I own an iPod. Darin got me a very nice 15 gig one for my birthday in 2004. Once we finally figured out how to use the iTrip play-through-the-radio attachment, it became a permanent fixture in my car.

I have an iPod Shuffle. Last year Steve* gave every Apple employee one as a thank you for a great year. Darin said, “Are you going to use that? Because if you’re not we should give it as a gift to someone.” I tried it out, and it’s become a permanent part of my exercise habit. Have tunes, will do boring cardio workout at gym.

My brother-in-law has worked on iPod for years. Darin worked on the iPod before it came out. My running bud, Rob, worked on iPod for four years, up until a few weeks ago. (And he never told me about the video iPod, the bastard.)

I know plenty about iPod. I know who’s working on iPod (though none of them will tell me what they’re working on — Darin and Mitch don’t even tell one another what they’re working on, and they’re brothers). It’s old hat to me, right?

I have an iPod Nano in my hands, and I can’t stop playing with it. It’s so small. It’s so cute. Look at the screen! It’s so thin and tiny — and yet can fit so much music, so many podcasts!

I want to go running right now, just so I can try it out.

Apple is amazing at creating plug-and-play electronic crack. So why haven’t they taken over the world? Jeez. It’s so frustrating sometimes.

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Darin knew way ahead of time about the MacBook announcement at MacWorld. And didn’t tell me about it.

My friend Otto IM’d me: “So Darin knew and didn’t tell you? Divorce!”

Me: “No, no. A fully tricked-out MacBook, that’s what.”

Apple was nowhere near this controlled when I worked there. It seemed like everyone had the Mercury News on speed-dial. These days, Darin tells me about something, he gets fired. (I’ve decided it’s better to hold off on knowing and get the MacBook eventually, instead of collecting unemployment.) It’s better for the company, obviously. I’m just amazed they’ve managed such a veil of secrecy.

What’s hilarious is, whenever Darin and his brothers — only one of whom works on iPod — discuss the iPod, iTunes, or downloading, in the middle of whatever it is they’re saying they’ll throw in, “Don’t steal music.” I wonder if they have hypnotic programming sessions where everyone learns to say that.

 

* Seriously, if you’ve got to ask “Steve who?”…