I have just spent a couple of days encoding my favourite music CDs (my personal collection) into MP3 format using Apple's iTunes software. It is quite amazing: I have reduced a whole shelf of discs into a directory on my laptop (not even filling the hard disc!): I can now carry all the music I enjoy (Joshua Redman, John Coltrane, Cecilia Bartoli, Renée Fleming, Nathalie Dessay...) and experience it in a new way, particularly with random play accross many genres, and many many discs (my home CD player only allows for 5 discs)...
However this inspires me a lot of thoughts:
- I am now carrying my musical environment wherever I go: will it change how I consume music, ie. will I listen less to other sources of entertainment and limit my experience of new music ?
- will I grant more value to discs that I seldomed listened before because of too much hassle (it involved going to the living room, choosing from a few hundred discs...), ie is this a novel way to sustain prices and promotion for the disc industry, because the overall experience of owning a disc is better ?
- finally, I don't own an iPod and probably won't (it's still bulky, and the white design is rather ugly to my taste. The FM transmitter feature however is just great, and it might be the only reason for me to buy one). Why ? because I already carry my laptop with me all over the place. You will say so why do I do on the move ? hey! why would I want another extra device in my pocket with my mobile phone and PDA ? Did you know the iPod is already a PDA ? It is only a matter of time before it gets a color screen and a wifi connection like PalmOne's Tungsten T3 (slick design ;).
Don't you think that the real iPod of the future will be the mobile phone, or whatever mobile portable multimedia device we choose to become the PDA + phone + entertainment center + game console + camera/video ?
The SonyEricsson P900 is one such candidate I believe. Wait until such devices becomes mainstream.
Thoughts ?
