You know your product is a cultural icon when it’s mentioned repeatedly on the airplane before take off.
For the first time, I heard the name “iPod” mentioned among the list of items to turn off as flight attendents prepared the plane for take off during my trip to Savannah. But that was just with US Airways. And I found it interesting that they didn’t even bother with the category of MP3 players, but quite simply, “iPod”.
I don’t blame them. I paid careful attention to the kinds of portable players being used by other travelers during the entire trip. And it’s a very strang phenomenon to see only iPods for anyone who’s got a portable player. The ONLY exception was this one dude with all of his CD collections in one giant CD sleeve with his retro CD player sitting next to me on the flight back to San Jose. Where has this guy been in the past three years?
It’s scary to see how far and deep iPod has reached in the war of MP3 players and digital music. But at the same time, it’s also kind of comforting.