I’m really debating about this with myself. I guess the issue is I’m not sure how much it will get use, and I’m not sure how to work with it.
It’s almost Mother’s Day and I think my wife would get a kick out of an iPod, if she can gt used to working with it. Does one have to use iTunes with it? Are playlists mandatory? How does one sync/copy songs to it? I thought iTunes was required, but I did some SDMB searching earlier and it seems that maybe itunes is NOT required. I don’t use iTunes.
I am most excited about buying music, I think. When one buys music (from any music service with some kind of protection), it’s possible to make CDs. Will these CDs play anywhere? How many times can I put a song on a CD?
I have ripped all my CDs to the hard drive, so I have a few thousand files that are available, will these songs mix interchangeably into playlists? Will these CDs play anywhere?
I have a Nano and I really like it. It’s easy to load songs onto it and/or make playlists. Playlists aren’t required, you can just play albums or shuffle all the music that’s on there.
I’ve only used iTunes with it so far. It sort of sucks, though, and I’ve been meaning to look into some alternatives. Here is a good source of links and info for other software you can use in place of iTunes.
Buying copy protected music online will limit how many times you can burn CDs and on many computers you can play the songs you bought. This is why I don’t buy copy protected music online – it’s just too much of a restriction to be worth it to me. I still stick to buying CDs and ripping them, even though I would greatly prefer the convenience of online purchase.
Thanks for the link, lots of stuff there. Your problem with buying music online is mine as well. I want to be able to make CDs for work, mixes for friends etc, without worrying about how many times I’ve used it before.
I’ve bought a decent amount of songs from iTunes, and I make mixes all the time. Still haven’t run into any problems with being denied copy ability or anything, and I’ve reused songs over and over. Only thing is if I send a friend a song through AIM or something that I purchased, I have to give them my iTunes password so they can listen to it.
I’ve got (I think) the fifth gen 80gb, and it is great. I spend a lot of time waiting around in offices, etc., and don’t feel like reading all the time, so with it I can watch tv, listen to podcasts/tv, etc. instead. Great alternative.
You do have to understand that iPods are a disposable item. The battery will die, and it is not easy or cheap to reaplce, in fact Apple doesn’t encourage it (they will replace the whole unit if it dies during warrenty- sans music.)
You can buy a new iPod battery for about $16. And while it’s not as easy to replace as a standard battery, it’s not terribly difficult. I had a first-generation, 5g model, that I gave to a friend a while back when I upgraded to a more recent model. Last time I spoke to my friend about it, it was still doing fine on the original battery. Okay, its battery life has shrunk dramatically over time, but after 5 1/2 years, it still plays fine, and when she wants to, she can replace it as shown at the link above. Calling them “disposbable” isn’t really fair, I don’t think.
I think you’ll find it easier to use than any other player. I bought more than I really need, because I didn’t understand how much the files are compressed. I have nearly 3 thousand songs on my 80 gig player, and there is room for 10 times that.
I haven’t hit any limit on buring CDs through I tunes, but most of my music was originally on CD, not bought online.
I am almost at the point of buying a new car radio with an iPod base, as it’s so much better than any station, and I won’t have to shuffle through CDs on the road.
My advice- as someone who sells iPods (and other MP3 Players) as part of their job- is this:
Buy something else.
Get a Creative, or an iRiver, or a Sansa, or anything except an iPod. We’ve had nothing but trouble with iPods- batteries dying, HDD/Memories corrupting, songs getting wiped mysteriously, the blasted things just suddenly ceasing to function.
Not worth the hassle, IMHO, and we tell any of our customers who ask our opinion the same thing.
Just wondering Martini Enfirld, how many ipods do you sell in comparison to those other players? Isnt it natural to be more aware of the faults when so many more of these devices are sold?
Anyway to answer the question, Ive used an ipod for several years now and have had no complaints (with the exception of the mini whos battery died after being left out overnight in the snow!). Theres been a lot of hate for itunes, which I have to admit I dont understand, its the easiest system in the world to use, and with regard to downloading music, I think you can burn five copies of a song - could be wrong there though.
CD’s burned from itunes will play anywhere a copied cd will play.
We don’t sell a large proportion more iPods than other types of MP3 player, from my observations (I haven’t sat down and gone through the exact figures of iPod to other brand sales ratio, although it might be interesting to do so at some point). Even so, we rarely get other brands back, but we get- on average- least one faulty iPod a week.
We get far, far more iPods back as a percentage of total units sold than we do with other brands. I can count the number Creative Zen players that I’ve had back with faults since Christmas on one hand with fingers left over. I’ve dealt with 3 faulty iPods this week alone, and we don’t sell 4 times as many iPods as we do Creatives (I’d very roughly estimate a 60/40 iPod/Creative sales ratio).
This is also the experience of my colleagues. The problem is exacerbated by the fact Apple’s marketing is so good that “iPod” is now a synomym for “MP3 Player”, and when customers come in and ask for an “iPod” and we ask if they want the Apple iPod or an Mp3 player made by someone else, they get confused and say “What’s the difference?” which leads the a 30 minute discussion on the features of every MP3 player in the store, compared and contrasted with the iPod. This invariably results in a confused customer who leaves the store to “have a think about it” and then ends up getting the unit they eventually decide upon from whichever retailer happens to be closest to them the next time they’re out shopping (which is just as likely to be a competitor as it is to be us).
We’ve now discovered it’s easier just to go “Sure, how many gigabytes and what colour do you want?” when people ask for an “iPod”, and then get them the appropriate Apple product. Customer leaves with an iPod and is, by and large, happy- until it breaks, at which point we have to send the customer to Apple to get it fixed.
Anyone who asks for an MP3 player, or another brand, or asks for general information about Mp3 players still gets the full explanation of the various features, benefits, drawbacks, etc of all the different models though, of course!
It’s a done deal. Silver 2GB iPod. I never even researched anything else. I have a 64MB mp3 player I bought for $20 off ebay, that I rarely use as it eats batteries. And with 500 songs I think this will be more than sufficient. If my wife decides she really loves it and uses the heck out of it, maybe we’ll look to something else.
All you have to do is burn the song to a CD and then rip it back to your hard drive. At least that’s what I do in iTunes and that’s how the guy at the Apple store I went to Friday (ironically because of an iPod problem) advised me to get around it.
I bought an 8gb nano just before xmas and I’ve had absolutely no problems with it. I couldn’t get winamp to recognize it, so I bit the bullet and downloaded iTunes.
I even put it through a full wash-cycle and it came out fine (once it dried out).