Pass me the fruit, please...

I've been slow to adapt to the fruit that has been bitten. Friends told me years ago that I should change over to Apple products but I was always loathe to make the jump and when eventually I did show some courage I might as well have thrown my money out the window for the use I made of my purchases.

My first tentative purchase was an iPod Classic bought about...oh, I suppose five years ago. My rationale for the purchase was that even with one deaf ear it would still be nice to have access to my favourite music and as a bonus to listen to favoured radio programs at my convenience. Indeed an iPod would even be good for my health I reasoned because I would walk more often encouraged by the company of what I could listen to as I exercised. The clincher was my observation that absolutely everyone aged under 25 was wandering the streets attached to one of these little gadgets and if everyone of them was able to utilise this technology...well...how difficult could it be?

I purchased a very smart looking black item which came boxed in its even smarter figure hugging packaging. I could scarcely contain my excitement as I opened up the box with its new toy when I got it home. It was downhill from that point. Yes, it looked fabulous but the little concertina leaflet accompanying it was not so much a guide to using my wonderful new lifestyle bauble but rather a glossy advertisement for its features.

It was no use complaining to my friends about the absence of anything remotely resembling an instructions handbook. 'Oh', they shrieked, rolling dilated eyes furiously, 'its all so intuitive, that's why they are so great'. Well ladies, all I can say is that one fruit's intuition is another queen's bewilderment.

Yes, I did manage to download iTunes and I did purchase something or other online that appeared essential to the setup process only to realise that I'd paid for something I didn't really need, didn't really want and could no longer retrieve anyway.

Eventually through trial and error...er...my intuition...I was able to download some of my CDs but the effort involved seemed so draining that I was dispirited. I carefully placed my shiny new and barely used iPod Classic in a drawer and blanked it from my mind.

Time softens attitudes and so when a few years later I started to think about purchasing a notebook for upcoming travel so that I could keep in touch with my favourite blogs as well as update my own whilst on the run my mind turned, naturally, to the partly bitten fruit product. After all how attractive are all those young men leading their cafe lives with a wirelessly activated slimline MacBook at their manicured fingertips. That was going to be me any day now, I reasoned.

I spent a few weeks researching what was on offer and eventually purchased my own MacBook (black, of course) with its various stunningly boxed attachments. From purchase on it was all downhill again. Once again the concertina leaflet that was nothing more than an advertisement for the MacBook's features was of no help to me and my intuition...no my bewilderment...won out. The drawer that contained my long neglected iPod Classic was not big enough for the MacBook so another drawer had to be found. Out of sight, out of mind.

Fast forward to late last year and as I blogged at the time I just had to get an iPhone. It was as though I had contracted an irresistible infection that had taken full control over me. Never mind that I was 0 from 2 in my success rate with partly bitten fruit products. I should not have been surprised when I unboxed my new iPhone to find it accompanied by a concertina leaflet advertising the phone's features but with not a line of instructions therein.

But a mobile phone is a mobile phone - an essential lifeline nowadays - and I was not going to throw my new iPhone largely unused into a drawer like I did with the earlier purchases. This time I persevered and now am a happy, if still not fully realised, iPhone owner and user.

Which brings me back to my iPod Classic. Today, I pulled it out of my drawer and with iPod: The Missing Manual in tow I reassembled my still slick looking little black number, reloaded iTunes, and successfully and reasonably efficiently downloaded both music and radio podcasts.

My intuition is back, baby!