iNbuilt obsolescence

This has probably already become a blog cliche, but I have to have a word about iPods. I won't go full-bore, but the whole balance between the "it's shiny and feels nice and is a doddle to use" benefits versus the "it's a weak-ass piece of crap that could pack up on you at any second" liability has swung strongly towards the latter in the past week or so.

And yet - to step deftly into the Apple-sucker cliche - I am about to take possession of a brace of the gorgeous buggers. A 5th gen video iPod and a 4th gen 20G. Why oh why?


Dig - the vidpod was defective out of the box! It was sleek and black played gorgeous video; it's 60G fer fuxake, so plenty of room for more tunes; I was all set to link it with my laptop iCal; and it contained every digital pic I've taken in the past year. But... it kept pausing in mid-playback. I finally sourced the problem to the headphone socket, which wasn't connecting to the jack properly and causing the pod to stop on my behalf. So he's off on a jaunt in california, probably getting poked and proded by the Apple Gnomes as I type.

And on the day he left in his box, my then-current now-former 4thgen40G just up and died. The devious little sod even tried to take BboyR2 (my silver maclaptop compadre) down with him a couple of times. The cost of an out-of-warranty repair? $277 and change. BboyR2 and the twins and I had a good old laugh and I thought that was that.


And then yesterday, I slightly inadvertently won my first ever ebay auction and got a 4th gen 20G for pretty cheap. I was experimenting very close to the hammer on the auction, and was surprised I didn't get outbid. I was doing this for another classic symptom of the macpack: lock-in, baby! I have voice-recorder and remote peripherals that are only compatible with 4thgens, and I still want to use them. Plus now I'm leery of taking my vidpod out with me any old time, so I've rationalised this one as a knock-about. So this new prettyboy - who is in a sealed box and has a three-year warranty - is now on its way from the seller. From Brooklyn, as that goes.

This entire post has been brought to you as a consequence of my stumbling over this photo at doubleviking by-way-of flickr. And the very-GameBoy below alledgedly has been in this crispy state since being "damaged when barracks were bombed during" the first Gulf War... and it still works.


It's also playing Tetris, the game that never ever quits. Props to Nintendo - that's a gadget that won't let you down in the field.