My 12 year old daughter is desperate for an iPod. While I’m not opposed in principle, I would like to better understand the use and capabilities before I purchase. iPod.com is not that clear. I am extremely computer literate (PC-wise, not Mac-wise), but am not sure what’s involved with iPod. Here are my questions:
Songs are puchased online for 99 cents, are all songs that price?
What format do they come in?
Can I burn the songs to CD after purchase, or can they only be played on the iPod?
Can I move the songs back to PC for temporary storage?
Are there subscription rates that are cheaper than 99 cents per song?
Are there better download sites other than iPod.com?
I’m considering the iPod Shuffle, due to its simplicity and low cost. Anything to beware of with this product?
Songs are puchased online for 99 cents, are all songs that price?
I think that iturns songs are all that price. I believe that whole albums can be purchased for $10. You can also get songs from CDs you have onto the Ipod. I don’t know anybody who fills their IPod 1 song at a time from itunes.
What format do they come in?
I believe they come in ACC with some digital rights wrapper that restricts the songs to your IPOD and personal computers. I don’t care for this and don’t use Itunes for this reason.
Can I burn the songs to CD after purchase, or can they only be played on the iPod?
You can burn CDs from the songs you purchased.
Can I move the songs back to PC for temporary storage?
I am not sure.
Are there subscription rates that are cheaper than 99 cents per song?
Not from apple.
Are there better download sites other than iPod.com?
There are others. They mostly don’t work with Ipods because most of the others like napster use the windows media format for the annoying DRM. Ipods does not support WMA.
**I’m considering the iPod Shuffle, due to its simplicity and low cost. Anything to beware of with this product?**It can only store a few songs so you will need to move music from your computer when you want to listen to something else. The larger players like 40 and 60 gig ipods you can get all of your music onto them which is pretty nice in my opinion.
Basically what’s involved in an iPod is a laptop hard drive with a basic interface. A fair number of your questions are actually about the iTunes Music Store, though the software comes free with an iPod.
Pretty much. Whole albums can often be purchased for $9.99. This is officially the “recommended price” by Apple and the price is set by the record company, but I don’t recall seeing it changed more than a handful of times.
They come in Apple’s own copyright-protected format. Some people say you can change them to regular mp3s, but that would be illegal so I can’t tell you about that (at least on this board).
Yes, though there are a limited number of times you can burn any given playlist.
They’re always on the PC (unless you delete them from there) and you move them over to the iPod. Are you thinking the songs get downloaded directly to the iPod?
Technically, yes. There are subscriptions which allow unlimited use for a month, but after that you have to keep paying. The $0.99 model is closer to what you buy when you buy a physical CD.
I want to take an aside here to take down the disingenuous ploy by Napster’s ad department: it does not cost $10,000 to fill up an iPod. iPod plays Apple’s DRM files and regular mp3s, meaning that you can rip all your CDs to mp3s format (perfectly legal and even easy with the iTunes software) and move them to your iPod. The vast majority of the music on my iPod is from my old CDs. If I really had to buy every track again (as Napster wants you to think) then yes, it would be a bad deal. It’s simply not the case, though.
iPod will play songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store and any other mp3s. Anywhere you can download actual mp3s (not non-Apple copy-protected formats) will work.
I haven’t heard anything other than the danger of eating it. (joke)
Personally, it doesn’t match my style of listening. If I’m driving from New Haven to Washington, DC and I decide I want some New Order, I want to be able to have my New Order now
I’ll recap a bit:
iPod and iTunes Music Store are distinct.
You get the iTunes software which handles interactions between the computer and iTMS and iPod, as well as CD ripping and burning and audio file playing on the PC.
iTunes can rip CDs. You put a CD in and it turns the audio tracks into mp3 files.
iTunes Music Store sells Apple’s copy-protected format.
Once iTunes has music – whether from ripping CDs, purchase from iTMS, or other sources – the music can be transferred to iPod.
