I am busy today, so I ask this here knowing that minimal research could get me the answer, but this is faster.
I am not big on filesharing, as I am in the business of digital rights management (sort of), and I am not going to be happy if a lawsuit gets dropped on me (actually, my daughter, because she’d be guilty). So, with an iPod, are you restricted to buying tunes from iTunes, or can you copy music from a CD or other music source?
Also, is there any reason to buy the 4 GB machine for only $50 less than the 15 GB? How many accessories do you consider necessary?
It’s very simple to transfer the music from cd’s onto the iPod. It’s the first thing I do with every cd I buy. Other legal music sources include the iTunes music store, as you noted, and legal downloads elsewhere on the web (such as samples from record label sites).
I don’t have any accessories, and there’s nothing I’m dying to have, for what it’s worth.
Yes, you can copy music from any CD. You can also use MP3 file you created or obtained by other means. The only possible exception I can think of is that other paid download sites (competitors to the Apple iTunes Music Store) might put copy protection on their files.
The major difference between the 4GB and >15GB units is physical size (see pictures here) and weight (3.6 vs. 5.6 oz). That’s a big difference, probably enough to affect how you carry it and how often you carry it.
The iPod has been around quite a bit longer than iTunes, and the later model iPods can still play ordinary mp3 files. It can’t store in CD format, but ripping from a CD is easy. The MPAA is not going after downloaders (I’m not even sure it’s technically feasible), just distributers. Copying CDs isn’t even on their radar screen.
Whether the extra space is worth the money is up to you and your daughter – how many songs will she actually want to store? One of the best accessories is an FM transmitter for listening on a car radio.
I’m not 100% sure on this, but I THINK the mini iPods are also flash RAM based. That is, no hard drive, which is why they are smaller and almost as expensive. The bonus, size and weight not included, is that they have no moving parts like a hard drive.
They say you can take a normal iPod jogging with you, but I wouldn’t ever subject a hard drive to that intentionally. Flash RAM, on the other hand, is no problem.
And as others have said, you can rip your CDs and put them onto you iPod legally and easily. Once there, you can not transfer the songs to any other device. At least not easily.
By the way, iTunes is the name of the software for managing audio files, and you do need it to transfer files to the iPod. iTunes also acts as a front end for buying songs from the iTunes Music Store, but you don’t need to use this feature/service.
And filmyak, I think the mini iPod uses a miniature hard drive similar to the IBM MicroDrive. It’s hard to tell from Apple’s description, but $250 for 4GB of flash RAM seems too good to be true.
You can definitely take your iPod jogging with you however – the are built to be sturdy. I have the original 5GB model and, while I recommend treating them gently if possible, mine has survived being dropped onto concrete sidewalks several times.
iTunes (the software) and the iPod (the player) can handle music/sound files in MP3, AIFF, WAV, AAC, and whatever “audio book” format is being used by Audible.com.
AAC is an open-source sound standard that’s the next evolutionary step from MP3s. Apple’s iTunes Music Store sells stuff in Protected AAC format, which only plays in iTunes or the iPod, but you can get unprotected AAC files from other sources and play them as well.
The primary appeal of the iPod mini is not that it’s $50 less than the regular iPod, but that it’s only $50 more than a flash-RAM-based MP3 player, which only hold about 1/10th the music (“You can store 10x the music for just $50 more”). Plus, there’s the selection of colors, which apparently are rather popular.
Almost all the other online music services sell music in WMA (Windows Media Audio) formats. This is a Microsoft-proprietary system that, like Protected AAC, limits what you can do with the music. In many ways, the whole battle with the iTunes Music Store vs. Everyone Else™ is a fight over which format (AAC or WMA) will be used for the next generation of digital media; Bill Gates is obviously displeased that his horse isn’t winning the race here.
The iPod has a 32MB RAM cache, so the hard disk only gets accessed once every 10 minutes or so, which reduces the risk of disk damage.
Furthermore, I’ve heard some physicists suggest that the smaller hard drives may be more resilient to damage than their bigger counterparts, because of the smaller seek heads used – I don’t have a source offhand, but someone once dug up a reference that the hard drive inside the iPod is rated to survive impacts up to 400G(!)…
Everyone else has has everything else covered… so I’ll cover accessories.
I like the dock that come with our 15Gb model – this was midgrade when we got it, and the cheap one didn’t have an included dock. I’d see if the “small” 15Gb or the minis come with docks. Pretty much, the dock docks your iPod to the FireWire or USB connection, and keeps it upright. Much nicer than letting it flop around on your desktop. I think it’s $50 if not included with the iPod.
A mini-jack to RCA adapter is handy for plugging the iPod into your home stereo system. Couple of bucks at Kmart or radio shack.
FM modulator may or may not be good. I didn’t like it, the range was short, and the quality sucked. So if this interests you, get a lot of opinions before dropping the cash for one. This lets you hear the iPod over FM radio, which doesn’t have a whole lot of bandwidth compared to a direct audio connection (hence my suggestion for the RCA adapter, above). $20-$60.
For the car (since the FM transmitter sucked) an ordinary CD-to-cassette adapter does wonders. Sure, you’ve got a wire sticking out of the dash, but it’s a better solution than ripping my car apart to install something with RCA inputs. Say $20 at Radio Shack for one of these.
If you don’t have steering wheel volume controls that you love, or if you have a crappy car audio system, or have money to blow, or you generally don’t mind modifying your car from stock condition, you could replace the stereo or head unit with something that accepts RCA or mini-jack connections, or have someone mount a custom something to just accept the iPod. But… you mentioned that this was for your daughter, right?