I love my iPod. With more of the networks offering free downloads of their t.v. shows, I love it even more. Now I can watch “Desperate Housewives” while slaving away on the recumbent bike!
However, if it will help to appease the OPer, I’ll personally volunteer to fuck Steve Jobs. You know, in the spirit of community and solidarity.
A pretty stupid reason. There’s no reason why you have to use the iTunes music store. The iPod plays MP3 files.
My ipod mini worked for a month or two, when it quit, instead of doing the smart thing and taking it back to the store…I pried it open and tried to see if it was user serviceable. Unfortunately, the little ribbon connecting the USB to the unit tore, so now its a neat looking piece of garbage. Only a month later I put a DVD + R in my mac mini, and the OS wouldnt recognize the disk, eject didnt work, so I had to pry it open and manually remove the disk. Then my mac mini crashed and I had to reinstall the OS…lost everything. Apple makes very attractive crap. They are the best at “putting lipstick on a pig”. Their hardware was, at one point in the past, pretty decent. The G4 tower looks like one of the best computer cases available.
All I can say is, my sony, dell, compaq, HP, Daytek, NXT, RCA, microsoft (hardware) and nexttech gear does not have even close to the failure rate of the apple stuff, and every other “non apple” hardware product is much more user servicable and stable. For people concerned about value for $$ stay away from Apple. For the Paris Hiltons of the world that have an endless budget for fashion accessories, Apple is the Louis Vitton of the computer world…have at it.
These are among the reasons I chose a Creative Zen as well. I also liked how you can customize the menus, and it has a simple control layout. I know people love the clickwheel, but it did absolutely nothing for me. I also liked the voice recorder (good for recording ideas for later, and blackmailing people 
, and the FM radio, and the ability to record FM radio.
I think there are markets for both products, though, and the people who don’t have any interest in tinkering and customizing their mp3 player, will probably have an iPod as one of their choices, and thats fine with me.
As for iTunes, I thought you didn’t have to use iTunes?
I hate the clickwheel. Very difficult to make adjustments while on the move. The layout isn;t great either; it would have been better if the wheel had been on top and the screen on the bottom. I’d rate the UI a 6 or7 out of 10.
True, but if you want to buy music on the Internets you have to use iTMS. The iPod doesn’t play any protected music from other sources like Napster or whatever (I think Real music might work, but it’s not officially supported).
Of course you can get music from CDs and that’ll work though.
Yet a-freakin’gain.
You purchase a product that you know is not user-serviceable, has no obvious way to open it, and when you open it and it breaks you blame the people who made it?
Unless Mac Minis are downgraded from their counterparts, there is a manual eject – just like any other CD-ROM/DVD drive, there’s a wee little hole you can poke with an unbent paper clip. There is no earthly reason for you to “pry something over”, especially if the box was only a month old. A month old is well within its service plan. If you have a local Apple Store they probably could have fixed it there. If not, then you’d have had it fixed free anyway.
Why are you blaming Apple for your own clumsiness?
You can say “But they aren’t user-serviceable”. Okay, fine, they’re not, but this is akin to complaining that they also don’t run PSP games. How did this fact escape you when you originally purchased the device? Did you completely fail to research Apple in general and the iPod in particular? Up until quite recently Apple was not known for user-serviceability. That began to change in the past five or six years, give or take, but the briefest glance at an iPod or an iMac would tell you that you aren’t going to be opening it up.
And before you call me a Jobs-worshiper, I’m not. I don’t own an Apple for numerous reasons, but none of those reasons are even remotely related to poor design or service.
Apple products are somewhat more expensive than their competitors but not by a large margin, and their added functionality (audiobooks!) more than makes up for the difference in price. If your no name mp3 player can do the job then save your $30 or $50 or whatnot and don’t buy an iPod. Why you were not aware of this prior to purchasing I don’t know, nor do I know why you feel the need to be lambasting us iPod users who actually researched the product and bought it because we actually use its’ features. There are some pretentious people here but I’m not one of them.
Why?
Thirded, it takes, what, three seconds to change the battery? I love it!
Granted the battery only lasts 18 hours, but if you get a couple rechargeable AA’s then you’re good to go forever.
It just feels more natural.
This wouldn’t work at all - your hand would be covering the screen as you operated the wheel, completely obscuring whatever you were trying to do.
Don’t be silly, you just turn it upside down then. :rolleyes:
I use my ipod virtually every waking hour. My hand will not obscure the screen. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.
This is what I was thinking. Apple got it right.
The battery on my 20gb 4th gen ipod still works fine and holds a charge for a very long time. I want to get an Ipod Video though cause they are nifty. The thing that I think is ridiculous though is the pricing of the 4gb nano, for just fifty bucks more you could buy the 30gb video.
How surprised am I that a Pit thread about iPods so quickly ran to 2 pages? Not very.
I’ve never owned a Walkman, Discman, or any other sort of personal stereo, because I don’t have the patience to listen to an album all the way through. Thus, the MP3 player is the answer to my prayers. Sadly, being the big tart that I am, the MP3 player in question just had to be an iPod. I can second pretty much every complaint voiced above (except that I have not yet resorted to prising the damn thing apart), but was finally driven to despair by a particular incident last week.
Work required me to spend 48 hours in LA, which is a very long way from my home in London. Of course, I knew that my iPod battery would never last the whole journey out, but I nonetheless made sure to charge the thing a week or so before I left, in the hope that it would at least survive the time I would be spending in departures at LHR. Unfortunately, as other “pod people” will attest, the battery runs flat just as quickly when the iPod is turned off as it does when it’s playing, so I was already out of power by the time I got to the airport. After 10 hours of watching crappy movies on the plane, thanks to the death of my 'pod, I got to my hotel in LA and put the thing back on charge, so that I could listen to it on the way home. That didn’t work out either though, because the “hold” switch that is meant to disable the controls no longer works, meaning that when I stuffed it into my bag at 9am on the day of my departure, it started to play. By the time of my 9.30pm flight, the battery was flat again. F**king piece of crap.
Obviously, I’m going to have to replace it, but does anyone know if the other MP3s on the market are compatible with iTunes? Life is too short for me to upload my entire music collection again, but I’d really like to avoid giving my money to Apple again, if I possibly can.
Forgot to mention - if I try to jog with my iPod, the jogging motion causes it to cut out within about 5 minutes. I know that this is not supposed to be the case, but unfortunately I’m a fairly recent convert to jogging, and I didn’t discover this failure until I was out of warranty.
A couple of notes for Twotwofive:
First, it definately sounds like your battery is dead. I leave my iPod unplugged overnight all the time and it doesn’t drain the battery any appreciable amount. Even if it did, it couldn’t possibly run out completely on the way to the airport, unless that’s an eight+ hour trip or something.
Second, if you travel like that often, you may want to check out the external battery solutions that are out there. There are cheap ones that basically just hook two AA batteries to the iPod’s dock connecter that add a good 20 hours of life to the unit.
Third, how old is this iPod? Sounds like it’s in bad shape in general if the hold switch isn’t working.
And finally, is your music collection in MP3 format? Did you rip all the songs from CDs? If so, you should be able to use whatever MP3 program you want. If you bought your music from iTunes Music Store you’re stuck though.
I can second this. I have a cheapo 9V battery powered unit and it works great. But even without external help, assuming a 4G iPod, it should play for 8-12 hours no problem. If it’s turned off, the battery shouldn’t drain for a week or two.
On the other hand I don’t really know what to say to someone who gets angry that the battery ran out after they accidentally left it on and playing all day long. Are you also disappointed that it won’t do your taxes and walk your dog?