The iPod changed the world of music, in several ways. While the Sony Walkman democratized music listening in the streets, or during your commute, you still needed to carry around cassette tapes. These took up space, and were especially susceptible to dust and lint from your pockets. With the iPod, you can carry your entire music collection in your pocket (unless your music collection is as big as mine, that is). No longer do you have to decide before you go out of the house or on a trip what music you might want to listen to and remember to bring those tapes. And, with the ability to now download music from the cloud, you may never even have to worry about what you have synced to your iPod; you may be able to download the music you want when you want to listen to it. The importance of the iPod is therefore not only the device, but the entire ecosystem that it depends on. From iTunes on your computer to iCloud, the iPod is one link in a chain that brings music to your ears.

And the iPod changed the world of music in another way: it brought the idea of "shuffle" to listeners. With the iPod, and iTunes, you can listen to music at random. Instead of making choices, you can let fate choose what you listen to. In some ways, this approach to listening to songs devoid of their context in albums--not that different from radio, just without the DJ's grating voice and the loud commercials--has helped speed the erosion of music sales. No longer approaching music as albums, listeners have taken to buying individual songs, from the iTunes Store, Amazon.com, and other places.

I used to listen to CDs; actually listen to them on a CD player. I buy a lot of CDs, and I review classical CDs, so I get a lot of plastic discs. Five years ago, when hard drives and iPods held less than they do now, I didn't rip every CD I received; I would choose the ones that I would want to listen to on a portable device, and listen to others on the CD player. Now, I rip every CD I get, put all my music in my iTunes library, and choose what to sync. Naturally, my iTunes library is for more than just syncing to my iPods: my Mac is connected to my stereo so I can listen to music as I work and when I'm relaxing; I stream my music to an Apple TV connected to a stereo in my living room; and my music library is the interface between me and my music collection.

The iPod is partly responsible for this new approach to managing music my collection. Back in the day, when all I had was vinyl, my collection was somewhat like that of the character in the book/movie . I, too, would go through periods when I would try to figure out new ways of organizing all of those LPs. But now, everything is in my iTunes library, and all that matters for organizing my music collection is how I tag my files and create playlists. If not for the success of the iPod, iTunes would probably not be my "digital hub." Now, 10 years after the introduction of the iPod, this device has become commonplace. While Apple has the lion's share of the MP3 player market, iPod sales are slowing down as there are fewer new users, and many existing users switch to the iPhone.

It's clear that , with little room to add new features, but perhaps this is the sign of a device becoming mature. In 10 years, the iPod has certainly changed the world of music and the way we experience music. Who would've thought, 30 years ago, that I could take a trip with hundreds of live Grateful Dead concerts, every single Bob Dylan album, all of Franz Schubert's lieder, all of Haydn's 104 symphonies, all off Beethoven's string quartets and piano concertos, every Bill Evans album ever released, audio versions of all of Shakespeare's plays, and music by hundreds of other composers, artists, and performers--all on a single device. We take this for granted. We can have all the music we want, all the time, or any time. In some ways, it's almost too easy to listen to music. But having our entire music collections at our fingertips has made music, for many people, an integral part of their lives.