aficionados #5
今年の９月に販売が終了したiPod Classicの価格が高騰しているようです。160GBという大容量や洗練されたデザインはユーザーを今も魅了し続けています。イギリスでは、今年の最も魅力的なクリスマスプレゼントはもう店では手に入らないiPod Classicだと報じられています。イギリスでは通販サイトAmazonで新品が最高価格６７０ポンド（約１２万７０００円）で取引されており、日本でもプレミアが付きはじめているそうです。
Fans scramble for iPod Classic, the music player Apple killed off
Two months after model discontinued, fans pay up to four times more for last gadgets
One of this year’s hottest Christmas presents is no longer available in the shops. Two months after Apple announced the demise of its iPod Classic MP3 player, the model is selling secondhand for up to four times its original price as aficionados clamour to get their hands on one.
With a storage capacity double the size of any current iPods still being made, versions of the 160GB Classic – which can hold around 40,000 songs – are being sold as new via Amazon for up to £670. More than 3,000 of the models – the seventh, final version came out in 2010 – have been sold on eBay since the Classic was retired in October, most for between £350 and £500.Even refurbished older models now cost far more than the £229 for which the later generations retailed.
After Apple quietly pulled the Classic from its website, chief executive Tim Cook said the company no longer had access to the components and a redesign would have been too demanding.
〈後略〉
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/06/ipod-classic-apple-fans-scramble-for-last-gadgets.
今回とりあげたいのは、破格の値段になっても手に入れようとするファンのことです。ここでは、いわゆる“マニア”というやつでしょうか。記事の中では“aficionados”と称されています。「aficionado：（スポーツや娯楽などの）ファン、愛好者、マニア」とありました（『Wisdom英和辞典第三版』（三省堂））
過去のblogに“オタク”“マニア”にあたるもので、それぞれレベルも用法もまったく異なりますが、“geek”“nerd”“anorak”などが紹介されていたので、併せておさえておきたいと思います。(baseball aficionado 野球小僧)
