42 Personal Content Experience: Managing Digital Life in the Mobile Age Figure 2-11. The iPod from Apple has become the icon of digital music (Photo: courtesy of Tero Hakala). Nevertheless, according to one source, downloading in P2P networks 27 seems to increase. The iPod player series from Apple has today become the iconic representation of mobile music devices (Figure 2-11). While there are a plethora of other mobile players on the market, the iPod defi nes the essence of mobile music culture in many ways. Apple has coupled the mobile device into their iTunes online music service and the iTunes client application for personal computers. Together, the players and the service allow people to enjoy their music, manage their music col- lection, search and purchase new music online, and share playlists with other users. With the addition of podcasts and video, the experience is now fl owing over to other forms of content. Since an MP3 song is typically stored in one MP3 fi le, the single song has become a fundamental unit of digital music, in addition to whole albums. The whole notion of an album is changing, as song collections may now include videos, multimedia art, and remixable 28 versions of the music. In the case of Apple, music fi les (and their metadata) are now living in multiple places: iPods, iTunes libraries in PCs, and in the iTunes 27 The number of simultaneously logged P2P network users globally: 2003 – 5.5 million; 2006 – 9.4 million. Source: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/10459 28 Since digital music (or indeed any content) can be reused easily, remixing has become the norm in some genres, particularly urban music styles. We will talk more about remixing in Chapters 4 and 6.