It had to happen, didn't it? Such a loving relationship had to come to an end at some point, and that end – or the beginning of it at least – came this week.

When I first bought an MP3 player I went for size and functionality. That's why I originally chose a Creative Zen over Apple's music machine. The reason: 40GB of hard-disc space. 40GB would house my whole music collection and then some. And for half the price of an iPod. Awesome.

I managed quite well to ignore the sniggers every time I got my Zen out. Granted, its brick-like structure was much larger than everyone else's iPods but I had 40GB and I was proud.

Apple bullet

Six months later and the damn thing broke. It started playing music out of one ear only, so I bit the Apple-shaped bullet and bought an iPod. This was when the iPod touch just came out. The 'touch' with its itty-bitty Flash memory. 8GB? Pah, I went for the 80GB Classic and haven't looked back. Until now.

My iPod currently contains my whole CD collection – over 750 shiny discs at the last count – and countless albums bought digitally through the internet.

The idea of having all my albums in one easily accessible place was, at first, a dream come true. A listen-anywhere music collection that I could flick through at the touch of a scroll-wheel, choose what I wanted to listed to and press play. Even uploading my music collection to iTunes was somewhat cathartic, dusting off CD after CD, re-listening to music I hadn't dared to listen to for years.

Then something changed. No longer is thumbing through the Cover Flow an enjoyable experience. In fact, it has become a chore. A chore! Picking and listening to music a chore? This never happened with my CD collection. For some reason, I always knew what to choose and when.

Cover slow

The iPod is different. Every time I use the Cover Flow I must scan my whole collection, weighing up the odds. Is it a DJ Shadow day? Nope, I need something more upbeat. Radiohead? I said upbeat. What about The Go! Team? Too chirpy. I just want… actually, I no longer know what I want.