The iMac, iTunes. These terms are self explanatory aren’t they? The “i” used to denote internet, but Apple somewhere appropriated it for all its signature accouterments: iDock, iChat, iMovie, iPhoto et al. And the iPod has ushered a cascade of third party after-market iProducts: iBlaster, iSpeaker, iToenailClipper, iEtc. Again, all with names quite descriptive of their purpose. Even with the esoteric spin-offs: iDog, iPup, iGuy, iLittlePony.
 
But what is an iPod?

So what of the iPod itself? What does the Pod in iPod mean? Pod of Orcas? Peas in a pod? When I think of Pods in terms of people, I think of Pod People, not unlike the Doctor’s Peppers. I don’t think Apple tries to avoid that suggestion of team spirit. There was a B-movie called Invasion of the Pod People, it was a drive-in knock-off of Invasions of the Body Snatchers. Both concepts featured human replicants grown in vegetable pods. But I think the more recognized example is now from The Matrix, where human beings are grown and kept inside pods their whole lives, tapped of their life energy by the life-less machine world.

Is that where Apple gets the term iPod? People plugged in to the soothing opiate of pop music, wired in, unable to give themselves a free moment to think, to experience their ears for their intended purpose, people undulating complacently, willing to subject themselves to the basest, most soilent, commercial effluent needed to sustain their pod self lives. The veal industry force feeds their calves a mixture of milk and blood because it’s cheaper for us and because the poor boxed animals can’t object, they are wired in.