Practical application of the aforementioned Apple Multi-room Audio System

At this point, I rarely listen to music from traditional physical media (e.g. CDs). In the living room, I have the optical output of my Mac mini hooked up to my hi-fi, and an old Airport Express also hooked up via optical to the system. I used to use my laptop to play either my lossy or lossless iTunes library, streamed to the AX; or, alternatively use the remote controlled Front Row interface of the mini, displayed on my TV, to play music directly on that machine (as well as video...).

However, with the new iTunes remote, I just pick my a library, dial up my music on the iPhone, and have it stream to the AX. Easy and efficient.

By contrast, in the bedroom I have a Logitech SlimDevices Squeezebox 3. As I mentioned, it's a nice little unit. I bought it, for more money than I really wanted to pay, because it would pull music from my other computers, and give me an interface (via the built-in display and traditional remote control) to choose the music and control playback over my bedroom stereo, without having to walk to the living room or have a computer around. As a bonus it makes a nice clock and also displays the weather.

With the new Remote app, though, all of the music functionality could be had through my iPhone and an AX. As mentioned, I could obtain a late model AX for $60, and it looks like the Squeezebox 3 would pull $200 or so on eBay, leaving me with a net profit. As an added bonus I can have the same music playing over both the living room and bedroom hi-fis, see album art on the iPhone, etc. Plus, when I eventually end up somewhere else, more AX units make it cheap and easy to wire up more rooms for sound.

Besides losing a clock and weather display, the potential downside is audio quality. As I mentioned, the Squeezebox likely has a better DAC than the AX. I'd consider accepting that because my bedroom stereo is already a compromise from an audio perspective (assembled, as it was, for $400), and because an inexpensive, stand-alone DAC would probably make up the difference at some unspecified point in the future.

But, ostensibly being a man of science, this question of quality demands further investigation. Was there a measurable difference between the two units? An audible one?

Conveniently, the answer to the first question is readily available. Stereophile has reviewed both the Airport Express and the Squeezebox, and, even better, their reviews frequently include a thorough set of measurements.

Out of Stereophile's measurements of the Squeezebox, the first relevant measurement is in Figure 1, the frequency response. There's a pretty striking rolloff of extreme high and low frequencies, particularly the low ones. The high ones are less important since I'll just become progressively more deaf to them as I age anyway.

Figure 2 is interesting too, showing the difference in volume of a low-level (-90 dB) signal and the noise level of the device (relatively steady at -110, but rising at the higher frequencies.

Perhaps most important is the decoding of a -90 dB 1 kHz sine wave (Figure 5). It's not quite as clean as a state of the art component (cf. Figure 4), but it's got three relatively well defined voltage levels, which, as I understand it, is the truly important thing to look for.

Compare to the Airport Express measurements. Frequency response (Figure 1) is quite flat, definitely better than the Squeezebox. Signal to noise (Figure 2) is better at low frequencies, but slightly worse at high frequencies.

Most interestingly, though, look at Figure 5, the sine wave. Visually, it's downright ugly. and not particularly consistent between cycles, either. So based on the graphs, you'd expect, maybe, that the AX would have more energy in the bass and high treble, but that the Squeezebox would be clearer, overall.

I'm not sure I noticed the former, although that could be a function of a 30-year-old receiver and a (relatively) small 8" subwoofer. The latter, though, I think was apparent.

I hooked both devices up in the bedroom, and it was easy to flip between them with a switch on the receiver, if not particularly convenient, requiring me to move from my listening position. I listened to some National, some Joanna Newsom, and some Ben Folds, and didn't really notice much difference. Both seemed reasonably clear.

But turning to Modest Mouse's "Float On" and Okkervil River's "Black", two favorite test tracks of mine... well, first of all, it seemed that the rendering of the Squeezebox somehow "sucked me in" more. I felt a stronger desire to continue listening, and I enjoyed it more. And, focusing in on a cymbal hit at around 20 seconds in "Black", I think I could hear a definite difference between the devices.

But this was largely an academic excercise. I love the Squeezebox and think it's a wonderful gadget, but the interface lacks a bit compared to the elegance of the iPhone's touch screen, it's pricey for a future multi-room expansion, it requires separate software, and it always is pretty much a hack to get it to integrate properly with iTunes. The Airport Express sounds good enough, in the final analysis, that I think I'll buy one and sell the Squeezebox. And maybe there will be an upgrade down the line, a $200 or so external DAC (which still keeps the total price below the retail of the Squeezebox). That's the nice thing about components with digital outputs—the important thing is that they're convenient and flexible. You can always make them sound better with a better DAC.

