If You Hate the iPod, Look Away Now, For I Am Helpless in its Thrall

For years I hated iPods. To tell you the truth, I still dislike Macs -- I have to use one at work, and it's certainly no better than any PC I've ever used; in fact, without the right-click mouse button, it might as well be a big mound of glowing white poo stinking up my desk (go here for the best rant against Macs I've read). Still, my iPod hatred seems a distant, slightly confusing memory now — why did I so hate such an inoffensive object, one that millions of people adore? But that was precisely why I hated it: people gasped out furious wanks of gratitude to Our Lord Protector Steve Jobs, and all over a little mp3 player that looked like a shower tile. It was pathetic and kind of embarrassing, like watching a really drunk person try to make a sandwich.

But then I actually tried one. A friend of mine had one, and from the second I used that wheel for the first time, the satisfying clicky noise pinging some reptilian pleasure center in my brain, I was hooked. I got a Nano for Christmas, and it has been with me ever since, annoying my tube neighbors as I click the wheel round and round, my fascination with it never ebbing, like some pigeon in an experiment desperate for its next fix. I like to call that experiment "Apple Is The Matrix".

Since the iPhone was announced, I have drooled over it like millions of others, immensely frustrated by the fact that it still doesn't have a release date in the UK. £599 plus a £30-a-month two-year contract that will be the equivalent of stuffing my money down a toilet and flushing? Sign me up! I don't use my current phone enough to warrant a contract, but all I could think about was how much I would love iPhone and it would love me, how I would touch it and stroke it and it would say, "Yes! More! The touch from your fingers makes me think so different!" and Steve Jobs would say, "I see you're enjoying iPhone, Mr. Anderson," and I would say, "This is so much better than the orgasm cake" and then Neo would die to save us all from the next MacWorld.

But I couldn't do any of that because I live in the UK now, not the US, and usually anything cool takes an extra six months to get here (if it gets here at all), and ends up smelling vaguely of sausage. In this case, though, I have to be grateful for the delay, because now Apple have announced the iPod Touch, which you may, somehow, have heard of already. It's coming out at the end of September worldwide, even though, as I mentioned, the iPhone hasn't even come out here yet. But whatever. It's basically the iPhone without the phone, which is pretty much what I wanted anyway. My current phone is fine, though I could do with email, but if I do decide to upgrade it, this new iPod allows me to splurge on two unnecessary high-tech gadgets instead of just one. Thank you, capitalism!

I'm sure you, like me, have spent hours gazing at it in rapt admiration, but nevertheless, the money shot:


Now available for Christmas or birthdays that are coming up a mere week after the release date.