When is an iPod not an iPod?

When it’s not an iPod.

Living out in the bush (that’s Australian for anywhere outside of the big-smoke), Apple’s existence seems to be somewhat different. My nearest Mac retailer is nearly three hours away; we don’t get “Get a Mac” ads on TV; and I only just recently encountered my first “halo switcher”—albeit, she was visiting from the big-smoke.

If it wasn’t for the internet I’d hardly know Macs still existed.

Although, I’d still know about Apple because, even out here, the iPod is prolific.

But with that popularity comes a curse. It happened to Google, to Powerpoint, to the Walkman, and now to the iPod. Nowadays, we google the internet and get told our Keynote presentations are great powerpoints.

For the older folks among us who remember CP/M, the first space shuttle flight, Apple ][ and “Another Brick in the Wall,” you’d also remember the Walkman. And I bet even today you still refer to any hip-worn portable tape player as a walkman.

Everyone I knew called them walkmans. How long before the same happens to iPods? How long before MP3 players become ipods? Just like Google can’t stop people googling on Yahoo, Apple is not going to be able to stop people from buying Samsung ipods, or worse still, salesmen from selling them.

With the rise and rise and rise of iPods, I’ve waited for this to happen to the iPod. (It probably happened sooner in the cities.) I had encountered people who didn’t own MP3 players who were confused and thought iPod was a generic name for MP3 players, but just after Christmas I encountered my first person who still thought that way despite owning non-iPod MP3 players.

While getting my haircut, conversation turned to Christmas presents. My hairdresser—knowing I’m a bit of tech head—gleefully proclaimed her entry into the 21st century: “I got an iPod for Christmas!”

Further conversation revealed she’d gotten two. But then I didn’t get the right answers to my questions. The products she described didn’t sound like any iPods I knew. “One’s a Samsung,” says she. “I don’t what the other is.”

Is it my place to tell my hairdresser that she got an inferior product? Is it my place to tell a woman holding razor-sharp scissors centimeters from my ears that her “iPod” is probably a crap-pod? No. I decided the Van Gogh hairstyle didn’t appeal. Around here, we call a haircut “getting your ears lowered” but I wasn’t keen on pushing that metaphor!

And anyway, she’ll work it out for herself. She’s already having problems. Specifically how to get music onto it. Ahhh, but who really needs music on their MP3 player?

The concern of course is that, as she has more and more problems, she might start telling other people “I’ve got two iPods and neither works properly.” I should have said something I guess, but she was so excited, I hated to disappoint her. And they were really sharp scissors.

I should tell her to sell them both on eBay and get a real iPod, but I’ll wait until they’ve gathered a little dust, and she has no sharp objects in her hand.

So, if you want your friends, family, and acquaintances to buy an iPod, not an ipod, you might need to remind them a bit more often that there is a difference. Otherwise you might find yourself having to try to stop them from telling everyone that iPods are crap. So start telling them now: “Get a real iPod.”