As mentioned in my admittedly lengthy Zune review, I’ve been an iPod guy for a while. Long enough for my original 4G iPod’s 20GB hard drive to go kaput a few months back. But would any professed technology geek settle for using Apple’s free recycling service? Heck, no!

Not when we can rebuilt it. Better, stronger, faster.

So I read this Instructables article and subsequently ordered a Transcend 16GB Compact Flash card and a CF-to-1.8 inch drive adapter (the former from Newegg, the latter from what I’m sure is a perfectly reputable Chinese retailer).

Some benefits of switching to Flash-based memory:

• Faster read and write times
• Less prone to shock-based damage due to the lack of moving parts
• More energy efficient for extended battery life
• Lighter

The only negative points are capacity and price, but losing only 4GB of the device’s original capacity for about fifty dollars seemed reasonable to me. That’s roughly $150 cheaper than buying a Flash-based Nano of the same capacity (though without snazzy new features like video).

The aforelinked article proved helpful and largely correct, with two small caveats:

• Opening the device is the most difficult step. Despite recommendations to use special tools and guitar picks, no plastic tool I tried would work before its edges would soften. I eventually had to use a pocket knife, which did a fine job but left a few minor marks from false starts on the iPod’s seam.
• The jumper on the adapter was very slightly too tall, resulting in a black spot on the LCD screen from the pressure it applied when closed. I bent the jumper with a pair of pliers to solve the problem.

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Statement: Apple’s iPod was the first MP3 player.

Clarification: That’s a lie. The device was preceded by at least the MPMan, Rio PMP300 and Compaq PJB-100. But in the minds of iPod’s vast audience, who have consumed over 173 million of them so far, it might as well be true.

The fourth generation iPod was my first MP3 player. Until this week I had never bothered with anything else. Apple architected an experience smooth enough to insure I needn’t allow my gaze to meet that of another brand. For years this relationship sustained itself, until the iPhone. More specifically, its App Store.

I, like many designers and developers, have a flaw quirk. Whenever I see something cool that has a perceptible process of creation, I have to toy around with it. Before the App Store, Apple’s devices had always been fenced-in. With the introduction of an SDK that nearly anyone could interact with, my critical designer’s eye suddenly began to analyze the form and function of my mobile application experience. Then Apple’s own design. Then the very foundations of what makes a digital media player usable at all.

In short, it forced me to be objective. But true objectivity is not born from blind devotion to any one company or product. There had to be something else, right? Sure, the iPod comprises a gajillion percent of the MP3 player market. But allowing that daunting statistic to influence the scope of my device usage would be to defy the lessons I learned from the Sega Dreamcast and Neo Geo Pocket Color. Both systems had their butts handed to them by market leaders (PlayStation 2 and the Game Boy Advance, respectively) but both were also really, really great.

It had to exist: a media player with a cohesive experience not requiring mountains of technical know-how to set up. A player with a distinctive presence not derived solely from Apple’s design aesthetic. It had to be good. It had to be small.

It had to not suck.

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It is an anomaly among artists and designers to use anything but a Mac. And yet, I have somehow resisted. I own and enjoy the standard-issue iPhone and iPod, but no Apple computer has yet to gently (but forcibly) grace the contents of my wallet.

I happily work in Windows XP and Windows 7, the former augmented with a number of extensions but largely intact. It’s not that I don’t acknowledge that Mac OS X is more usable and elegant in most respects (especially in comparison to XP), it’s just that I know Windows well enough to anticipate and circumnavigate its quirks without precognition. When I’m knee-deep in my zen-like state of creative flow, designing with amazing tools like Adobe’s Creative Suite or programming in capable editors like Notepad++ or Textmate, the operating system is strangely incidental. Truth be told, application compatibility is really the only thing keeping me from ditching commercial experiences altogether and embracing Ubuntu one hundred percent.

There exists one caveat in my previous statement. While certain projects have required that I use a Mac for small stretches of time, I had never been given the opportunity to experience one as my primary machine. This changed when I started at McAfee, where each talented designer is equipped with a shiny Macbook Pro.

The emotional attachment Apple fosters between their products and consumers is fascinating. Never have I seen so many otherwise frugal individuals gratefully fork over piles of cash for what are, with the exception of the top-tier Mac and Macbook Pro, modestly powered machines. It is a testament to their brand that even after paying a hefty premium for their devices (and doubtlessly for adapters, peripherals and AppleCare plans), these consumers defend the company with a level of fervor typically reserved for political and religious discussion. Merely expressing curiosity as to the pros and cons of the Zune experience on Twitter resulted in no less than five individuals mocking the competing device without owning one themselves.

To those of us who use (and largely enjoy) Windows and Linux, this relationship appears undeniably parasitic. The only explanation is that the Apple experience is so overwhelmingly amazing, so above-and-beyond anything competitors could possibly attempt, that it manages to counterbalance the money and energy we shower it with.

While I will never understand complete and total brand zealots (especially designers, who without objectivity will predictably mimic their idols), after three months with the device I’m finally beginning to see what sets Apple apart. Simply put, my Macbook Pro is a joy to use.

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…but that doesn’t mean that news is.

Monday’s episode of The Daily Show featured an interview with Walter Isaacson, the managing editor of TIME magazine and president of the Aspen Institute. He talked about his recent cover story for TIME and, specifically, what print has to offer that the internet doesn’t. I’d cite the original article, but I don’t subscribe to magazines anymore. Have a look:

Authors and editors in traditional media seem to possess a habitual dearth of perspective when it comes to the Internet. Isaacson seems like an extremely intelligent and qualified guy, but he’s fallen pray to that same lack of objectivity.

Newspapers are really a type of content delivery. Many people buy these publications for only one or two items therein (“Hand me the Sports section.”). The reason circulation is dropping is because, as a method of content delivery, any one newspaper is essentially competing with the entire Internet. Why buy a large stack of dirty newsprint for a few pages of classified ads when you can browse all of Craigslist for free?

Without auxiliary content like classified ads and comics to support it, news has to prove its worth on its own. Opinion and investigatory pieces do a fairly good job of this; it’s obvious to many consumers that the execution of the work is unique to the content creator and, as a result, of value. More expository, journalistic reporting is less quantifiable because, when executed correctly, it is the mere expression of facts. I would guess that most Americans feel we have an innate right to hear the truth. Ergo, we regard factual statements, without direct ownership owed to any one content creator, as a public service.

Isaacson defends the value of news by comparing it to music on the iTunes store. If songs cost 99¢, why not news articles? This argument rings of absurdity. The world didn’t join hands one day and decide in perfect unison that music was worth money, they were given a reason to buy. Here’s how Apple did that:

• They solved the problem of how the audience enjoys music. Instead of chaining users to their PCs, they created the iPod.
• They established the iTunes store and closely integrated it with the device, making the process of purchasing music for the iPod easier and quicker than buying a CD.

Saying that print media can spontaneously convince the public of its innate value is like saying Apple would have been just as successful skinning Napster and adding a shopping cart. Isaacson bemoans the experience of reading publications on a computer monitor versus “in the backyard” as if portability is an experience unique to print. Apple had to overcome that hurdle; why shouldn’t everyone else be forced to do the same?