This weekend I fulfilled a long standing obligation to give
a talk and appear on a panel in Glasgow University, grandly entitled “New Media
Technology and the Older Generation”. I was there to extol the virtues, and to
some degree defend Apple products whilst there were aficionados of Kindle,
Nokia, Blackberry etc. on the panel as well.
The session raised a couple of interesting questions, not
least of which was “What constitutes the older generation”, especially when
talking about New Media. As I looked out over the assembled audience it was
clear that the age group ranged from forty something’s up to about late sixties
early seventies, which was encouraging. I myself am fifty-five and according to
my kids firmly ensconced in the older generation bracket. My mind is still
young. I listen to Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, play with technology watch all
the new movies, but at times the body forgets and the hips hurt, the old knee
folds under me at random moments, and I a’int gonna run the 100 metres in Olympic
qualifying time again.
Another point, especially for the big guy in the second row
is that I am not anti- Bill Gates and Microsoft. If you are reading this I am
writing it on a Dell Laptop, running Windows 7 and MS Office 2010, so there.
A lot of the great questions and points that were raised focussed
around iTunes and how good, bad or indifferent it was, peoples experiences with
it, and sometimes distrust or fear of the software, and that got me to thinking
about my personal experiences with it.
I first played with it back in late 2001 when it was only a
music player and to be fair I hated it. It couldn’t even burn a CD, for which I
used a product called Nero. Should point out that I didn’t have any i-devices
at the time. I was living and working in Finland and the cost of a First
Generation iPod equated pretty much to the debt of a small third world country.
My mother, whose experiences have graced my columns many
times in the past, called me one day to say she had bought a new music player
which turned out to be an iPod Classic. At this point I should slip in an
apology to my mom. I refer to her as my 83 year old mother, but she pointed out
to me in no uncertain terms recently that she is indeed, only 80 so I am sorry.
Over I went and showed her how to download the latest
version of iTunes, which by that point had added a whole load of new
functionality. She plugged in her new toy and I think she was quite impressed
by the ease of which it recognised the device and carried out the initial
set-up. I got her to put her favourite Eric Clapton CD into the PC and we
worked out how to digitise it and sync it onto the iPod. It was interesting to
see the amazement followed by the satisfaction at the ease with which this was
all done. By the time I left for home she had burned 14 of her CD’s, backed up
her library, was showing how it worked to my Dad, and after opening an account
with the iTunes Store was searching for possible new downloads to add to her
collection.
The next time I visited she had burned all of her CD
collection into iTunes, had most of them on her iPod and was using the PC to
play songs whilst she pottered about the house. I was impressed! Nowadays, three years on she has an iPad and
Apple TV and uses iTunes for everything. She gets her episodes of CSI:NY and
Criminal Minds when she wants them and either streams them to the TV or watches
on her iPad, she gets her ‘Woman’s Weekly’ magazine delivered via iTunes to her
iPad, has used iTunes to buy a couple of talking books, and is now the font of
iTunes knowledge to all the grandkids in that area of Scotland.
I wish I had invited her to the talk to explain her use of
iTunes to the assembled masses. She is now looking at Podcasts and getting
films via iTunes onto her iPad but that is for another day.
One of the main problems with iTunes is the name, and that
came across at the discussion group quite clearly. It should really be called
i-Media or something, but unfortunately Packard-Bell got that name for a range
of PC’s.
Growing up in the sixties, my house was always full of
music. We had an old Dansette Tempo record player and would alternate between Moms
choice of Beatles, Elvis, Dylan and such like and Dad’s choice of Sinatra, Ella
Fitzgerald and Mel Torme, with a healthy sprinkling of jazz in between. Our house
was full of Long Playing vinyl discs, cassette tapes and as I grew up video
tapes, mini disks and CD’s.
She has now put them all in the attic. She gave me a great
tour around her iTunes structure and it was an eye opener, especially when she
started showing me the family photos that she had imported. Nowadays I use Apple products across the board
but have learned a few things from her about filing and finding my media using
iTunes and how and when to sync with my various devices.
She tells me that her latest toy is a record player that
converts vinyl to MP3, so she can get her old albums onto iTunes. Ella
Fitzgerald will be heard in the house once again.
Yes we both agree that iTunes has some deficiencies. All
software programmes do, and considering that iTunes is free most of the
deficiencies are surmountable, and Apple work to improve it regularly.
There
are also a number of, usually free 3rd party Apps that enhance the
iTunes ‘usability’ for converting different media formats to work with iTunes,
and the fact that you can only sync your device with one iTunes library can be
difficult, especially when you upgrade or break your PC or Mac, but overall the
experience is good and most importantly easy to learn, get to grips with and
make work for you.
My eighty year old (yes mom I got it right this time) mother
can’t be wrong!
