Matt Birchler:

Well, I worked the last 3 years managing an electronics department for Target, and have sold a lot of Apple devices over that time. Since Apple doesn’t break down demographics for who is buying each device, I thought I would share my experience.

I’m not too surprised by most of this, especially the bit about the iPod touch. My fiancée’s father has always been technology-adverse — he won’t go near a computer. But, we found that he wasn’t as intimidated by our iOS devices. My fiancée has had him interacting with her iPhone a time or two and, although she had to walk him through most of it, he was actually using it.

We’ve often thought about pooling our money with her sister and buying him an iPod touch as a gift. It would be the perfect computer for him, especially if we pitched it to him as a camera. And if all he did with it was take photos, we’d be happy. But, I think he’d slowly get comfortable using it for FaceTime, viewing iCloud shared albums, or as a “weather station” with apps like Dark Sky.

I was surprised that Matt didn’t mention anyone buying the iPod nano or shuffle for working out. I know my fiancée doesn’t like taking her phone with her when she goes for a run — yoga pants don’t make it easy to carry — but maybe most people just carry their phones with them anyway. It’s not ideal, but an arm band is a lot cheaper than a nano or a shuffle and it makes managing your music a lot easier.