Last night we were invited to a Best Buy invitation-only party at the Federal Way, WA store. The first 100 people received a free coffee mug. Best Buy served free drinks and candy and passed out Geek Squad shirts. Woohoo, I’m an unofficial member of the Geek Squad.

We shopped and purchased a 25 year documentary on the movie Halloween ($6.99 USD) and a clock radio for the iPod ($51 USD) which when we got home and plugged in didn’t work. The clock radio has a video out so you can plug it into the TV and watch the videos on iPod. Will be going back to Best Buy to try and (hopefully) get a working version later today, hence my frown in the picture to the right.

This morning I learned that today is the five year anniversary of the iPod:

CUPERTINO, California—October 23, 2001—Apple® today introduced iPod™, a breakthrough MP3 music player that packs up to 1,000 CD-quality songs into an ultra-portable, 6.5 ounce design that fits in your pocket. iPod combines a major advance in portable music device design with Apple’s legendary ease of use and Auto-Sync, which automatically downloads all your iTunes™ songs and playlists into your iPod, and keeps them up to date whenever you plug your iPod into your Mac®.

In five years the iPod has increased capacity by 20 times, reduced its size and weight, added photo, video and color and most notably become #1 in the portable player field. All comers have tried to compete and the iPod marketshare has only grown. Microsoft is about to take another shot with its curious Zune player and odds are against it making any serious traction. We bought the Shuffle and former versions of the iPod briefly, but took them back to the store. A week ago my wife decided she really wanted an iPod (black, not white) and this fifth generation iPod will be the first device we’ll be keeping.

The future of iPod?
Apple might be flirting with including XM satellite radio. As readers know, I’m a recent Sirius subscriber and we bought our oldest son the Sirius Stiletto 100. If Apple can get satellite reception angle working good with the iPod it is a natural fit. I think they would be wisest to offer both XM and Sirius though, not go with one over the other. Sirius continues to gain market share and they don’t want to pick the wrong one. That’s not a blast on XM as they might be better than Sirius (I’ve never listened to XM), but it doesn’t make good business sense for Apple to choose one over the other.

WiFi and internet browsing seems like another logical future addition to the iPod. Especially now that they have started toying with a few games. I’m not sure how good surfing with the click wheel will work, but somebody will create a mini-keyboard (if one doesn’t already exist).

I’m not sure how much lighter and smaller the iPod can get and remain usable, but history suggests they’ll keep trying on that front. My eyes suck, so the smaller they go, the less likely they’ll entice me to ever buy one. My wife’s eyesight is better, so she probably won’t mind.

A 500 GB iPod? We’ll see that within five years. Dare I predict we’ll see a 1TB iPod? 20 times 80GB = approximately 1.6 TB. The iPod could become the new Mac Mini with that kind of storage.

What iPod-related business have you done?
As for iTunes tracks we’ve paid for in five years? Two: Blue Oyster Cult “Veteran of a Psychic War” and James Blunt “Beautiful.” We don’t use iTunes on Windows, only on the Mac.

How many iPods have you bought over the last five years? How many iTunes tracks? Do you use iTunes on Mac only or Windows?

• Today we find out if movies are Apple’s announcement
• Videos via iPod at $1.99 by September?
• iPod with video ships next week, iTunes 6.0 ready for download now
• From mood rings to iPod earbud emotibuds
• Napster calls out iTunes / iPod
• iTunes 5.0 for Windows failing for some users