Since the introduction of the original first generation iPod, scores of companies have created their own multimillion-dollar inventory of iPod bling, with some accessories costing more than the player itself.

In Utah, there are four companies that design and make iPod trappings, producing such frills as headphone carriers, arm-band holders for jogging, and a thin protective film that covers and conforms to the device like vacuum-packed plastic.

In 2003, Charlie Bernstein conceived the idea for a headphone case while he and his wife were on a Caribbean cruise together.

He had just received an iPod for his birthday and was fiddling with an age-old problem concerning portable headphones.

"The chord was thin and kept getting tangled," he said. "So I pursued the idea and hired a mechanical designer."

The result was the earPod, a case that you can wind the headphones in. That led to other products including a car charger, an extended battery, cables and ezTattoo, skins that can change the faceplate with graphic designs.

Now, Midvale-based ezGear produces more than 60 different iPod accessories including rubberized cases for all the players, including the recently announced video iPod, iPod nano, and the Sony PlayStation Portable gaming system.

"Having an iPod is like a status symbol - it's like a car," Bernstein said. "[Owners] can express themselves with the kind of music they have on it and with the kind of case they have for it."

But it's not all just for looks.

Andrew Montgomery, who restores homes, complains that iPods can "scratch the first day you get them."

So he immediately got a rubberized case for his iPod. But he didn't stop there.

He also got a car charger, an FM transmitter so he could listen to it on the road, and he bought a set of speakers for his girlfriend - a pilot - so she could listen to music in her hotel room. He also has external speakers so he can listen to music while working.

"When I'm working on a house, I can just listen to the music and work," he said. "That and KRCL is all you need."

Phillip Chipping turned to an unusual method for protecting iPods - a sheet of plastic. Not just any sheet but a kind of urethane plastic similar to the protective film used to protect helicopter blades from dirt and sand.

The plastic, when moistened, wraps around the music player and conforms to the iPod's click wheel and screen, providing a tough skin around it. His Salt Lake City company also markets the "invisibleSHIELD" for other devices like GPS receivers, cell phones and Blackberrys.

"People are spending more money on the iPod for the name and the looks, and everything else covers it up," Chipping said. "We don't cover it up. We protect it."

Then there are those who spend as much money to make the iPod look as good in a case as without.

Top tiered designers like Luis Vuitton, Gucci and Dior Homme sell fashionable iPod cases for as much as $265, more than the hot new iPod nano itself.

Chums, the Hurricane-based producer of eyewear retainers and lanyards has just moved into the iPod market with fashionable cases, though at a fraction of the cost of those designer cases.

"We wanted to try and expand our brand and reach out to the female demographic . . . and get into a booming business," said Chums sales and marketing manager Tom Ferries, whose family bought the company in 2002.

Thanks to sales of its music player (Apple shipped nearly 30 million units, commanding 75 percent of the market for portable MP3 players), the company once known as the maker of the Macintosh has become more famous as the producer of the iPod, said Russ Fellows, co-owner of the MacDocs Apple-only store in Salt Lake City.

"[iPod accessories] has become a market unto itself," he said. "People look at it and say, 'This is such a cool thing. How can we make it better or function better?' And Apple has left that wide open."