I didn’t intend for anybody to take it as a personal attack on their view of the world. Apologies if that is how it came off.

Now if I were 12 years old and still had to sit in the back seat of my parents’ car while they listened to “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” or whatever, I’m sure I’d want one just as badly as I wanted a cassette playing Walkman back then, but I have not owned any sort of portable entertainment device since I was in high school and cannot fathom spending $400 on what is essentially a disposable battery drainer just because Moby and that fat guy from Smashmouth nobody remembers said they were cool once.

It’s been my experience that many of the people who insist upon making random strangers watch them listen to music while they act aloof are actually incredibly insecure and struggling to socialize in a completely backward manner–like they secretly hope some other mop-haired idiot with an off-center threadless t-shirt at the coffee shop will notice that they’re listening to the same “underground” crap the other one likes and strike up a conversation about it where both parties struggle to feign disinterest.

“Oh yeah… I guess I like their EARLY stuff… Whatever…”

“Yeah you should maybe like read my facebook I totally said the same thing to this one guy the other day.”

“Dude, totally.”

“Let’s organize an internet pillow fight.”

Now you can argue that this is a generational thing and I’m just too old to know what’s cool anymore, but this kind of idiocy transcends generations, and frankly, I never knew what was cool at any point in my life. Plus it’s not exactly safe to go walking around on busy city streets with your ears plugged up.

1,000 books in my pocket? But, I can only read one of them at a time, and it’s not the same, etc. etc. The main actual hurdle at this point is readability on an LCD, but Kindle owners I know say the screen is fantastic (and the book selection sucks).

Dear Apple, please come out with an awesome eBook reader. Thanks, Colin.

I get what you’re saying about contentedness being tied to what is known possible, but let’s face it, humans are gifted with the ability to imagine the impossible. And what makes any one of us happier and more satisfied with the world is not necessarily the same as what makes some other person happy.

Your cell phone example is good, because I “barely” have a cell phone. My friends rib me for not having an iPhone, but cell phones are not important to me. So I have this cheap $20 pay-as-you-go phone, and I’m happy with it, because it fulfills this extremely rare “calls on the go” need that I have.

I think it’s a bit too academic to dismiss life-improving innovation as merely novelty. Granted innovation can have its down sides, but when you look at some “couldn’t live without it” innovations such as a law-enforcing society, running water, or antibiotics, it becomes a lot less simple to dismiss them as novelties we were perfectly happy without. We may have been, but that doesn’t mean we’re not better off now than we were.

Your argument seems based upon an anachronistic point of view. We don’t have absolute needs awaiting for fulfilment - like, nobody decades ago felt the need for something like the iPod. Instead, our needs come in some sort of a system : satisfaction is pretty relative to what we think is possible. When something new happens, it challenges our view, the system we live in, and we can choose to embrace novelty. But after choosing to do so, when we look back, we basically say “how could I live this way, really ?” Which is stupid : definitely we could. But we’ve changed.

I see that with people who have chosen not to have cell phones. They are perfectly happy this way. They don’t need what they don’t know (their entourage gets easily mad at them, though). Yet when they “switch”, they all cry “how could I live without one ?” And indeed, switching is easy but switching back is not.

My point is : you can’t be said to be happier or “more optimal” with an iPod, as long as there’s no such thing as “carrying *all* your music with you” on your radar. Of course people who don’t want an iPod are not wrong. They sure don’t get the iPod. But they don’t have to. Maybe they get something else.

Where I agree with you, though, is about what you consider innovation to be. Definitely, innovation is about creating something so challenging to your previous perspective, yet so natural, that everything, all your day-to-day life is subtly modified by the new device. Then you get the illusion that life wasn’t possible without. It is a strong illusion, and a pleasant one.

I think for a lot of people, poor experiences with other MP3 players + iTunes = faith that Apple had something special.