Anyway, that got pretty technical, but I think it's fascinating comparing measurements to listening. Hell, I find the measurements in general fascinating. Plus, I still think it's amazing how Apple, with a couple of seemingly unrelated hardware releases, and one seemingly tossed-off software release representing the final peace of the puzzle, makes itself a viable competitor in the multi-room digital audio market at a fraction of the price of other solutions. Apple's not even trying to compete in this segment, and yet they have a very competitive product just by virtue of building a few cool pieces of gear.

Putting the pieces together

I had grand plans for this evening; few of them got accomplished. In particular I had planned to finish up my writeup on last year's trip to New York so that I could get back to catching up on the more "normal" blog entries, which don't take as much time, and tear through those.

Instead, I conducted a bit of an audio experiment, and thought I'd write it up while it's still fresh on my mind. I'll get to that in a minute.

First, a little background on Sonos. Sonos makes several components which comprise a system for wireless playback of music from a computer, distributed to multiple "ZonePlayers", which can act as either a source for an amplifier or powered speakers (ZP 90, $349 each), or a source with a built-in amplifier to drive traditional passive speakers (ZP 120), depending on the model. These units are tied together nicely by a remote control with a color LCD screen and an iPod-ish scroll wheel ($399). I've not used one myself, but apparently they've done a nice job with the interface.

So you take one of the ZP units and wire it up to your home network, and then add additional ZPs to various rooms in your house, and you can have the same thing play in each room, or different music in each room, whatever you like. There's some other cool tricks it can do, like using a subscription to a streaming music service like Rhapsody to play music that's not on your computer. There's some things I consider technical downsides, like the fact that instead of riding your existing wireless network, the units set up their own, but that's just nitpicking.

They seem to be doing a pretty good business, because Logitech's SlimDevices has a new product named SqueezeBox Duet, which comprises a Squeezebox Receiver ($199) analogous to the ZP 90, and a remote control similar to the Sonos unit ($299). If you'll recall, I have one of their $299 Squeezebox 3 units for my bedroom stereo, which similarly plays back music over the network, but includes a rather less advanced (monochrome, relatively low resolution) display on the unit itself, and a regular, screen-less remote. It's a nice little piece of gear, I must admit.

So let's say you wanted to wire up your a existing home theater setup and bedroom stereo for wireless playback from your computer. Going the Sonos route, you'd buy two of their ZP 90s and one remote, for $1100. You could probably bring that down a bit by buying one of their handy bundles.

Alternatively, you could go the SlimDevices route, getting two receivers and one remote for $700, a potentially substantial savings. .

At this point, I'll mention that Apple has a little device called the Airport Express (AX). It's a rather anonymous looking device, not much bigger than most of Apple's laptop power adapters. Its chief function is to act as a wireless router, but it's got two bonus features: it can act as a print server, and, of more interest to me, it can act as a wireless receiver of digital audio transmitted from a copy of iTunes. It retails at $99, or $59 if you grab a clearance last-generation model which lacks 802.11n wireless networking.

So for half the price of the Logitech unit, or just under a third the price of the Sonos, you get fairly similar functionality. You can even have different computers playing over different AX units, or have one computer play over multiple AXes simultaneously. Apple's close to giving you the pieces to make your own Sonos system at a fraction of the price. What you miss out on is the cool remote controls that have nice interfaces and pretty album art. You could use a laptop for this purpose, but it'd be both bulky and expensive.

But with a completely tossed off bit of software for the iPhone/iPod touch, suddenly, Apple has a wireless remote that looks to be the equivalent of the Logitech and Sonos units. It's called, simply, "Remote", and is a free download. The app can browse any iTunes libraries on your network, and play them over the computers themselves or any AXes on the network. So if you already own an iPhone, you get the functionality of the $299 Logitech or $399 Sonos units. If you don't, buy an 8 GB iPod touch for $299 (or $199 refurb if you want to be cheap).

So all of a sudden, Apple offers a system for $500 ($320 if you bargain hunt) that competes with a $700 Logitech setup and a $1100 Sonos setup. Pretty cool for a company that's not really in the hi-fi business.

