Was cleaning up a bit yesterday. Wonder why I keep the boxes of all the gadgets I buy anyway. They take up a lot of space (although it’s space that doesn’t invade on my ability to maneouver around my room) but I still keep it anyways. Managed to throw out a couple of boxes yesterday and I found this.

Heh. To the left is the packaging for my 3rd generation 15GB iPod. To the right is the packaging for my cousin’s 5th generation 30GB iPod Video.

It’s just the sense of packaging that caught my attention, my old iPod felt like a display item. You removed the box from its paper cover and it opens up like a little jewellery box, holding all the contents with lots of extra padding on it. The new ones seem like something you can just pick off a shelf. Heh. iPods used to be something special and mine was the first of the crowd that was released for people who used Windows. At the time (beginning of 2003? 2004?), there was still a sense that it was a niche market product with a coolness to it. Now everyone seems to have one, and it’s quite evident in those shiny white ear buds.

I think the figures are somewhere around 40 million iPods (don’t quote me on this, I might be just way off) were shipped since its inception. Yet about 30 million of those were shipped only in the last year or so (Apple has since branched out to include the iPod Minis, Shuffles, and my current favourite, the Nano).

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So what’s this fascination with Apple stuff? Heh, my first ever computer was an Apple ][e, not really mine, but I only played games on it. However, it has left an impression on me and I still recall when Forrest Gump looked at how Gary Sinise (forgot on screen name) invested in some ‘fruit’ company for him. Looking at current iPod sales and trends (they hold 75% of the share of the MP3 market in North America), Apple has become a dominant force in portable music due to the cooless of its products, competitive pricing as well as brilliant advertising. Not to mention the synergies they have created with their iTunes stores. AUD$1.69 for a song is cheap, even if it’s only digital and you don’t get the nice CD jewel cases. If you want to write a marketing textbook, this is the company you’d aspire to be.

Heh, just made myself a steaming hot cup of tea. I haven’t had tea at home for ages now, as it goes down the pecking order from either my espresso machine or my plunger. Will be leaving Melbourne for home in a couple of days, and decided against wasting the minimum 250g of coffee beans I normally buy each weekend to test out.

Life gets just a bit hectic before I wander off home for holidays. There always seems to be that extra bit to do. Heh, although I must say, I’m feeling a little old now, and don’t have as much energy as I used to (or it could just be the long hours of sitting still in an office that wears me away).

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Didn’t manage to get any Apple laptop to bring home. The rumours were all off and while the new Macbook Pros are still relatively affordable, they don’t start shipping anywhere in the world until February. Well, none of the Intel Core Duo laptops ship anytime soon anyway (and they all fetch a hefty price tag). I would still love to explore the Apple platform and previously I thought they were quite overpriced for the hardware specifications, but if you include the bundled software and little accessories, they are quite competitive in the market now. Heh, I still love tinkering and exchanging parts of my main PC (and did I mention games compatibility?), so I don’t think I’ll be migrating my workflow to an Apple anytime soon.

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Thinking. Just need to clear out some junk before I go home, and pay all the bills I have piled on my desk. Heh, missing someone now. The tea tastes refreshingly good.