hyalineskies

I’m sitting here trying to question why I used my PayPal balance to buy an iPod Shuffle 512MB from eBay. I’m not so much questioning my decision to purchase a flash-based MP3 player - I really wanted one for working out at the CCRB - but moreso why I bought a device that has been considered mundane and rather featureless by commentators since its Macworld Expo release earlier this year. After all, it has no display. It offers nothing new to the flash player market. In all honesty, it seems somewhat stupid that Apple tries to cover its shortcomings with marketing lingo.

However, I, along with 52% of the other people that own flash-based players (according to NPD Techworld in May), have chosen to purchase one of these rather… silly devices as opposed to things like Korea’s Cowon iAudio line, which are pretty much better in features, price, and technical specifications. Why, then, did I buy the Shuffle? Am I really that stupid of a consumer? Every once in a while, I’ll make an impulse buy, but I had no reason to here and this was a very deliberate thing; I’ve wanted a Shuffle for months now.

In all honesty, the more I think about it, I seem to have bought the iPod Shuffle not for its feature set (or, in this case, lack thereof), or technical prowess. I seem to have purchased it for two reasons: aesthetic appeal and the brand-recognition factor that Apple has seemingly achieved among the design community. Yes, I bought a device because it looked good and because people would recognise it as one of the oh-so-coveted Apple devices. It’s like buying a luxury car for its brand name rather than any noticeable feature increase, a la Lotus Elise. There’s just some allure in the fact that it’s pretty and white. It’s also a stupidly superficial thing to take to the CCRB.

Can we officially say that the iPod - of any kind - is the college-culture status symbol of our time? I’d say so.