This past December 23rd, I parked my car in my garage and got to getting ready for Christmas Eve (a Sunday). Well, we had too much joy in our hearts that night. We left the garage door open and thieves came into the garage and robbed my car of its most important items. A sliver BMW 325i looks much better than a GMC truck and Dodge van if you want cool stuff. They stole a mobile phone (which I've written about in past posts), the remote for my Tom Tom (also written about), the keys to my bank lockbox (damn), my class ring (sure, that was in '79, but I had taken it out of the lockbox to show my 11th grader) and much much more. OK, the real big one in that much much more was my iPod. They stole my 3 year old iPod Photo. It was the 40GB model and worked great. I had it nearly filled too. For some reason, they didn't go into my trunk where I kept the VERY expensive Callaway golf clubs. Stupid thieves.
Now, I cannot do without my iPod. And that 30GB Zune I bought on Black Friday at Fry's is nice. But, it has less space then my old iPod. So, that Sunday, I filed a police report and drove over to the Apple store by my house. You can
imagine an Apple store on Christmas Eve. Packed! I bought a silver 160GB iPod Classic. WOW. It's thin, solid and pretty. It plays videos too. Most interesting though is how I'm going to fill it up. I've started downloading as many video podcasts as I can. I have 2TB of extra storage space attached to the Mac in my home office. So, I'm going to download as my podcasts as I can, especially those with video.
But, now I am very paranoid. I don't let any of my electronics out of my sight. I keep the garage door down. I don't leave my briefcase in my car. This stinks. I live in a nice house in a nice area and we are all buying guns, monitoring cameras, sensors that ensure our garage doors are down. This is insane. The police are helping. But, most of the robberies are by yuppie kids living in our neighborhoods. Who wants to arrest or shoot a friend's kid? Nobody I know. So far, the kids that have been caught have been turned in by their own parents. There is hope!
Back to the iPod. It is great. BUT, the Zune is nice too. I'm also amazed that many of my Mac and iPod fanatic friends and also open to Zune. Sooooooo, why the heck isn't Microsoft taking advantage of this? My kids prefer the Xbox 360 over the Sony PS3 and Wii. Again, Microsoft should seize the moment, but they're not. There so much more we'd all like to do with our Xbox. We'd like to use it like a Tivo as it is attached to our TV. As for the Zune, Microsoft should make the Zune software available on OS X. I could then update both devices with my Apple notebook. There should be cool Microsoft kiosks (like the ones Dell has) that sell Windows Mobile Phones (improved of course) and Zunes (and Xbox 360s). Microsoft should advertise more loudly that one of their jewels, Office, runs on OS X. You don't see Apple hiding from WIndows (iTunes and Safari). And if anyone doubts Apple's strength, look at their stock price ($159) and computer market share (now over 8% and the 3rd largest make in the U.S. behind Dell and HP). It may make sense for Microsoft to take advantage of Apple's strength while at the same time gaining more understanding of what they can do to improve Vista, Zune, Windows Mobile and Xbox.
My new BMW 328i arrives at their Performance Center in Greenville, SC on January 31. I've added the iPod adapter this time. When my iPod is attached, the stereo can read, play and display my iPod contents. I can't wait. Too bad though that Microsoft hasn't arranged such a capability with the Zune. I wish too that BMW would allow me to display videos through onto the dash (of course when going less than 5 mph.) And more, BMW doesn't allow you to lock the console where the iPod sits. I need to hold a product council for all people that make stuff for me and tell them how to build good stuff, tie it all together and make me happy. And safe.
