Love the Pod. Hate the Apple.

I love my iPod. I have it to thank for so many good things--a new-found ability to exercise regularly, a relatively inexpensive way to satisfy my addiction to online shopping, (a single is only $.99, the same price we paid for a 45 back in the day!) and now I can indulge my fondness for talk radio in the middle of the day without subscribing to Sirius, thanks to free podcasts on iTunes. (Thank you, Leslie Burger, for yet another excellent lifestyle tip!) Once a week I attach my iPod to the computer and automatically download the latest version of The Onion, Lisa Loeb's #1 Single, iTunes New Music Tuesdays, New York Times' Talks, Slate, and my personal favorite, TWIT, aka This Week in Tech, (where you not only get to listen to real techies from California talk about the latest and greatest, but just when you start to feel like a loser, one of them reveals that he has used the latest video technology to view the last three seasons of Battlestar Gallactica.) So what's the problem? Why hate Apple, that appealing underdog, the comeback kid who has brought me so much iHappiness?
It's about the audiobooks. In the past couple of weeks, I've enjoyed Curtis Settinfield's Prep, Benjamin Kunkel's Indecision, and my favorite, Augusten Burroughs' first, Running with Scissors. But not one of these books was I able to listen to on my iPod. (All were CDs borrowed from the wonderful Russell Library, well-known among fellow travelers for its excellent audio collection.) Neither Prep nor Indecision, although both heralded first novels, were available on iTunes; I could have purchased Running with Scissors for $15.95, or his new memoir, which I really want for my next trip to Willimantic, Magical Thinking, for $18.95. Now, I want you to know that I am not above occasionally purchasing a new hardcover without the CLC discount, but I am not paying the price of a tank of gas to download a best seller! As you know, there are many great audio titles available for free downloading from our public libraries through vendors like Recorded Books and Overdrive. You can download them all right, just not to an iPod.
I visited Library Connection on Friday to talk about InfoAnyTime, and had a quick conversation with George Christian about this, since LCI has just launched a consortium deal for downloadables with Overdrive. George says he now gives Apple's number to the people who call him to ask why they can't download the Overdrive books to their iPods. I say, you go, George, let Steve handle it! So the next time you are about to utter a disparaging word about Microsoft, remember the Gates foundation, and remember the audiobooks!