I was ready to buy the Creative Zen. Better display, supposedly better battery life (though many disputes were made in everything online), more versatility with music downloads/file transfer, plus it has a built-in FM receiver and a voice recorder. It still has proprietary software, though… and I’m already using iTunes to play my music. Don’t worry, when I rip my CDs they import at MP3s, not AAC files.
The geek inside screamed "don’t go with what everyone else has just because they are the majority!"
The victim of marketing inside screamed "it’ll just be easier with the iPod, and you’ll never use the FM receiver. I know you! You’re a vicitim of marketing so of course you want that extra feature! And you know that a lot of those reviews were from people who are anti-Apple!"
In truth, I want to be the cool Apple guy, not the chode monkey PC guy from the commercials. And I’m not even a guy. So is there some underlying penis envy to go along with the serious Mac envy I have of the Art Department at work? Who knows.
I bought the 30G Video iPod and it will arrive on Tuesday.
A victim of marketing? Perhaps. At least I did some homework to know about my options. I will never know if I made the best decision unless I buy both (not likely) or until I actually talk with someone who has a player besides an iPod… and you’d think that some of my geek friends would have a different kind of player. But they don’t. They all have iPods. Even the Linux users.
Dude.
