My SO still uses a Walkman (tape player) to listen to music and audibooks at work, during workouts and on bike rides (only on deserted bike trails). She mentioned using it in “extreme conditions” which I take to mean bike rides in rain, dropping it on the ground, etc. I think an iPod would make her life easier, but I’m not so sure about their survivability in such situations. So what do you think? Would a full-size (HDD based) iPod be OK if used in a protective case? Or should I go for the Nano? Or just forget the whole thing?
I would definitely say not to use a hard drive based device under those conditions. There’s only so much you can do to protect it against impacts, short of wrapping it in several inches thick of foam all around it.
Flash based devices are a much better bet… definitely better than tape players and discmen. That’s the benefit of having no moving parts. 
I think it’s a lot easier decision, now that flash players are getting some serious capacity, but I’d like to fend off chrisk’s statement. At least in the case of iPods, the HD based units have a roughly 30 minute music cache. Once the device loads the cache, the heads retract and lock firmly, and you pretty much HAVE a flash player.
I’ve run, biked, excercised, and cleaned house with my iPod and never had an issue with it.
'Course, there are people that can break a piece of equipment by looking at it funny, so YMMV. If you don’t respect it, nothing will last.
Hmm, I guess it’s not an easy decision.
I’d choose the Nano if she didn’t have so many CDs - definitely too many to fit on the Nano. An
I guess the other issue is: if I got her the Nano, how easy is it to transfer a partial selection from the iTunes library? I think last time I checked, I could only figure out how to transfer either the entire library, or a single playlist. The latter option makes the playlist function of the iPod useless. Is this true and/or still the case?
It has always been the case that you could selectively pick and choose which files to put on your iPod.
I have a 1GB iShuffle. While the capacity is much too small for my liking (~15-20 albums), it performs like a champ. I’ve dropped it on concrete and asphalt from chest height several times and it’s no worse for the wear. I would go with the iNano.
I too have a much larger selection than’ll fit on either of my iPods (10g and 512m shuffle), Moving music on or off the iPod is really very easy. I’ve also found that I’ll fill the ipod then not change the selection for quit awhile.
There’s two ways to use the iPod, one is to let iTunes make the selections and copy them over. I don’t like the selections it makes. The other is to to the maintenance yourself. It’s as easy as control clicking all the albums you’re interested in and dragging them to the iPod item in iTunes.
You can do that, or create one large playlist to add and remove items from that’ll get synced with the iPod when you plug it into the computer. Just because you have it as a single playlist does NOT mean that’s the only way you can listen to it…that’s just a catalog of the music to copy over, it’s still available by artist, album, genre, etc.
Once you have a master list created, it’s easy to add and drop items at will, and a fairly quick proposition. My 10gb iPod can be filled from empty on 10 to 12 minutes. That’s 2100 songs in 10 minutes.
The shuffle is great for short term use. Like I’ve got a new album I want to listen to, or I’ve created a ‘hits only’ playlist of 200 or 300 songs and have iTunes pick from that list. I wouldn’t have bought it myself, it was a freebie for attending training over the summer.
Lastly, the most recient version of iTunes added sub-folders to play lists. Where you had a flat listing before, you can now tuck multiple folders under a main one.