It is possible to delete songs which are still on the iPod, but if the iPod is damaged, they may be lost. Technically music can be transferred from iPod to a computer, but this is unsupported and moderately shady.
The iTunes Music Store is thought of separately from the iPod. The two can be completely independent.
The iTMS sells songs at $0.99 a pop, and albums at $9.99. IIRC some songs (long ones, etc.) are more, eBooks are more. They come as AACs, which are MP4 format with a DRM wrapper, as has been said above. This allows you to play it on the computer on which you purchase it and up to four more computers that are authorized. You can also move it to iPods attached to those computers. You can burn to CD specific playlists containing AACs up to 10 times each, so the answer for all intents and purposes is yes, you can burn CDs with them.
There are lots of other download sites where you can get unlicensed MP3 music as opposed to AACs: emusic.com, buy.com, and the quasi-legal Russian sites come to mind. The iPod doesn’t support the Napster and Rhapsody formats as far as I’m aware – you never really own the music at Napster, you just kind of license it, but it is a lot cheaper.
Most people take their CD collection (and whatever MP3s they have acquired) to populate their iPod. iTunes is a capable MP3 playing/CD ripping program, and in order to use it you never have to touch the iTMS (although as far as I’m aware it is the only way to access the iTMS). Just import songs from already purchased CDs and drag over all your MP3s.
The standard iPod supports a variety of different playback options. These include Song shuffle, Album shuffle, play individual songs, play individual albums, play individual playlists, etc. This is made possible through selecting stuff through the click-wheel and LCD. The iPod shuffle does not have that; instead it is just a USB flash drive with MP3 decoding software and a headphone jack. As far as I know, the only way to play back songs on the Shuffle is in Song shuffle mode.
Many, many thanks to gazpacho, Mathochist, & edwino. I think I understand what’s going on now. One last question: if I burn an iTMS song to CD, what keeps me from converting it to a regular mp3 afterward (from the CD-using regular ripping SW)?
Note to ouryL: yes, it’s really my daughter. She wants to know if you’re really The Little Mermaid.
Well, nothing. Technically you could even use the iTunes ripper to do it, though that would be an attempt at avoiding the onerous copyright restrictions, and thus highly unethical if not flat-out illegal.
I have never encountered a song (as opposed to an eBook) that was more than 99¢ on iTunes. In most cases, they simply don’t sell songs that are over 10 minutes long individually–you have to buy the whole album to get the long track. The very first thing i bought from iTunes as Art Blakey’s 13-minute version of “A Night in Tunisia,” but they no longer offer that individually. there are still some long tracks available for 99¢; it seems to vary by label.
First off, Apple’s DRM scheme is **far ** from onerous. It’s actually the most liberal one I’ve seen yet and actually understands “fair use.” You want onerous? Head over to Napster and see what happens to your MP3 collection if you stop paying the monthly subscription charge. Anything using WMA and Microsoft is going to be more unpleasant to deal with than AAC.
Second, you’re using the iTunes software to burn CDs and perhaps rip as MP3? No problem. That’s what it’s made for, and if it were illegal, do you honestly think it would be as easy as it is? It’s what they told me to do when I wanted to convert AAC files to MP3 so I could stream them to the living room stereo. Why would they tell me to do it if it were illegal or unethical?
Apple has a three-word mantra for all of this: Don’t Steal Music. That’s really all you need to know.
The shuffle does not have a screen. If you just want to listen to music you like randomly it is a good product. If you want to be able to pick music based on your mood or whatever then it is not very useful. The price on the iPod mini was just reduced to $200, it holds about 1000 songs.
I hope I am not stating the obvious but anything you own on CD you can transfer to your iPod.
Also keep in mind that unless you buy some stupid format from a stupid music store, you’re not locked into the iTunes music store. My favorite with whom I’ve invested a bit lately is AllOfMP3.com. Dirt cheap, you’re helping the economy of a recent third world country, and it’s legal.
