After four and half years of faithful service, I think it is finally time to retire my 6G ipod mini. It started having trouble with battery life late last October and, of late, has refused to start playback unless connected to external power, although it would play for quite a while on its own once started and, when it cut out claiming lack of power, it would usually come back just fine after a quick jumpstart.

Tonight, though, while doing dishes, it shut down on me less than five minutes after being disconnected from my computer. Twice.

Which is a shame, really. Aside from the question of money to buy a replacement with, I have absolutely no need for a 160G video player. 6G was a little tight at times, but never truly problematic, and pretty much the only thing I've ever used it for was listening to podcasts while out walking, driving, cooking, cleaning, etc. - times when I'm doing something that requires little enough mental involvement that I would get bored without something to listen to, but I still need to be looking at what I'm doing. Video playback, in that context, is entirely superfluous.

On the other hand, there's an iphone app that I'm seriously considering writing in the relatively near future, so maybe an iphone or ipod touch wouldn't be such a bad thing to have...