Apart from my undending love for Christ, technology, specifically Apple and all things NOT Microsoft is my next favorite thing to read up on. This is great news. Perhaps my 40GB iPod i got for Christmas needs a buddy?

I'm falling further and further behind...I don't even have my formal iPod yet.

Bryan, there's nothing worse than a lonely iPod. I know our family is much happier since we became a two-podder unit at Christmas!

Scott, you've got to get your priorities straight. But, somehow, I just can't picture you with a Stetson and white earbuds. It'd make a heckuva TV commercial though!

OK, Eric, bring me up to date on technology:

why do I need an iPod and where will I, the mom of a 3 & 4 year old and a CPA, use it?

I'm dying to know....I love new gadgets, I just need a reason to own it...

Umm..such products already exist in the market. Albeit in 256MB and 512MB sizes. Actually Creative Labs has a 1 GB player too(I think).

The other funny thing is reading the convincing argument, you go ..duh.. people are already using the 256 and 512 players for that very purpose. I use my 512 Mb player when I go to the gym.

Now if you just want to buy because its cool and apple and all that, then I see anything wrong with the hoopla.

Just my $ 0.02.

why do I need an iPod

No one needs an iPod, unless they're severely delusional! After all, it's just a glorified Walkman.

However, having said that...it's soooo much more, in reality. Besides being able to carry with you up to more than 10,000 songs, you can also use it as a PDA (albeit with fewer capabilities and less usability than a Palm), a portable hard-drive (for data transfer and backup), a voice recorder (if you talk to yourself a lot), a traveling radio station (with a tiny add-on transmitter...we've stopped carrying CDs in our car on road trips), audio book reader and a highly portable image viewer (if you get the iPod Photo model, which I don't have).

I can play music from my iPod via the earbuds (of course), but I can also stream music wirelessly from my computer to my home stereo, or plug it into any home stereo with RCA jacks, or connect it to my portable Altec-Lansing battery-powered foldup speakers and play music anywhere I like.

My wife is using hers with a new Bose speaker system in her office for background music. She's ripped all of her favorite CDs and puts the player on shuffle and lets it go. Also, she's studying for the CMA exam using a tutorial on CD; I've been trying to convince her to put it on her iPod so she doesn't have to keep up with the disks. (She remains unconvinced, preferring to save the drive space for music.)

We're digitizing our old vinyl albums (something you probably don't need to worry about) and listening to them for the first time in forever.

Does any of that stuff make sense?

I never thought I "needed" one either...until I got one last summer for my birthday!

Now if you just want to buy because its cool and apple and all that...

Now you get it!

However, the "all that" is soooo much more than you think.

Further evidence that this rumor is true: I finally broke down and purchased myself an iPod just last week. Apple likes to release new things as soon as I buy the old ones. They follow me, I think.

But you're right - the portable hard drive aspect is way cool. And I just got my contacts in there this morning, so we'll see how that goes. I want to get that FM transmitter for the car - I'm really not comfortable with the headphones on while driving.

It is getting a little crazy, though.
iPod. Cellphone and pager (I need both for work for some reason). Palm (Clie, actually), key ring and pocket knife. It's much easier to get around in the winter, with all those extra coat pockets for all my junk.

I'm hoping for the day when it becomes cool for men to carry a purse. I need one, but I'm far too proud to carry one...

They just need to make this in a lightweight sportscoat or windbreaker.

The FM transmitter thingie is pretty cool. There are at least a dozen to choose from, and I have friends who prefer the cassette adapter approach, but we're fine with the simple iTrip.

Do yall worry about reliability of keeping all your music on one little hard drive? Or do you keep it all on your laptop/desktop, too?

I wear Resistols...hometown bidness, and all that.

Scott, the beauty/drawback of an iPod is that it's totally integrated with iTunes. iPod's won't work with any other music management software (afaik) and iTunes won't work with any other player (again, afaik). However, that also means that you generally have redundancy (read: backup) of your music, whenever you sync the iPod with iTunes.

It's similar to having your Palm desktop synced up with your PDA. What's on one is on the other, and you can restore either with the other. (Except that going from iPod to iTunes requires separate, but readily available, software.)

Of course, this model breaks down if you have 40gb of music and a 20gig iPod. But you can backup your iTunes music to another drive if you like.

Sorry about the improper hat reference. I'm a ballcap guy, myself, but I do know the distinction between Stetsons and Resistols.