Speaking of which, there are bound to be some downsides to getting audio out of a device as multipurpose as the AX, and that comes from the fact that it uses a relatively low performance digital-analog converter. But... the AX's analog output doubles as a digital output, letting you take advantage of a better DAC if you have one (and if you have a home theater receiver, you already do).

At this point, you're probably asking, how does this affect you, Ward? Well, I'll get to that in part 2.

Super Happy Fun Land; iPhone; Wedding in Austin

I'm just barely squeaking this one in under the 1-year mark. Going to have to work on that...

7/16/07

Our then-recently-acquired new friends Katie (from genetics) and boyfriend Neil had their first gig as Lazy Horse at Super Happy Fun Land (which I believe sold their location and moved). So, notably, I guess the last time I was there.

Anyway, SHFL is awesomely BYOB, so we loaded up a cooler and enjoyed its contents while we sat through the first few bands. Lazy Horse had a good first show, we thought; they play rock but I can't quite figure out how to describe them.

We hadn't had dinner yet, so Cindy and I went to check out Heights establishment Spanish Flower, which Cindy had some sort of history with. I wasn't overly impressed with the food, but any late-night Mexican establishment is a good time.

7/18

I finally got up the nerve to spend 600 freakin' dollars on an iPhone. After picking it up from the galleria, I couldn't get the automated setup process to transfer my T-mobile number, so I then spent a couple hours fighting with AT&T to get them to do it for me after hours. And with that, I had my iPhone.

7/19

Cindy's friend Matt (well, one of them, anyway), was getting married in Austin, and the ceremony was to involve grilling, picknicking, and swimming, so I picked up a swimsuit and Cindy and I hit the grocery store to pick up some items to grill and/or picnic. Ended up with the makings of a salad and a nicely marinated pork tenderloin. Then watched some TV.

7/20

Eventually, we grabbed some Jimmy John's and made our way out of town, getting in late to Cindy's friend Sarah's place in South Austin. We hung out for a while, had a few beers before calling it a night. Tried to catch up with Becca but Austin people have weird conceptions of distance...

7/21

The wedding was outside at Krause Springs (couldn't find a web site) in Spicewood, TX, about half an hour west of Austin. After taking the Mazda over a low water crossing, We showed up, nattily attired in our swimsuits. The ceremony was short, sweet, and a bit hippy-ish/new-agey, which was apparently appropriate to the couple. Also ran in to a professor I knew from school, whose fiancé was apparently a college friend of the bride.

Afterwards, it was lunch time. Cindy and I had smartly grabbed some cans of Shiner Bock (no glass in the park, of course). I ended up helping out with the grilling, and Cindy and I enjoyed our pork and salad.

We went for a swim after lunch, violating my rule about swimming in non-chlorinated bodies of water. The water was nice and cool and the scenery was beautiful, however. And as hippy-ish as the wedding came off, I have to admit I admired the couple's commitment to a small, informal, and relatively inexpensive event.

I finally got to catch up with Becca for dinner. We went to a sort of Italian-ish fusiony-gourmet place on Congress that turned out to be quite good and reasonably priced for the quality. Sat on their nice back yard-ish patio. Can't remember what I had for the life of me.

Cindy & co. were across the street at Guero's, so I rejoined them and bid Becca adieu.

Cindy, Tisen, Sara F., and I had gotten tickets for the conveniently-scheduled Wrens show at Emo's. It happened to be the last show of their tour for The Meadowlands, which was released all the way back in '03. They seemed thrilled to be playing Austin and Emo's for the occasion and

7/22

We drove up from Sarah's place the next day to catch lunch with Rebecca and my parents at the new Ward favorite, South Congress Café. Finally sampled their carrot cake french toast and... wow.

Checking out the iPhone; Farewell to David; Dallas

7/9

Made my first trip to check out the iPhone at the Apple Store, and it was everything I'd dreamed it would be. What with the California trip having been all but picked up by my funding agency, and the resulting air travel voucher, I was in a pretty good place financially. So I started thinking about the logistics of getting out of my T-mobile contract, selling my Blackberry, and acquiring an iPhone.

After getting back, Cindy & I made our airplane ticket purchases and watched some Sopranos.

7/10

Band practice, followed by picking up some Whataburger on the way home. Yum.

7/11

Sometimes-collaborator, frequent annoyance David from the lab decided to plan his going away party while the boss was out of the country, since he's kind of a dick like that. That had the side effect that, sadly, the event was not on the lab's dime. Anyway, we hit Gingerman after work for some beer, then Nit Noi for some Thai. Somehow, I was the group's expert for Thai food and so did the ordering.

