It started off innocently enough. A stolen glance. The hint of a smile. A flutter deep within my core.

Oh, you like music too? I love music!

And then it just grew from there… hours spent together… listening intently… cataloging, organizing, renaming…  music, movies, podcasts.. and more! 

What’s this now?  You have your very own store!? 

I was in love!

Prepaid cards, I bought.  More music, I sought.

Sync me, love.          

I was fortunate enough that a couple of people realized that iTunes cards were a great gift idea for Christmas, and I’ve been able to go on a bit of a shopping spree.  Then I saw something that I hadn’t seen before… Walmart selling prepaid iTunes card for less than their face value?!  A $25 iTunes card for $20?  What’s up with that?  That must have been a sale, because I haven’t seen that since.  Too bad.  I need to stock up!

I never thought that I’d get as much use out of a piece of software as I have iTunes.  Is it perfect?  No… but what it does, it does extremely well. 

Tablet PCs have been around for a few  years.  Know anyone who actually owns one?  Me neither.  How about someone who’s even seen one?  Nope, pas moi.  I’ve never really been sure what they were intended for.  Sure, there might be some specialized uses for them.  I think that they’d be great for hospitals, maybe even certain factory situations.  But for everyone else… what’s the point?  Without a keyboard, data entry would be painful, right?

Well that was before the rise in popularity of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, with their fancy touch screens.  Yeah, they didn’t come up with the touch screen, but they seem to be the ones who get credit for making it cool. 

So will Apple breathe life into a product that essentially has limited mass-appeal?  Will slapping an Apple logo on something that no one seemed to want when it ran Windows suddenly make people want to own one?  I’m not overly excited about it.  I’m even less excited by the name.  iPad?  Umm…  really?  Is that the best you could do, Apple?  Am I the only one who thinks that name is a more than a little silly?  It brings to mind an image that is anything but hi-tech.

Only time will tell whether the iPad takes off.  Someday I’d love to hear from someone who’s actually held one of these things in their hands.

It’s hard to read anything about Apple’s recent annual product showcase, without going through the part about Steve Jobs’ return from “the dead” (aka a liver transplant).  Obviously some people want to focus on that. 

Not me.  I want to ramble about the iPods.

It’s no secret.  I love my iPod.  I was a little late getting to the party, but when I finally arrived, I fell in love.  There’s always room for improvement, though, and what’s once new is soon old.  What I’m trying to say is that it’s about time for an upgrade.

So I’m looking at some of the highlights for the new iPod Nano.  I don’t see myself really interested in one of the larger Classics.  160GB just isn’t right for me.  I don’t need that much media on my person.  I have a hard drive hooked up to my TV for that.  Enough of the Classic.  Back to the Nano.

The new Nano goes for $149US for 8GB and $179US for 16GB, which hopefully means I’ll be paying pretty close to that, given the recent strength of the Loonie again.  It seems that Apple finally decided to add the illusive FM radio tuner to their popular player.  I never could understand why it wasn’t included already.  It just seemed to make sense, even if it wasn’t something that people would use all the time.  And now, you can even live-pause songs and tag them through iTunes.  Quite interesting!

They’ve also added a microphone and pedometer.  The pedometer is a no brainer.  I had never thought of it before (probably because I have no desire to know how many steps I’ve taken at any given point) but I can definitely see why some people would like this.  It even comes with software by Nike, which keeps track of your workouts.  Yeah, like I need that. The microphone is a little harder for some people to wrap their brain around, but I’m one of those people who has actually used their cellphone mic  to record quick notes and random thoughts.  And I’ve even looked into buying a digital voice recorder to keep with me for those rare flashes of brilliance where I can’t write the thought down for whatever reason.  They seem to be pretty expensive for some reason, so I haven’t taken it any further than that. 

But the most interesting item was the addition of a built-in video camera.  That certainly adds some power to this little device.  It doesn’t take still photos, though.  And I got to thinking… I seem to remember a sign posted at the gym that frowned upon cellphones, particularly in locker rooms.  How are they going to fare with iPods?  When I look around, I see iPods everywhere.  I’m sure that it won’t take long before I start seeing lawsuits in the news.

All in all, I’m pretty psyched to see the new line-up from Apple.  Try as I may, though, I can’t seem to kill my current one, and hate to spend the money on something new when I have a perfectly good one still. (that I am listening to as I type this)

Christmas is coming. I think I’ll tell Santa that I’ve been good this year…