I have started hating Apple

This Saturday, I bought myself an iPod shuffle with the gift vouchers that I got from the office. I was very happy to have bought my first Apple product. I came home, excitedly unwrapped the cute little glass box that it came in.

The packing was excellent. There was a pair of earphones and the USB cable for charging/syncing the iPod. But there was no instruction manual or guides. Well, it must be really simple, I thought.

So, I plugged the iPod in to the computer. The nightmare began. First it wouldn’t get installed properly. Then, I tried transferring some songs with Winamp and Media Monkey. That didn’t work. Then I Googled to find out what was wrong.

I found that iTunes was a compulsory installation for syncing iPods. After that got downloaded, I had to restart my computer and then I still faced several problems before finally being able to transfer songs using Media Monkey. In between, I tried tried the support at Apple.com to find out that it didn’t offer live assistant support for iPod Shuffles! Fuck you, Apple!

I test drove it on the road today. The quality of sound was good, but the earphones tended to fall out of my ears. All in all, a perfectly annoying experience.

Going by this, I have to think twice before going for other products like iPhones, Macbooks etc.

My own R2-D2

I was at a rehearsal the other day. As usual, I had gone directly from work and I unloaded my stuff on my friend’s table. The stuff unloaded included my wallet, my mobile phone, my bag, and my mp3 player.

Yes, you heard right. An mp3 player. Not an iPod. That’s right. I don’t have an iPod. In fact, I have never had one. My mp3 player is so retro that one of my band mates came up to me and said “What is R2-D2 doing here?”

Coming to think of it, yes, my mp3 player (Creative Zen Micro) looks likes the famous Star Wars character. Here check out a comparison of the images of the two. A white rounded structure with blinking lights.

Unfortunately, my mp3 player is not as resourceful or evergreen as R2-D2. It’s giving me a whole lot of problems and I’ve been considering buying an iPod classic (or a similar player) for about a year now. Should I switch to Apple?

I feel I should. But I don't know when I will eventually do this.