iPod Nano
I was an avid user of the BlackBerry Pearl. I bought lots of accessories for it and even purchased an extra MicroSD card so I could use the phone’s mp3 player while on transit. But, because RIM is run by a bunch of orangutans, my BB was equipped with a micro jack which in turn meant I had to trudge out to one of those cheap electronic stores on Yonge street to pick up a 4” long cable adapter that allowed me plug in my headphones. What a load of bullshit.
Two things happened. The first is that the adapter didn’t work. The second is that I inherited my very first Apple product. I was awarded this 2nd generation iPod Nano for beta testing e-mail security software. Weird, I know. Before it was accepted that government bureaucrats scanning your e-mails while sipping a chai latte was the norm, there was a desire (however naïve) to encrypt communication. I tested an add-on for Outlook, wrote up some notes and I scored an mp3 player.
Back to Yonge street. Obviously, those electronic stores are run by wheedling crooks, so a refund for the adapter was not forthcoming. But they did give me store credit. A three-minute scan yielded the only thing in the store worth picking up: a black iPod Nano case from Speck Products I didn’t expect much, but this thing is killer. I could literally throw my sheathed iPod at a moving vehicle and it would bounce back unscathed. With my new iPod in tow, I effectively abandoned RIM for my portable music needs.