Mother's Day and iPods

My mother received an iPod Mini for Mother's Day this last weekend. Though I would not describe her as a luddite, she has been - at times - reluctant with certain technologies, due more to the learning curve and her own busy schedule than to an unwillingness to adopt or learn. She has come a long way, though, and uses a laptop at work, bought herself a Palm a few years ago, and bought my dad a digital camera and a digital camcorder. Okay, so she's pretty with-it, technology-wise. :)

The iPod: For Mother's Day, apparently my Dad and sister decided to get her an iPod mini. I'm sure she'll love it, I'm curious to see how the adoption goes. She listens to music, though she tends to be a radio listener in the car (it came with an XM Satellite Radio system, which she loves), and I don't know that she and my Dad listen to a ton of music at home. I think the iPod will be great for her at the Gym, for walks, perhaps even in her office. My sister's in town this week and can help her get it set up; I'm interested to see what her usage is like over the course of the next few weeks and months.

A great gift, to be sure. It got me thinking though: if my mother (as well as my 9-year-old niece and nephew) is now an iPod owner, what does this mean for the iPod's image as the ultimate in hip, urban, slightly-counter-culture music devices? Can Apple keep the device hip when it enjoys a 75%+ market share? Will the iPods drive Macintosh usage (perhaps my parents' next PC will be a Mac?). Or, like the walkman, are we simply in the early phases, and soon digital music devices will become very mainstream, and "iPod" will be to the digital generation what "walkman" was to the cassette tape generation?

Or, will Apple (or someone else) come along with the next super-cool gadget, leading us to look back at the iPod a few years from now and think, 'wow, those were cool, but look at what we've got now.'

Happy Mother's Day. Enjoy the iPod.