Adolf Coors and Anheiser Busch would turn in their graves if they found out what American college students considered to be the most popular thing these days. That’s right, beer drinking, that perennial past time for college students, has been overridden, at least temporarily, by a multi-media device known as the iPod. The device, created and manufactured by Apple Computer, ram-rodded by its phenomenal CEO, Steven Jobs, appears to be “the in thing” by American and many international college students as well. A visit to campus watering holes will show you that in many instances, students frequenting these places will be fingering their iPods instead of a beer stein or pool cue.
A recent market research study conducted in the U.S. State of New Jersey, indicated the 71 per cent of participating students were using these devices, now considered as most popular these days. This phenomenon has not happened since the introduction of the Internet, insofar as replacing ‘suds’ (or sex) as the pastime of choice among American college students.
Just what is an ‘iPod’ anyway, and what can you do with one. From a technical standpoint, an iPod is a portable multi-media player that Apple originally designed to store and replay all kinds of music as per request; sort of like a ‘mini-napster’ that you can carry around with you like a ‘palm computer’. The present line of iPods, now in their 5th generation, also includes video playback possibilities; and a model known as the iPod Nano has a color screen – like a mini TV. ‘Pods are now considered the world’s best selling digital audio player, containing ‘bundled’ software that allows uploading music, photos, and iPod music videos, known as iTunes. The device even has a ‘juke box’ application allowing it’s user to play a multitude of tunes at the choice of the user, virtually eliminating the desire to put those quarters into jukeboxes at neighborhood bars.
Apple’s phenomenal success with this device is no less phenomenal than the fortunes of Steven Jobs himself. Creating one the worlds first personal computers during the late 1970’s and early ’80s, he was later unceremoniously kicked out of Apple by his own boardroom, but came back more than ten years later to once again take over leadership of a company that had been almost pushed aside by PC’s that used software developed by Job’s nemesis, Bill Gates of Microsoft. Apple’s new innovations, especially with laptops (with the ‘help’ of Sarah Jessica Parker of Sex and the City), continued to the first iPods, which came out just after the beginning of the Second Millennium.
Israeli ‘high tech jockies’ are also going ‘badoodles’ over this device, and ‘Pods can be seen nestled by their owners’ computers at work, as well as in local pubs and coffee houses.
While iPods will not permanently replace suds (after all, one must drink occasionally), they will definitely be in use by the young, and not so young, and will be popular for as long as new uses are created for it. Who knows, maybe the ‘feelies’ imagined by British writer Aldous Huxley in his 1932 futuristic novel, Brave New World, will become a new iPod ‘accessory’ as
well. Go for it Steve!
June 13, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Wow. I clicked on this article because I appreciate Apple’s efforts, have been following the ups and downs of the company for decades, and felt a sudden surge of hope that something – anything decent at all – would prove more popular than beer. By the time I got to the bottom, I was left with this really odd, sinking feeling. Comments such as “after all, one must drink occasionally,” and “maybe the ‘feelies’… will ecome a new iPod ‘accessory’ as well. Go for it Steve!” are like a double gut-punch. First of all, what kind of a worldview must one have to assume that everyone on earch must succomb eventually to drinking in bars? That is just a general question for us, to consider the fast descent into a complete loss of reallity that Western culture is taking. We are dying, one human at a time, simply by throwing up our hands, saying ‘oh well, everyone is doing it,’ and joining right in with the meyhem. And second, Aldous Huxley must be rolling over in his grave as well: he wrote about the ‘Feelies’ in his ultimate attempt to show us the horrors of a world taken to the farthest extremes, a world he considered one step below hell. The Feelies were his vivid, nightmarish parable of the media world, and where it must eventually take us, to the bottom dregs of morality and intelligence. Go for it Steve? Holy Sh*t, and God help us.
June 13, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Hey Biggs,
Brave New World is already here! Just check out what is now on the Internet and other accessable ‘sites’.
Drinking (alcohol) has been around since the dawn of history. Beer itself was invented either by the ancient Egyptians or Mesepotaneans.
All this doesn’t have to have anything to do with Mr. Job’s device, however, and people who are using it, are enjoying harmless receation.
June 14, 2006 at 1:27 am
Lots of decent things are more popular than beer. Hang in there A. Biggs, Hell is FAR below us and gets further with every good choice. Life can be so Good! A little fruit of the vine never hurt anyone, but if you can’t have a little…Don’t have any.
June 15, 2006 at 2:13 am
And if “succombing” becomes a problem for you, there is just one more thing you really should consider, and that is…what you call Holy. Really…think about it.