When I review the design, usage, and emotional experiences that the iPod provides, I can’t help to say that I am a big proponent of the iPod and the emerging technologies that are arising to service it’s fanatical users.

However, I do realize it’s limitations during my everyday use. As I mentioned in my ‘iPod Usability Critique’, from the main menu, I often have difficult times navigating the main menu and my library of songs and albums in dark areas. Oddly enough, during this summer, I actually memorized the amount of “clicking noises” it takes to get to the ‘Backlight’ option on the screen, and I found that it did aid me with my difficult plight of trying to navigate through my ‘Playlists’ during my late-night summer runs. Yet, if that’s my sole gripe about the usability features of the iPod, I’ll take my quick and easy access to my cherished and now vast collection of music from all genres anyday.

I also have a concern with the physical design with the iPod. As I mentioned in my ‘Emotional Critique’, the iPod is like a animal that rests in your hand. The iPod’s outer material provides a great looking skeletal system to protect it’s innards from the harsh impacts of not only nature’s elements, but also the human actions that surround the activities of portable MP3 players. However, because of that fragile feeling that I liken to having a small reptile in my hand, I find myself holding a constant stress concerning the whereabouts of my iPod at all times. (I admit that I often find myself darting a glance to see that the iPod is not falling out of my shorts or hanging from my jacket.)

With my constant awareness in mind, I would like to see Apple try a hard lightweight rubber material encasing with the iPod. Personally, I would like to see the same polyurethane material utilized in the Sony “Outback Walkman” that came out in the early nineties. As a former owner of the Sony “Outback Walkman” product, I think that it would alleviate people’s fears surrounding sudden impact to their beloved iPod, and it would also allow the gym users, who are a make up a major portion of iPod consumers, to utilize the iPod more freely in their day-to-day physical activities.

Yet, my excitement of owning an iPod has now grown past my initial stages of feeling that I have obtained “coolness” by just physically owning an iPod. As a year-old user, I am blown away at not only the ease of use of the iPod, but also I’m blown away by the potential services that are coming down the pipeline to be offered to iPod users.

The obvious use of the iPod is the potential for storing data other than MP3 audio files on the device. Apple has released the iPhoto, and the way that people are utilizing iPhoto, iPhoto may spell doom for photo albums and the business of the printed photo in the same way that digital cameras changed the ways people view developing film. Another important service is the use of “podcasting”, which will allow audio files, MP3s, or video files to be distributed in a blog-form format. Podcasting is an example of a community using the service of a new portable device with the new software coding that may change the way people retrieve and send data. (1) Podcasting could rage across iPod communities and change the way that people view media the same way that blogs have raged across the internet and changed the way that media is received and perceived.

This device is not changed our listening behaviors, but it has changed how we view entertainment and how we will share information. That’s pretty revolutionary for a device that feels like a small living organism resting in the inside the palm of my hand.

BD

1 Torrone, Phillip. “How-To: Podcasting (aka How to get Podcasts and also make your own)” Engadget. 5 Oct. 2004. 7 Nov. 2004 <http://www.engadget.com/entry/5843952395227141/