Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Saturday, May 3, 2003

04:07 - And-a-one and-a-two and-a...

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Reseller chains' closing notwithstanding, there's still plenty to be happy about in Mac-land; this evening was the "iPod Live" in-store event, held in all the Apple Stores across the land at 6:00 PM.

Normally, these kinds of queues only form on the mornings of new store openings; but this one was in place right in the middle of the business day. (Marcus notes that it's a bit underhanded for Apple to decree that the new iPods are not to go on sale until 6:00; because they know most third-party resellers aren't open then, but the Apple Stores all are. So they get all the business from the first-adopter line-up-outside-the-door geek contingent, plus the happy money-spending people emerging from showings of X-Men 2.) They were still having to gate people into the store, and so I got to meet plenty of interesting people in line. Including two co-workers. Weird.

Here's some obligatory photo-muckraking:

The line snakes around to the left, around the escalator, down to Nordstrom and back.	View around the left.	Shirted employees were handing out sweepstakes entry forms, selling t-shirts ($10 a pop), showing off demo iPods, and leading the crowd in jingoistic cheers.
One of the flyer/entry forms.	A drug-inducedly cheerful line jockey demonstrates an iPod to a dour babushka.	Rounding the corner.
Here's what half of the new window display looks like-- lots of CD covers dangling in space.	A closer look.	The DJ inside, mixing MP3s from two bracket-mounted iPods into some very pretty JBL speakers (which you could win).

They didn't let us take photos inside the store-- I guess they're cracking down on that now-- but I got to ply some of the employees with probing questions about Apple's policies regarding DRM and about their handling of third-party resellers and such business practices. The woman I talked to said she used to work at the Corporate level, handling customer service case management; but she moved into retail because the people and the atmosphere were nicer. Go fig.

The new iPods are very slick; the biggest difference is how light they are. They feel like teeny little PDAs, now, not hefty pieces of milled metal. They're a good deal thinner, and the "hold" button is now tightly friction-bound and protrudes slightly. The control buttons, in their new layout, are all touch-sensitive; no moving parts in this version. The four little round buttons are all in slight recesses in the plastic facing, as is the scroll-wheel; the select button is slightly raised from the surrounding scroll-wheel (flush with the main body). I'm not too sure about the tactile feedback issue; now you have no way of knowing that the command you gave has been received, no reassuring "click" under your fingertip. Maybe it clicks if you turn the clicker on. I'm not sure. The new system has its upsides and downsides.

The backlight now fades in and out. Jesus God in a rumble seat.

I could have gotten a free t-shirt if I'd picked up a new iPod today; but a) I'm trying to save my money, and put it into things like furniture for the new house, not spend it on toys; and b) I'm realizing more and more that I won't be able to stomach parting with my trusty old 5-gig from the very first weekend. Yes, it's an emotional attachment. Shut up.

I'll get one eventually. But not today.

Anyway-- it's now been raining fairly continuously for almost a month; not the heavy, blanketing, ponderous rain that makes everything dreary and irritating, but sporadic showers mixed with bright blue skies and shafts of light beaming in between the cloud banks. Sunsets have been amazing lately. Every evening for some three weeks, the sky has been on fire.

This is that horrific miserable weather that Glenn Reynolds flew into. Y'know, I'll take this over boring cloudless sunlight any day.