Given the need to protect air travelers from the untoward actions of others I understand scattering luggage to the four-corners of the globe, banning shampoo bottles and breast milk from a jetliner’s interior, and placing the future of overpriced airport bottled water in jeopardy. I have a harder time imagining an extended plane ride suffered in relative silence—one accompanied only by the roar of the engines, the plaintive cry of infants, and the ejaculated expletives of those whose knees have been shattered by an oncoming drink cart.
In short, if things continue in this vein we’ll all be flying naked and, worse, without our iPods.
There’s little I can do about the former other than suggest that, for the sake of our future travel-mates, each and every one of us cuts down on the fatty foods and try to get a bit more exercise. I can, however, offer this notion in regard to the latter, free of charge, to Apple:
The implantable iPod.
Chat up your local surgeon and you’ll discover that the “chest cavity” is termed so because there’s an awful lot of nothing rattling around between your ribs. Why not put that space to good use and, via a tiny incision and a bit of duct tape, strap the ultimately portable music player to an underutilized rib? If Apple can’t manage a wireless iPod, simply channel a couple of thin cables up through the carotid artery, split ‘em out near the nape of the neck, and terminate the sound in a couple of cochlear implants.
Naturally you’ll want a bit better battery life in such a device than you get from current iPod models. In this regard it seems Apple might take a hint from another device found in the occasional chest cavity—the pacemaker. In stressful moments—either when your iPod has kicked off during the totally rockin’ final chorus of “Sweet Home Alabama” or your heart has stopped—you don’t want to be messing around in the kitchen utilities drawer, hunting up a can opener to affect a quick repair.
Hell, while we’re on the subject, why not combine the two devices? If you rock so hard that your heart drops a couple of beats, the iPlant kicks in the defib function and you’ve cheated the reaper again.
Better yet, incorporate the Nike + iPod technology to not only charge the thing (after all, there’s a world of potential energy going to waste each time a sneaker slaps the pavement), but regulate your metabolism as well.
Oh sure, issues remain. For example, syncing the iPlant could be tricky (and uncomfortable, depending on where Apple decides to place the dock connector). And where exactly would you place the click wheel so that manipulating it didn’t evoke comment?
As I said, it’s no more than a notion. But one, faced with the dissonant alternative, we might consider.
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