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HOLD THE PHONES

Love your iPod? Better be ready to fight for it, if you live in New York City. [Link]

City students have become victims of a rash of vicious iPod muggings and a spike in larcenies at schools.

One South Brooklyn transit officer, who asked not to be identified, said his district has seen a near doubling of student iPod robberies on the subways in recent months.

Just last week, he said, a James Madison HS student took 44 stitches after being stabbed for his iPod on a Q train. At least three students at Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan recently reported getting jumped outside their school for iPods.

Inside schools, grand larcenies shot up 41 percent during the first two months of school over the same period last year, according to the mayor's management report released last week. Petit larceny jumped 16 percent.

Concerned with the crimes, South Brooklyn transit cops last week distributed fliers offering to engrave students' iPods and cellphones with ID numbers beginning today at John Dewey HS in Sheepshead Bay.

But police brass late yesterday put the kibosh on the initiative, which they had hoped to expand citywide, upon being told by the city Department of Education that the items are banned in schools because they're considered distracting.

Police said the white iPod headphones, which seem to be pumping tunes into the ears of every other youngster on the street these days, are alerting would-be thieves to the presence of the tiny but big-bucks music players.

This cracks me up. Why?

Because it screams of class envy all wrapped up in a well-packaged little device. And if Spencer [Link] is any indication, there is envy even within the iPod Nation:

The White Headphones are Mr. Suit's way of telling you that he is rich enough to buy a £300 to £400 hundred pound 40 gig hard-drive in a shiny box. As well as telling you and I that they are this rich, Mr.WhiteHeadphones also tell Mr. CrackHead that he is carrying at least a good nights session in his pocket and perhaps following him home under the dark railway-arch maybe worth getting out of his damp cardboard box for.

That, however, doesn't really bother me. I consider that natural selection. However, what really bothers me about Mr. WhiteHeadphones, is that he clearly knows NOTHING about sound. What The White Headphones really say to me is, "I've spent £400 on a state of the art digital music player. I have spent hours recording in AAC format to get CD quality sound. I will tell you and my friends at every available opportunity about my iPod. However, I am now listening to my music through the audio equivalent of feeling a woman's breast with a thick set of mittens on."

I can testify that these things are ubiquitous in Manhattan. On every sidewalk and in every subway car, people use these things to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. It's hilarious to see.

How ubiquitous? Khoi mapped out the 32 iPods he saw one day while walking to work the 17 blocks to 27th Street from the East Village. [Link]


And beyond being a magnet for muggers, apparently they're an annoyance on the job. At Microsoft, at least: [Link]

To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft's management, Apple Computer's iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft's workers.

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's pretty staggering."

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player -- that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft's corporate campus. "This irks the management team no end," said the source.

So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.

Of course, Microsoft's software is used by dozens of competing music players from manufacturers like Creative Technology, Rio and Sony. Its Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format is supported by several online music stores, including Napster, Musicmatch and Wal-Mart. Microsoft's PlaysForSure program markets this choice as a boon for consumers.

Nonetheless, Apple's iPod commands 65 percent of the portable player market, and its online iTunes Music Store 70 percent of online music sales, according to Apple.

"These guys are really quite scared," said the source of Microsoft's management. "It shows how their backs are against the wall.... Even though it's Microsoft, no one is interested in what we have to offer, even our own employees."

So concerned is management, owning an iPod at Microsoft is beginning to become impolitic, the manager said. Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair.

"Some people are a bit concerned about being traitors, not supporting the company," he said. "They're a bit stealth about it."

How "stealth" varies from division to division. At the company's Macintosh Business Unit, which publishes a wide range of software for the Mac, owning an iPod is almost de rigueur.

But at the Windows Digital Media Group, which is charged with software for portable players and the WMA format, using an iPod is not a good career move.

"In the media group they all smoke the company dope on that one," the manager said.

Wait. They piss off Microsoft?

Maybe these things do have merit...

Things are getting so bad for the Pod People that some are going "into the closet" by wearing non-white earbuds [Link]:

Author and speaker Seth Godin is on his fifth iPod, but he's never once worn the telltale white earbuds.

Why not? Because Godin doesn't want to be recognized as an iPod owner.

Godin is a closet iPod user, one of a small cadre of iPod lovers loath to be identified as an iPod lover.

For closet users like Godin, it's the way the earbuds scream, "Woo hoo, look at me, I've got an iPod!"

"I'm not looking forward to being identified on the street," Godin said. "I don't know why. I don't like it." (Curiously, Godin said he's "proud" of his laptop's Apple logo when he gives presentations to thousands of people, but dislikes the idea of getting the iPod nod on the subway).

To others, using non-white headphones is a reaction to the growing hordes of iPod fans clogging the sidewalks and subways. Others don't like wearing corporate logos, even earbuds.

Godin, who lives in New York, said he knows plenty of other New Yorkers who also refuse to wear the white earpieces. Most rationalize it, he said, saying they get better audio from different headphones. But in reality, they're asserting their individuality.

"It makes me fee individual to customize it," Godin said. "Even if its just changing the headphones. That's the irony of the whole thing. Most of the people who are Apple's biggest cheering section are people who go out of their way to wear what everyone else is not wearing and eat where not everyone else is eating. They're the kind of people who like to customize their life and feel like they're independent."

As the iPod moves fast into the mainstream (Susquehanna Financial Group predicts Apple and Hewlett-Packard will sell 1 million iPods a month this holiday season), more and more users are going back into the closet.

"I started to feel like a walking iPod ad," said one New Yorker, who preferred to remain anonymous, in print and in person. "I actually dug out an old pair of black headphones to use with mine."

Posted by Jeff at March 9, 2005 08:05 AM