Five Years of iPod

The iPod celebrates its 5th birthday as it shifts toward the next generation of consumer with video and the Nano.

It's been five years that we have had the iPod, one of the first portable music players. Oh, yes we did have the mini cassette player but that was limited to usually 60 minutes of music and getting music onto it was not an easy trick. And yes, we did have the transistor radio before that with it's static and antique monophone earpiece. But the iPod started a wave of people being able to download their music from their CDs to their computer then to their portable music device.

The iPod gave us the ability to take our music with us and not just a few songs buy full libraries of songs, and the sound is perfected so that when you plug in and put on the right headphones, you receive music quality as if you were in concert at the time. Now we see the emergence of the iPod Nano and the Video iPods. The video is really for today's generation allowing users to carry music and video with them. Now I don't know many who would want to watch a full-length feature film on that ultra-small screen but it is great for music videos.

But the iPod Nano really is for today as it now comes in a variety of colors and styles. The silver Nano for example comes in 2 and 4 GB models and the black one even comes in 8 GB. And sinve the weight of the Nano makes it even more portable, (about 40 grams), you are now able to take your music everywhere. How many times have we seen someone taking their music with them while jogging or during other solo activities? It's the right gadget for the job. And with a battery life of about 90 minutes makes it work for just about any of these activities.

Either way you go, there is more music and video to-go and more of us on the go, this is a great tool to keep up entertained while on the go. But now we are seeing other companies like Microsoft's Zune start edging into the business. Will the iPod keep it's crown? Only time will tell. I for one hope that competition keeps Apple's iPod on its toes and that we more choice of where to get our music and videos other than only on iTunes.