Afterwards, Cindy & I scooped Will up from Baker Street to catch the new Harry Potter, which I recall being nice enough.

7/12

Grocery shopping and then the Sopranos. Super exciting evening.

7/13

I took the day off and headed up to Dallas for my annual visit to see Bryan. I got in, checked out their awesome house in the Lower Greenville neighborhood, played some Wii Tennis, and then Phil met up with us and we walked up to Blue... Mesa? (help me out, Bryan) for Tex-Mex and margs. Then, more walking (I do like being able to walk places—no worries about having to drive home and such) up to the Granada theater to catch a solid set by Centro-Matic. I'm sure we grabbed some more drinks somewhere else afterwards (or maybe not) before we headed back to Bryan's place.

7/14

Bryan and I started the day with some Wii Tennis before grabbing lunch at a Mediterranean place (again, Bryan, remind me). Bryan had wanted to show me Penzey's Spices, which was pretty sweet, and then we headed back to his place.

What came next was a revelation. Bryan had gotten some beers from Thom: the magical lambic variety known as gueuze. I was familiar with the fruit-flavored lambics, but not this wonderfully sour beer. Bryan had four bottles that we worked our way through. The first was Lindemann's Gueuze, which I think is kind of a dumbed down version of the style, with some extra sweetness to cover the sour flavors. Next we tried their Cuvée Rene, which is a pretty faithful representation, and I loved it. In addition to the sourness there was a nice dark roasted nut flavor behind it. There were two more which I found pretty similar to the Cuvée Rene (Bryan, more help...). The Cuvée is the only one (well, and the Gueuze) I can get in Texas, and I've since taken to stocking a few bottles.

In a very lucky coincidence, Nick and Alison happened to be rolling through town that same evening. Nick caught up with us during our beer tasting and joined in... and brandished his new iPhone. I was, of course, jealous. We went out for a great Indian dinner (Bryan...) and Alison very patiently put up with us catching up, before they had to be on their way.

7/15

We grabbed some lunch (the details escape me... Bryan?) before doing some shopping at Good Records and then I headed back to Houston. My notes specify that I went to Buffalo Wild Wings that night... presumably with Cindy.

California pt. 3

So yeah, almost a year behind. Traveling to Europe, moving, gardening, going to school, and maintaining my social life really kills my free time. But if I'm going to dig myself out of this hole, it's time to start writing.

In the mean time, I hope you've been enjoying the tweets. I'm still figuring out what/how to write them, but it's a nice, convenient outlet for stuff that could be significantly longer on the blog, or get put off and never get written.

Back to the California trip. When we left, Cindy and I had just had a great mini vacation in Pacific Grove and then drove to Palo Alto for my conference at Stanford.

6/26

Conference; Straits; Nap; Picnic; Sundance
Conference at Stanford started early, and we were asked to be there on time because apparently they introduced the attendees program by program, and it had looked bad in previous years when most of us, you know, hadn't bothered to show up. I got up and got ready, but the shuttle bus was full.

Cindy to the rescue! She was wonderful enough to drive a few of us that had missed the bus over to Stanford, where I proceeded to sit through a couple boring talks before sneaking out after the first session.

So we organized a lunch with Jessie, his fiancé, and one of her friends. We ate at... well... it was sort of Asian-Pacific. I'm trying to remember the exact cuisine... maybe Singaporean? Well, whatever, it was good. Big lunch, since we were on the company dime.

After that I put in an appearance at the poser session, and then I think we managed to squeeze in a nap before heading to the conference picnic in Stanford's sculpture garden.

We skipped the mediocre catered food and instead headed for Palo Alto's nicest steak house, Sundance. According to the receipt I submitted, I had a salad, two appetizers, the surf and turf, and dessert. And Cindy had a bottle of wine. Reality was, we each shared our orders.

It was actually my first experience eating lobster tail, and, honestly, I wasn't all that impressed. I don't see the appeal, especially at the price. Although just about anything that you dip in melted butter isn't going to be bad...

It was pretty late by the time we were done with dinner, and we called it an evening.

6/27

My neck problem made itself known that morning, so I skipped the rest of the conference, and then we packed up the Pontiac and headed to the airport. We stopped off at In 'N' Out for one last burger (wow are the employees ever friendly), and I figured out that stopping by Apple corporate headquarters was only a minor detour.

