In fact, I did buy a new iPod, as previously discussed. I couldn’t find my old 20-gig model; it’ll either be in the last box I unpack, or one of the moving guys is enjoying it even now. Truth be told, it had almost reached the end of its storage space anyway. Since my sister and brother-in-law were kind enough to give me an Apple gift certificate for Christmas, I was itching to get a new one.

I got the 30-gig model, which not only plays music but also displays photos. It’s knocking my socks off. My former iPod was about two years old, and it was considerably heavier than this new one, even though it held only 2/3 of the music. I love the new color screen and the way the iPod displays album covers along with the song that’s playing (as long as you bought the song off iTunes).

People say that Apple’s competitors are going to catch up sooner or later. Maybe. But it’s hard to imagine a product more exquisitely engineered than this one, and to me, all the other digital music players look like clunky knock-offs. Bill Gates says that MP3-playing cell phones will topple the iPod, but I’m not so sure of that either. With the exception of the Motorola Razor, cell phone design has grown stagnant. I’ve wanted to replace my old Samsung for about a year—I can’t stand the operating program—but haven’t seen anything that seems both highly functional and aesthetically pleasing; I’m spoiled by my iPod. (My carrier, Verizon—argh!—doesn’t carry the Razor.) So can cell phones really add an entire new function without multi-task overload? Most people don’t use all the functions cell phones already have.

The only solution? For Apple and Motorola to hustle out with that iTunes-compatible phone they’ve been whispering about for some time now….