I've long wondered about the powerful transition that moved Apple from being a computer supplier to one of the globe’s biggest music retailers. On the streets of New York today, more people appear to use iPod than any other individual personal stereo, and at the Apple shop in SoHo on Sunday, the fury and flurry around the brand reminded me of swarming bees.

My personal iPod conversion began when I read that Dunhill had created an exclusive leather cover for the MP3 player but, believing them too costly, I'd delayed purchase. Until now.

In New York, a city that for the outsider is alienating in its busyness, the iPod and iconic white earphones, are a uniting force. While thinking about this piece, a colleague forwarded an article http://www.frogdesign.com/mind/index.html from the Frog Design site that likens iPod's sleek, clean lines to bathroom fittings  - creating a "clean" perception. I think the iPod's ubiquity speaks to our unconscious.

For me it is a key to belonging. At $200 it is a premium purchase (you can buy 100 cups of Starbucks coffee for the same price) but the allure is much more than an expression of status. It is as if the ability to drown out the immediate environment is at once a way to deal with the volume of activity and allow for private thought, as it is a way of connecting with other people in the same situation.

The cachet of iPod and the recently launched Nano, has all the hype of the most fashionable yet exclusive brands. Less than two weeks after its launch, the Apple flagship store had sold out of iPod Nano's with no clear idea of when more stock would be available. Either Apple did a poor job of planning its product rollout or, as I suspect is the case, distribution is being carefully controlled to amp up the desire for the product.

I remember purchasing an MP3 player in 2000 after traveling to Malaysia. In South Africa at the time they were almost unheard of . For whatever reason, the  Nomad by Creative didn't have the hold that iPod has over me (or, frankly, the rest of the universe) and I wasn't even a bit sad when it went to my former partner as part of our separation settlement.

On the streets, buses and subways of New York, I am never without my musical companion. Not just because I am lonely here, but because it has become so much part of the accoutrement that leaving home without it would be as absurd as being without your trousers or, worse still, mobile phone.

So whether iPod's meteoric success is as a result of the brand relationships it has established with icons like Dunhill and U2 (who have endorsed a premium-priced model) or whether its bath-tub white design makes us feel clean in a soiled world, or, as I surmise, it has become a symbol of belonging -  at Apple, iPod is music to their ears.