Consider a Shuffle for yourself. I bought my wife a 3d gen. 30GB iPod about a year and half ago. Really, truly great. But… I just got myself a shuffle for it’s flash drive capability and to give her iPod back. I think it’s even cooler than a real iPod – keep in mind that my use, though, is virtually 100% for audio books (iTunes music store or Audible.com are good sources).
Related question:
95% of the songs on my HD are listed in the iTunes directory, all of them are in the My Music folder. I’m not sure how to get iTunes to find and add theses songs. The help file talks about dragging files into my iTunes library, but I can’t find that folder in my C drive, and I don’t even know all the titles that aren’t listed (there are dozens).
You can drag directly from a folder on your computer to iTunes. You can also go to the file menu and use ‘add file to library’ or ‘add folder to library’. The latest version of iTunes has the option to show duplicate songs.
It might be easiest for you to clear your entire iTunes library and then add your entire my music folder. Just be careful you only remove the files from the library and not delete the file. If you have spent a lot of time rating songs you might loose this information. I would back up the library file before I tried this, just in case.
One option I find usefull is ‘copy files to iTunes folder when adding to library’ and ‘keep iTunes folder organized’. Songs are organized in folders by Artist-Album and if you change anything iTunes moves the file to the appropriate folder.
Just keep in mind, the iPod won’t be compatible with older operating systems. I was shopping around, pretty gung-ho about buying one, but then I found out it doesn’t work with my four-year-old computer that runs Windows ME. And since I’m going to keep using the computer until it dies, I’m not getting an iPod anytime soon.
edwino & Anachronism are incorrect in their assessment of the iPod Shuffle. It ** does not** force you to listen to music at random. If you want to listen in random order, you can by flicking a switch, but it is not the default listening mode.
But it really is a different beast than an ipod or an ipod mini. Those are hard-drive based machines that can carry a lot of your music-- after you’ve ripped it to your computer’s hard drive.
If you really want to know what an ipod is like, download iTunes and try it out. The software is free, and your daughter can get started on ripping her CD collection-- or organizing any MP3s she already has, or burning CD mixes of her own (iTunes will burn disks in a compressed computer-friendly format, or as a CD you can play on your stereo).
When you buy an ipod, all the music contained in iTunes is copied over to the 'pod, or at least as much as it can hold. The minis only hold 4 or 6 gigs of music. The Shuffle holds 512 MB, or 1GB. If your collection is larger than what your high-tech walkman hold,s you decide what gets copied over. (I’ve got more than 25 GB of music/audio files on my computer, and I only walk around with a 1GB Shuffle. My wife has a 15 GB iPod, so obviously the computer holds much more than either pod.)
I never said that the shuffle forces you to listen to music at random, just that it does not have a screen and not very usefull if you want to listen to a specific song or type of music.
I suppose you could turn off shuffle mode and then skip to the song you want (I don’t own a shuffle, are the songs organized alphabetically by title?), then when that is over skip to the next song you want to listen to, etc. But this is nothing like being able to listen to all your pop songs, or a playlist with all your upbeat music with just a few clicks.
Just to get a better feel of how much music you can fit on the various iPods…
Assuming 12 songs per album and standard compression.
iPod Shuffle: 10 or 20 albums (120 or 240 songs)
iPod Mini: 80 or 120 albums (1000 or 1500 songs)
iPod regular: 400 albums (5000 songs)
iPod Photo: 600 or 1200 albums (7500 or 15000 songs)
A Shuffle can often be sufficient. Especially if you’re only out for short periods of time and prefer to listen to songs in random order. Although you can listen to them in order, it takes a long time to choose from 240 songs with no display.
The bigger iPod Mini is what I’m planning to buy myself. If I choose 120 of my favourite albums it’s really more than what I listen to regularly. I have an old 10 gig creative mp3-player now, but I’ve realized I don’t really need it. I would rather have a smaller player to carry with me.
The bigger iPods are really more for people who want to carry their entire record collection with them. The iPod Photo has replaced the largest capacity iPods. It’s probably nice to be able to see album covers on the screen, but if you don’t need the capacity I don’t really see the use for it.
