At that time, I wondered why people would want to download only certain songs and not own the entire album. "I want the artwork, I want the entire package," was my answer when asked why I wasn't interested jumping on the MP3 bandwagon. I didn't care that sometimes my portable CD player skipped when I would jog, or that CDs would get scratched from time to time. I could hold it in my hands!
When I graduated college, I got job in Los Angeles. I packed up my car, and I kid you not, the entire back seat of my car was full of nothing but boxes of CDs.
Shortly after moving, Apple released the iPod Shuffle. All of a sudden, I was interested in MP3s. This music player was affordable for someone like me. After all, my rent was high and my salary was low. I didn't have a lot of expendable income, but i could afford $70 for a small music player. I started talking to every computer person I knew about MP3s, "is the music quality really that good?"
Well, I decided to buy the iPod Shuffle, and I immediately started loading my entire music library into my computer. The sound quality was excellent and any song I wanted to listen to was only a click away. I sold my CD collection. Then several months later, when I moved Miami, I had far fewer boxes because my entire music library was in one external hard drive.
This little device seriously changed the way I looked at the computer. For years, my computer was just a device I used to get my homework done, but now it became the center of my digital universe. I would turn the TV on while I watched my computer. I would browse the web for new music and other forms of entertainment. I used my computer for literally everything.
Allowing people to carry their music, and now TV shows and movies, in their pocket helped turn the computer into the modern day fireplace companion.
In some ways, you can say that Steve Jobs helped bring us into the future. He turned what we never thought we would want into something we couldn't live without. For me, that was having my favorite songs with me wherever I go.
