Olympic Fantasy

I have this Olympic fantasy.

It's not what you may think.  I don't wonder about running the fastest race or swimming the speediest laps or diving the most perfect dive.  (Though daydreaming about standing on that podium is pretty real.)

It is a much simpler thought.  When athletes wait in their warm up gear far away from the crowds prior to competing, they are often seen with earbuds in place, listening to whatever psychs them up for their moment. Michael Phelps immediately comes to mind. And while I often ponder what they are listening to, it is secondary to a much bigger question, which is:

What device are they using?

Is it a phone? An iPod Shuffle, Nano, Classic, iTouch, or iPod 'something else?' Maybe another brand of MP3 player or perhaps some spiffier version of one that I don't know about? (A very real possibility.) 

I have been an iPod Classic girl for eight years and before that, an iPod Mini girl.  Yep, in the world of high tech options, this girl has happily stayed the outdated course.  

My beloved iPod Classic

There is so much to love about it.  The smooth click wheel advancing to many musical options, playlists of my own design, sorting music by genre, album, artist.  Being my own DJ to suit a mood, a running time, gardening time, sewing time, at work, or background music when cooking in the kitchen.  And with no interrupting ads.

So when my device stopped working, a google search for "iPod Classic Repair" reaped a result equivalent to Hamlet's lament, "To die, to sleep no more."   The Classic is no more. 

What?  

This is astonishing! Especially since it happened almost TWO YEARS ago. Pining about this to my music savvy oldest daughter, she took pity on me and emailed an article which both laments and appreciates the magical MP3 player.   In her "Ode to the iPod Classic," author Lindsay Zoladz (a millennial) captures the pure joy of the device and touches on the larger issue of choice.  

It seems the open ended choices offered by music streaming services can result in a feeling of inertia for the listener.  Sometimes too much is too much.  Zoladz offers what psychologist Barry Schwartz calls the "paradox of choice." He states that when we are presented with seemingly limitless choices, we struggle more than if the choices were limited. "Too much choice can leave us feeling paralyzed and anxiety-ridden and with so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all." Take that Apple Music and Tidal! 

My first iPod - a mini! 

Another surprising factoid is that, unlike Apple's premeditated obsolescence with its other products, the cessation of the Classic was a matter of fewer buyers and too much engineering.  CEO Tim Cook explained in the same article, "It wasn't a matter of me swinging the ax, saying 'what can I kill today?' The engineering work was massive and the number of people who wanted it, very small." 

A quick eBay search offers a glimpse into where the Classic resale market is right now. At the high end is a "collector's set" of three 1st generation devices never opened from their factory sealed packaging for the sum of $50,000!  On the low end, once you get past the sad junkyard of Classics being sold for parts, the cost varies by generation and storage.  A used 7th generation, 120GB lists for $228.00.  

I brought my device to the nearby Apple store to confer with a "genius" (oh that hyperbolic job description.) It felt like attending the wake of a doddering old uncle. Taking pity on me, the Apple employee did his best to let me down easy.  Sensing my pain, he set me up for a phone conference with another Apple tech person who could walk through how the device responded (or not) as it was connected to iTunes. Again, no juice. 

In a most sweet gesture, my daughter who admitted she remembers a time when she thought she'd never part with her Classic, has long moved on to a music streaming service and bestowed her device to me.  A fitting safety net for my iPod grief.  

For now, victory is mine and I feel like a gold medal winner.  Classic. 

Link to Barry Schwartz's 2005 TED Talk re: choice https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice?language=en

Link to "Ode to The iPod Classic:
https://theringer.com/an-ode-to-the-ipod-classic-629e89681c6e#.jsk8vyk06