The perfect iPod for a six-year-old
It finally happened.
My wife and I purchased an iPod for our son for his birthday. Not completely unusual except our son just turned six.
I know, I know, there are a lot of you reading this right now thinking that Noobie Jr. is spoiled rotten and too young to be responsible with an iPod but before you judge, listen to our reasoning.
Simply put, our son has the gift of music in him. Rhythm just comes naturally to him. He sings along to every song he hears on the radio and has the lyrics memorized after only a couple listens. I'm convinced if American Idol is still around in 10 years, you'll see him on the show.
Not his first MP3 player
A few years ago, when my wife and started recognizing his love of music, we bought him an FP3 player. No, that's not a typo. It is Fisher Price's (hence the FP) version of an MP3 player. He absolutely loved it but it had its share of difficulties.
The main difficulty was that my entire music collection is in Apple's proprietary iPod format. So every time my son wanted one of the songs from my collection on his FP3 player I had to create a playlist in iTunes, burn it to a CD and then re-rip the CD back to my computer in MP3 format. And yes, that was as much of a pain to do as it sounds.
Which iPod to get
So logically, getting our son an iPod eliminated this problem. But we weren't about to lay down the cash for an iPod Touch despite the fact that both my sons can navigate my similarly-featured iPhone blindfolded.
The Nano on the other hand is cheaper but much more fragile. Which is why we agreed to get him an iPod Shuffle. Not the new one, but the 2nd generation postage-stamp sized one. It's perfect for my son. He clips it to his shirt and thinks he's king of the world.
Oh, and we did get him some kid-friendly headphones since the earbuds that come with the iPod are too big for his ears.
So what do I hear the very next day when my son comes home from school? "Hey Dad, think I can go to your computer to fire up iTunes so I can put some new music on my iPod?"
I sleep peacefully at night knowing the future of Noobie is secure.
10 comments for this blog post so far...
May 26, 2009 at 9:19 am
Tracy
We did the exact same thing as you ! We experienced some of the same frustrations with the FP3 player from Fischer Price and finally purchased a Shuffle too. I routinely rotate songs on my 6-yr old daughter’s iPod so that she always has something different to listen to. And we just use the head phones from the old FP3 player. They’re nice and big and haven’t lost her iPod yet.
Spoiled, no… just a sign of the times. As I recall, we were considered pretty lucky as children to have a recordable tape player to capture your favorite song off the radio (… by standing next to the speaker… and yes you could hear your little brother yelling in the background of every song :)
May 26, 2009 at 9:36 pm
Brian
I have been thinking about an ipod touch for son’s fourth birthday :)
May 26, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Patric Welch
@Tracy: I remember recording Kasey Kasem’s top 40 by holding the tape recorder next to the radio. I hated when someone would walk in the room during my favorite song!!
We couldn’t salvage the FP3 player headphones because we lost the little foam pads. Glad you were able to use yours for the Shuffle. Good call.
May 26, 2009 at 9:43 pm
Patric Welch
@Brian: Congratulations! You beat me by two years!!
May 26, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Brian
@Patric I did say I was “thinking” about it. :)
May 26, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Patric Welch
@Brian: “Thinking” about a technology product means you already bought it in your mind. :)
May 27, 2009 at 8:25 am
Tracy
If you or your wife are handy with the yarn… you could crochet your own covers…
http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2008/08/crochet_headphone_covers_1.html
I haven’t had the need to do this yet… but have it tucked away for the day that our foam starts to dissintegrate.
May 27, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Patric Welch
@Tracy: That’s awesome! Although I think my boys might have an issue with the cute colors. Maybe if we made them in black with pirates on them?
June 19, 2009 at 8:56 am
ahow628
You might want to look into a piece of software by DVDJon called DoubleTwist. It has a feature that “liberates” your iTunes library from its DRM format. I used it on my library and can now throw all my music on a CompactFlash card for my car or on a microSD card for my cellphone.
It is just too bad that people bought music that is so limited in its use (restricted to iTunes and iPods. Fortunately there are people out there willing help maintain fair use.
January 25, 2011 at 9:18 am
Rosey
Music lovers of the new generation unite. :) Our little guy has had the hand-held Playskook Made-for-Me MP3 player since he was 1-yr (he’s 3 now) and he still loves it. My only beef, it doesn’t hold enough music.
I love the idea of headphones versus earbuds for the little ones, and I can totally see a six-yr. old rocking the Shuffle. We’ll probably upgrade to that eventually as well.
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