It was easy to find; just off the highway. We got there right around lunch time and saw a bunch of people walking around, many of whom looked very happy. I have to say I was a bit jealous and certainly let my mind wander to the possibility of working there.

The only building open to the public is the corporate store, where they have logoed merchandise that's not sold anywhere else. I grabbed a spiffy looking water bottle and an ID badge clip.

From there we headed on to the airport. Cindy had forgotten to pack the hot sauce we had swiped from Nepenthe in her checked luggage, so we had to grudgingly ditch it at security. I still need to call and find out what brand it was and order some via the magic of the internets.

We were waiting for our flight, when they announced that it was overbooked and started offering vouchers in exchange for taking a flight the next day. When the value hit $200 we went for it. An extra day in Cali, free, and $250 each? Yes.

We had already ditched the rental car, so our options for the day were limited. They put us up in a hotel, and I called Grambo to see if I could tag along with them for the evening. Cindy called her brother up and he came down to spend the evening with her.

Graham was kind enough to pick me up from the hotel, and we joined some of his Silicon Valley friends (including some Googlers) at a nice wine bar in Palo Alto. It was in an old house and had a great back yard area. I enjoyed siting in on the gathering, thinking about what life could be like working for a tech company instead of doing science research. One of them generously picked up the check.

We went around the corner to a place that served gourmet hot chocolate (e.g. you could spend $10 on a cup with herbs or spices added in). I had a cappuccino.

6/28

Cindy and I caught the shuttle to the Airport, grabbed some breakfast using our meal vouchers (which, sadly, could not be applied to alcohol), and then caught our plane back.

Tweets for Today

• 13:28 The mystery of the unknown key has beensolved. It's to the complex's pedestrian gate. No wonder I didn't recognize it. I've never used it! #
• 14:10 Hah. This will go well. tinyurl.com/6krmrq #
• 15:17 Cool houses: tinyurl.com/5voudp #
• 15:50 Preparing for thesis committee meeting. Worst 2 parts of my year. God willing, this is my second-to-last one. #
• 17:38 First take on Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin's new album: too damned slick. #
• 18:51 I'm glad that on my iPhone, Mobile Safari no longer causes the iPod app to crash with great frequency. #
• 03:01 Enough No More Heroes for one night; I suppose it's bed time. #

Automatically shipped by LoudTwitter.

Tweets for Today

Daily Twitterings:

• 14:13 Patio or balcony? Light or dark? Flood risk or no? Slightly cramped or slightly spacious? Decisions, decisions... #
• 14:14 Not sure why, but I *love* leftovers. Maybe because they're already prepared and paid for. Yay Pappasito's grilled platter. #
• 19:43 Finally, somebody addresses the question of new iPhones and the FCC: tinyurl.com/4jycry #
• 19:45 Accomplished: picked up comics, went by Sam's. Did not: pick apartment, sign lease, wash car. Pending: school stuff. #

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Dinosaurs

And the IT execs still don't get it.

Apple: "Here's everything you asked for! And we made it even better!"
IT: "Sorry, we lied. We're really just too lazy, incompetent, and prejudiced to support your incredibly useful device."

I'll be glad when the current generation of IT people goes the way of the current generation of music industry people.

If I feel like it later I'll post a more detailed blurb of my thoughts on Apple's announcements today. Short term, I'm happy.

Shafted

Apple to loyal customers: "Drop dead."

Addendum, 9/10/2007: I'll expand on this a bit.

Technology both improves and gets cheaper over time. It's almost always true. I recognize this.

However, Apple's pretty predictable in terms of how frequently products get updates, when they get updated, and whether they just get better specs, or whether they are redesigned to some extent. Beyond that, especially with their "consumer electronics" items, i.e. iPods, prices rarely change; you're more likely to just see better capabilities at the same price point.

So if you buy something from Apple the day after it comes out, odds are that it won't be getting better for at least 6 months if not a year, and probably not any cheaper, but if there are price cuts the time frame is similar.

But in the case of the iPhone, after an unprecedented 2 months there was a 33% price drop. $200 off is huge, especially after Apple made it very clear that they didn't want to have a cell phone that gets given away in cereal boxes and such. It's still hard for me to believe.

So I took a gamble that six weeks ago was a good time to buy, and it wasn't.

