tiantian Guest | APART from their cellphones, SA¡¯s youth rate a number of technological devices as either items they cannot do without or ones they really want to have.
And among these items, the Apple iPod is almost a must-have.
The iconic iPod is number one again in the tech gadgets category of this year¡¯s Generation Next survey, followed by PlayStations and Xboxes.
Since the iPod was launched in 2001, about 100million have been sold worldwide. Analysts say around 250000 have been sold in South Africa.
Back in 1979, Sony¡¯s Walkman cassette player with headphones introduced the concept of a portable hi-fi on your belt. Portable CD players followed as well as a short- lived format called MiniDisc.
The iPod has endured because it marries the power of modern-day computer technology with the convenience of being able to carry thousands of songs around on a device that at its biggest is smaller than a packet of 20 cigarettes ¡ª and at its smallest the size of a cigarette lighter.
RJ van Spaandonk, executive director of Apple IMC Southern Africa, says research by the company has shown that there¡¯s a lot of peer pressure among South African youngsters to own one of the gadgets.
¡°Teenagers, particularly, are an important market segment for us,¡± he says. ¡°Most music that is transferred onto iPods comes from people¡¯s existing CD collections. They just want an easy way to transport their music wherever they go.¡±
Users insert a CD into their PC, which goes online to pick up details of the tracks ¡ª album names, song names and artists¡¯ names, for example. These are then transferred together with the music onto the computer¡¯s hard drive. From there, they can be easily exported to the iPod via a USB cable. They can be arranged from a central library into playlists and managed any way the user wants ¡ª by genre, artist name or song title, for example.
But it¡¯s not just music that resides on iPods. The latest versions are able to store and play back photos and videos.
¡°It¡¯s their ease of use that¡¯s a great selling point too,¡± says Van Spaandonk.
¡°We¡¯re now at the point where many families have several iPods. Adults use the iTrip function to beam music wirelessly over the air to their car radios. Or they use their iPods to burn their playlists onto CDs. Kids use them to take their music collections to parties or to friends¡¯ houses. Their versatility makes iPods appealing to a broad range of consumers.¡±
A huge selling point for iPods in international markets is that people are able to log onto iTunes stores ¡ª online shops where they can download (and pay) for the songs they want instead of buying an entire album. No such facility exists in South Africa as yet, largely because of economies of scale.
Says Van Spaandonk: ¡°Our smallest device is an iPod shuffle which is so light you can clip it to a shirt. It has no screen and costs a few hundred rands.¡±
Then there is the Nano range, with a screen, that comes in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB sizes. This is a huge seller among teens. At the top of the range is the iPod Video with a massive 80GB hard drive, capable of holding thousands of songs, pictures and videos.
At number two in the tech gadgets category of the Generation Next 2007 survey is Sony¡¯s newly released PlayStation 3 (PS3), which muscled ahead of Microsoft Xbox and PlayStation 2.
At more than R6000, it¡¯s a stretch for most kids but it¡¯s high on the wish list. The PS3 is a new- generation gaming console that¡¯s ready for High Definition TV.
It also has always-on online connectivity and four USB ports for plugging in digital devices like cameras, music players or storage devices.
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