iPod Craze
 

I'm intrigued and feeling electronically inadequate... who has one? ... what do you love about it? Why should I get one? C'mon I feel the urge, and need help mentally justifying the little piece of equipment.

maddy,

Our children have iPods, and like them. They say that one of the things they enjoy is that they are in control of how they listen to their music.

After they import the tracks off of their CDs into iTunes (which is the music organizer program on their desktop computer [Wintel or Mac]) they reorganize the tracks any way they want into playlists. For example, they create their own “best of” by artist, genre, or mood. A playlist is like a virtual CD, and can be as long or as short as you wish.

So if you copy 25, 50, or 75 CDs into iTunes you can mix the order of your playlists to your tastes. If your tastes change, you can create new playlists which reflect how you want to listen to your music today.

Once you have prepared the playlists, you copy the playlist from iTunes on your computer to the iPod, and that is how the music is ordered. Of course, you can always jump from track to track within the playlist on the iPod.

Apple maintains a digital music and audiobook store where you can purchase music by the song, but my children don’t use it as you need a credit card.

My son also takes the time to annotate the tracks in iTunes, because that is included in the download from iTunes. There is also a calendar, but the children have never used it.

I don’t know much about the iPod shuffle.

Hope this helps! :)

I just got an iPOD Shuffle (512MB one) for my birthday. So far I like it. Very simple to use, and most importantly very light. Goes along nicely when I am exersizing (sp?). I also like the idea of no moving parts on it. The only down side I can see is that it appears to be disposable once the battery dies (i.e. once the rechargeable can not hold a charge).

I am not sure how much I like being forced to use the Apple iTUNES software either. I just do not like the interface. I would much prefer a drag and drop from just the Windows explorer. As I do not download music (all my .mp3 files are from my personal CD collection) it would just be easier. Plus I do not like the look and feel of the iTUNES application.

I haven't played with iPod yet, and am waiting to hear the negatives.

I have had for about 18 months a 128mb mp3 player which loaded straight out

of Windows.

i don't know anyhting about them but i had to add this co-inky-dink... i just had a similar thought no more than an hour before you did. we were at a huge local mall, hundreds of stores, the busiest one i saw by far-- busier even than the cafes and restaurants--was the mac store.

A note of trivia...

A rough version of one of the Lord of the Rings movies was transferred via iPod (a 40 Gig model I believe) from where the broadband conection from New Zealand ended in London to where Peter Jackson was working on the musical score. The studio where he was working didn't have a broadband connection available so they got it as close as possible and downloaded it to the iPod to cover the last few miles.

I want one bad. :D

I don't have an IPod, but from what I understand, the quality of sound is supposed to be better than any of the competitors, however I can't vouch for that personally obviously. If you don't have the money for an IPod, you can always go with a Nomad from Creative Labs, and for your comparison pleasure:

http://us.creative.com/products/wel...sp?category=213

http://www.apple.com/ipod/specs.html

I would say go to your nearest electronics store and try them both out and see which one you prefer. I wish I could upgrade my dinky MP3 player but I just don't have the money, all I can say is 64 MB really doesn't cut it :P

I got home from my trip to TN this week and found a wrapped present on the kitchen counter.....addressed in my husband's writing to "the most amazing person I know."

When I opened it up, it was an iPod. I hadn't even wanted one, but he thought I would like it. I spent some time fiddling with it while on conference call Hell this morning....downloading songs. (note to tohers -- software only supports Windows 2000 and up, and the first computer I tried was Win 98)

I am sitting here listening to some somgs I had on my computer that I put onto the iPod.....listened about 10 min so far,...and the sound quality is excellent. Device is small, and the software (if you have Win 2k +) is easy to install and use. I'd give it an A+ for ease....yopu can even install it while multi-tasking on conference calls. :p

PS -- I have the iPod Shuffle, 1 GB version. :)

I have an old mp3 player from when i bought in 2000.. cost me 400dollars and is only 64mb of space :P

I dont own one.

My 14 yr old neice just got one on Easter it holds 5000 songs.

Dont think I would ever need one for me though.

I use a Creative Zen Micro. A pretty good alternative to the IPod and it includes a built in FM receiver and voice recorder that the IPod does not.

How long can you record for? I need one for speech & language samples and it would be nice to have something able to entertain and take them.

You can record up to 10 hours of voice on the Zen Micro. Of course that will be reduced depending upon how much digital music you transfer to the hard drive as well.

Here is the link to their website if you are interested.

Thanks...I would never need more than 30-45 minutes but I guess I could store a few for translation that way!

The iPod doesn't include a voice recorder but it can be added for around $35 and will allow for at least a couple hundred hours of recording, depending on what else is taking up space. It is not supported on iPod Mini or Shuffle though.