Pod ina Soc --- Third time's a charm

My friend Andrew got a 20Gig iPod this week (and some iPod socks as you can see). He bought direct from Apple and had it engraved, and when you do that they give you a tracking number so you can watch it coming over to you. He watched as it left China and landed in Alaska, then on to the lower 50, and then to his door step (which he saw here at work much to his dismay, because he wasn't home to accept delivery obviously).

This is actually Andrew's third iPod. He's had a bit of a rocky history with the little machine. The first one he got must have had some sort of problem or he wasn't doing something right, because he said the sound quality was upsetting to him and the battery life was dismal. So he sold it on eBay. He never got any complaints, which is good, because he's not one who would knowingly saddle an individual with a broken gadget.

But when he sold it he was wise---you see, he didn't just sell the whole thing as a package. He sold each component separately (headphones, unit, dock) and as a result he got more back after his sales than he paid for it originally! Apparently there is an under-exploited iPod parts market out there and he benefited from it.

Then later on he reconsidered and decided that this first experience wasn't typical, so wanted to give the iPod a second swing –so he got another one. But it wasn’t long in his possession either. This time I think it was buyer’s remorse---he started to question whether this investment was worth it. Did it really enhance his listening experience $300 worth? Well, it looks like he decided in the negative because it was back to eBay --and another profit as it turned out.

I was telling him that he'd stumbled onto something here. He wasn't making a ton of money, but pull this off with 10 of the things and he'd have a free iPod, essentially. He didn’t jump on that idea though.

But, third times a charm. He's now got his cozy little iPod number three and he's quite happy with it this time. And it's engraved so he can't return it, and that would probably make it a little more difficult to sell (maybe not, who knows). He's warming up to the joys of the shuffle function this time too. Previous to this, he was an entire-CD-play-through man, which added to the perceived lack of value with the iPod #2.

He's also augmented his player nicely with a set of Bose Triport headphones. He brought them to work to give me a listen, and, dude, those things are brilliant. A company that makes products as beautiful as Bose is a perfect complement to an Apple product. Had me drooling a bit, I must confess.

So now Andrew is a Pod People too.

Andrew: happy new iPod daddy!