death of an ipod

Apple is a master at planned obsolescence. My iPod crashed two days ago, on my way home from work. It was hooked up via cassette adapter to the car radio.

Went to the Apple Store today to just get it checked out. The Mac Genius said the hard drive's dead. They'll give me 10% off a new one if I recycle through them, or see if I can Google a $50 repair job.

Funny thing is, the CD player in my car started to skip around the time I got this iPod at the end of July 2004. So the iPod kept me company and entertained all that time driving, also while working out, and walking to and from classes. And now that I have an iPhone, the iPod goes. I also just got Roomie the new iPod Touch for a birthday gift two weeks ago. We'll see how long that one lasts.

"Planned obsolescence is the enemy," as one of my classmates in a Design and Industry history class declared in her paper. So true, so true. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and the like make billions off of this. The laptop I type this blog on started having major issues almost three years after the purchase date. Three years I guess is the magic number. Three quick years worth hundreds or thousands of dollars to people like me, and maybe you ;)