Beyond those who argue that you can't bitch if you take a risk and it doesn't pan out (which is false), there are those who argue that if you can afford a $600 phone then $200 shouldn't matter to you. That's horseshit. I can manage to afford lots of nice things, but that's only because I try to maximize my money, and that includes not throwing away $200 whenever possible.

There's also the claim that two months of iPhone use and bragging rights were worth $200. To those people, I say that I would have gladly waited it out for $200.

Further, there's the issue of whether this price cut was planned or not. If it wasn't, well, that's the market. But if it was, Apple fleeced their best customers. Not only do they buy the most stuff (I've had 5 macs, 6 iPods, an iPhone, and countless software packages and accessories), but they also are influential in their friends' purchases (I'd have a little more money in the bank if I had a commission for every Mac and iPod I helped sell0. They also fleeced some of there newest customers, who they should be building a trusting relationship with.

So, thankfully, they practiced good business and apologized and gave use $100 in store credit. That's pretty good.

I'd prefer to have the $200. And in cash. That doesn't make me ungrateful. $100 and an apology went a long way toward restoring my faith in a company that makes great products and has yet to screw me over.

Those who complained about the early adopters like myself bitching either a) didn't pay $200 more than they should have or b) have enough money where $200 doesn't matter. Those people can all go fuck themselves.

Idiots who talk about something they can't understand aside, I want to thank Apple for making an overture toward their best customers, myself included. It's not perfect, but I'll take it. And willing or not, I'll probably figure out a way to get that other $100 out of you. Now I just have to figure out whether to take the sales tax from you or form the government.

Happy iPod Day

Five years since the introduction of the iPod. I didn't quite get it at first, but after watching the demo on Apple's web site, I realized that they were doing two things: a player with the sotrage of a hard drive-based player but the size of a flash player, thanks to new 1.8" hard drive technology (had I considered the usefulness of PCMCIA-sized hard drives before then? maybe...); and the versatility and organizational prowess of the database-driven iTunes interface (music geeks really love organaziation; witness the monologue in High Fidelity on the subject).

A new control scheme, the scroll wheel, was introduced to make the most of the interface. As a plus, thanks to Apple's FireWire standard (USB 2.0 not yet available), there were quick file transfers. There were more subtle innovations, such as the use of a large RAM buffer which meant that the hard drive didn't have to run constantly and that battery life increased from the typical 3 hours for a HD player to 10 hours. There were what must have been fan-service touches, too: the use of the old MacOS system font Chicago for the iPod's interface, and the emphasis on a high-quality monochrome display (a selling point of the original Mac). There were some less-desirable touches reminiscent of the original Mac, too: the high price and "closed box" design.

It was six months before I saw one in the Apple Store in Dallas, and I had to quickly fight the impulse to pull out my credit card right then and there and pay what was then a very large amount of money for me. A clearance Rio 600 (then made by SonicBlue) tided me over, but within a year the price of the iPod had fallen, and combined with student discounts, it made a good Christmas present. It kept me supplied with music all throughout that spring semester at school and through grad school interviews.

It's good that I decided not to get it engraved, because within six months the third generation was released, slimmer and with those nifty touch-sensitive buttons. I talked Nick into buying my barely-used first generation model and traded on up. That one stayed with me through Europe, through lab rotations, long walks to and from Rice, bus rides, and trips to visit Rachal.

Then, a year later, I got a fourth generation model free with my laptop and passed the 3G model on to Lisa. That one got me through quals.

Six months later the Shuffle model was released and seemed like a nice (relatievly) cheap model for me to use in my car, and served well until the release of the Nano six months later, whose larger size, display, and full iPod interface were what I had really wanted all along. I passed the Shuffle on to an internet friend who is probably using it around Thailand and picked up a nano.

Then the new nano was introduced a few weeks ago and fixed a few things I didn't like about the one I had (small capacity and scratchability), so I found a buyer (Angela) and traded up once again to the more capacious and durable new model.

So, five years and six iPods later (yes, I do admit that I have a problem), it's hard to imagine being without one. I can't remember the last time I actually put a CD in my CD player (actually, probably when I had a rental car six months ago). The iPod is a great example of a small, modest technological advancement making life definitively better. Its slow ascent to it current huge popularity almost obscures the modesty of the device itself, but the technology is simple, it's just the execution that makes it worthwhile.

Thanks Steve, and Jonathan, and the rest of Apple for making something that makes a music lover love music even more.