My wife and I got an iPod Shuffle for Christmas.

The item has quickly morphed into "my wife's iPod."  She connected it to her computer, and has been downloading music from iTunes and collecting music from our CD collection ever since.

I must say, it's a slick little device.  About the size of a large coat button, the Shuffle is the smallest iPod, having no screen.  It simply plays, in random order, music you download to it.  It recharges while connected to your USB, so you recharge while you download/upload.  The Shuffle remembers the last songs played, so even though the order is random, if you want you can go back and replay songs you recently heard.

In fact, unless you want a way to play a specific song from your collection, there's really no need for a screen.  For most listeners, then, the Shuffle is fine.  The sound is great, and the few controls feel like there's some quality there.  I'm considering getting one for myself, but for now, I'll probably stick to my old, now-clunky-looking nex/IA mp3 player.

iTunes is interesting, too.  You download by the song, so you CAN get a whole album if you like, but in practice that rarely happens.

Some musicians have complained about this.  I can see their point--it cuts way down on the amount paid, and also prevents listeners from having the "deep cuts" in an album.  Imagine only getting "A Little Help from My Friends" and "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid" from Sgt. Pepper's.

On the other hand, I'm the kind of guy who likes very few songs well enough to want to own them.  90% of our CD collection was bought by my wife.  Yet there are a fair number of individual songs I would love to have.  That wasn't possible under the old way of doing things.  Sure, you could buy (for a short while) a cassette or CD single, but it was a pain to listen to.  Even later, when you could then rip the CD single to your computer then upload it to your mp3 or a CDR, I rarely if ever did.  First of all, the cost was about 1/3 of a whole album for 1/15th the music, so I really had to want the song.  In fact, there was usually a "B side" cut I had zero interest in.  Second of all, this option only really became viable for the last decade or so at most.

So there must be plenty of folks out there, like me, who ask their wives to get a few specific songs for them, which puts money in the pockets of artists who certainly never would have gotten a dime from me before.

All in all, I can see why the iPod has become a phenomenon, and, for the first time, I can say I'm an enthusiastic fan of an Apple product.