What beautiful object which is the iPod. Uno di quei due o tre che da soli contengono il respiro di un’era. Il suo profilo morbido, il suo candore cromatico, la sua freschezza tattile, dicono 2000 come nessun altro ufo piovuto sulla terra dal misterioso mondo del design. Padre di queste linee perfette, è Jonathan Ive. Inglese, è considerato dalla BBC uno dei più influenti servitori della Regina, superando nell’apposita classifica (datata invero 2004) la Rowling di Harry Potter, l’attore Ewan McGregor e lo stilista John Galliano. Ive vive da anni in quel di Cupertino, California, base operativa dell’impero Apple. A lui si devono le forme di altri mostri sacri, prima che dell’informatica, di quelle che a suo tempo si chiamavano arti applicate: l’iMac, l’iBook, il prossimo venturo iPhone, sono tutte creature sue. Sempre la BBC, lo ha definito “l’Armani della tecnologia”. Curioso, perché all’apparizione dell’iMac di lui si parlò come del “Versace del computer”. Secondo una classifica (l’ennesima) stilata dal sito Mac World, l’entrata di Ive negli organigrammi dell’azienda guidata da Steve Jobs, è il sesto evento più importante nella storia di Apple. Il giornalista Dan Moren lo vorrebbe quale il più accreditato successore dello stesso Jobs, perché nessuno meglio di Ive “incarna il motivo per cui Apple è divenuta celebre: il design”.
iPod come object then, as the first formal masterpiece that technology / content, why not. iPod as a fetish, as an objective correlative of status and identity of accession to 2000: of course. And since these readings are maimed, blind before the battlefield on which, back in 2001, the unidentified object crashed into by the company bore the apple. That is, after all, mainly the music and its methods of use. You say, but let's go. Three-quarters of iPod owners, before diving into the trend, needless had never bought a record. This is a thesis that I can not tell if supported by empirical data or studies on the subject, but is nevertheless a widespread feeling of hostility towards the object-fetish fashion, by definition, transient. That may be true, but there is no doubt that the advent of the iPod resulted in a first significant earthquake in the world music industry. That at the time, they wanted condemned to extinction, due to peer to peer downloads and wild, to the delight of the combative people of India, which has always declared enemy of the very bad majors. Things did not go their way: the giants of the disc, with difficulty, to reorganize, but scaled in range and hold on an audience than ever before segmented into a thousand niches self-sufficient. Suffering has been rather small independent labels, the indie label that one after the other seem to be sinking into a crisis it seems irreversible historical brands that are closing their doors, exits that are becoming scarcer, more gloomy predictions that you can not. The defect of the indie label, however, has always been to imitate the practices of the majors without having the necessary resources and capabilities. Natural that they were the ones who fall under the ax of the great technological changes, while whole departments of Sony, Warner & Co. were converted to more profitable practices. In this process, the advent of the iPod - and through it the iTunes Music Store, which means only about 80% of music sales online, which is a rapidly growing market - was crucial. Proof of this was the decision - for some historical - by the same major to submit to the diktat of Jobs, who froze the price of tracks sold on the Internet for 99 cents. Roles are reversed, that is. The same Sony and Warner had to say, but basically they just give thanks.
route changes, news, predictions and prophecies, in this field are on the agenda, but it is true that at the moment seems difficult to establish certain trends, such as not to be denied at the first turning point . The next battle, we are told, is between the knowledge (in this case music) released the industry, including the creative commons licensing and the same iTunes. At the moment the situation is not the most optimistic: the large are a little 'less than great, but now the chicks are really tiny, almost invisible. But one thing they all seem certain: the physical media's days are numbered, and this, in music, is a change of epoch-making ones. From disk (or CD, you name it) to a more intangible soundscape short, and also teaches at the iPod: inside you can memorize entire discography, but the laborious tape walkman. Each with its own personal soundtrack, hypothetically infinite, miraculous in the enclosed forms designed by Jonathan Ive. It will also be a fetish object, a fad or a brilliant marketing gimmick, but the feeling goes here di un’intera generazione – e incidentalmente, di quelle che verranno.
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