Happy iBirthday!

My silver iPod Nano will be 5 years old this month. I don't remember the exact date that I got it. My husband bought it for me when he was in San Diego for his father's angioplasty in January 2007. It was a very nice surprise gift. An even bigger surprise is how long it has lasted. It must be because it has a flash drive inside instead of a hard drive. My husband, who's a software engineer, seemed to trust flash drives more than hard drives. At least he did when he bought my iPod. Before I got the iPod, I had an old Rio MP3 player that held a whopping 120 megabytes of music. I still have that MP3 player, which still works.

Even though my Nano was probably obsolete within a week of getting it, I love it. A couple of years ago one of my friends teased me about having such an old iPod (it was 2.5 years old at the time). It is still going strong after all this time, which is amazing for an electronic device with built-in obsolescence. The battery shows no signs of wearing out after five years. Between listening to music while running, working out in the gym, and skiing, plus listening to Russian language podcasts at work, it gets used just about every day.

My Nano has been my faithful workout companion on two continents and four countries. It has been to the USA, Germany, Austria, and Italy. My little iPod is also very hardy because it has been subjected to extreme temperatures. It has been with me while skiing when it was -15 C (4 F) and in the California desert when it was 40 C (104 F). It has been in all kinds of weather conditions from bright sunshine, rain, snow, sleet, and fog. Just last Friday it came with me while I ran in a snowstorm, tucked safely away in my fleece overshirt pocket. When the weather is wet, I put it into a Ziploc bag to keep it dry. The Nano has been to the top of Germany's highest mountain and at sea level in San Diego.

What I really like about my ancient Nano is its size. It fits nicely in one of the side pouches on my water bottle carrier. The drink carrier is also a relic, but that's another story. It also fits perfectly in the inside pocket of my ski jacket, running jacket, and fleece overshirts. The new Nanos hold 8 and 16 gigabytes and can do more things than mine. Mine "only" holds 2 gigabytes of information. The new Nano models look like they're the same size as my husband's Shuffle, which is a little too small for my taste. They also have a touch screen instead of a click wheel.  I like being able to navigate with the click wheel instead of touching the little screen to get to my music playlists or podcasts. The only feature that I don't like about my iPod is that the screen is small and I need reading glasses to see it clearly. But I can live with that. I don't need to see the screen while I'm running or skiing.

I'm sure that my Nano won't last another 5 years. But if it somehow does, it will be considered a classic instead of a relic. I intend for the Nano to be my workout partner until the day it dies. When I replace my iPod with whatever the latest model will be, I hope that it will last as long as my little Nano.