I have a third generation 20 gig iPod, at a year and a half old, it died. The tech (sorry, “Genius”) at the Apple store told me it was hard drive failure. Since my ipod was six months out of warranty, I was shit-outta-luck. For $259, they can give me a replacement third gen 20 gig. Kinda pointless when I can get a new 30 gig for a few bucks more. $400 and at eighteen months, it’s useless.
I will never give Apple another penny of my money, and will never pass up an opportunity to bash that stupid ipod.
When I bought my Jeep in 1999, I opted for the cassette stereo instead of the CD. At the time, I had some tapes I compiled from a variety of CDs and I wanted to play them. But in reality, there were a lot of songs that I wanted to hear that I’d nnever put onto tape. I should have bought the CD stero instead of the cassette.
My iPod arrived yesterday. The cassette adapter should arrive today. Yup; just like my Discman, I can plug the iPod into the stereo. I guess the cassette player turned out (or will turn out) to be the better option after all – at least until I buy a new car that has an iPod-capable stereo. As of now, I have 1,754 songs on iTunes and the iPod. 6gig. Four days, 14 hours, 32 minutes, eleven seconds. Now, when I’m driving along and I think, ‘I want to hear that song.’, I can probably do it since about 80% of my CDs are immediately available.
I waited a long time to buy an iPod. At first, I didn’t really ‘get’ the technology. I assumed that the format would become obsolete quicky, since so many computer-related things become obsolete quickly. Then I thought they were too expensive. (I still do.) I also thought they were too trendy. But there are times when I really want to hear a particular song. How likely am I to be carrying Carmina Burana or Throbbing Gristle or The Pogues or Frank Sinatra or The Dickies or Beethoven’s Symphonies all at the same time on CD? I finally decided to join the 21st Century.
Sleeepy2: I understand your concerns. The biggest reason I didn’t get a Mac earlier is because they are much more expensive than comparable PCs. The reason I have one now is because I need it for the business I’m getting into if I want to use Final Cut Pro. I think iPods should be less expensive. I think batteries should be easily user-replaceable. So far though, I like the iPod and the Mac.
If for some reason you’re stuck with a car stereo with CD and radio only you can get a FM transmitter and basically tune your iPod into an available frequency on the radio. Works ok in a pinch.
So option 1 would be a car stereo with an input jack, option 2 would be a cassette adapter and option 3 (last resort) would be a FM transmitter.
It ain’t all it is cracked up to be. Come on, let’s take a walk down to the record store. I have to pick up a new needle for my stereophonic record player.
Oh, and regarding iPods, I asked a similar question and got some good info here.
Johnny L.a Since you’re using the MAC version of Itunes I recommend using the Itunes Lame(mp3 encoder) plug in. I suggest 192 VBR settings. You’ll achieve much better sound quality then the standard Itunes encoder.
I’ve been having a lot more success transferring the songs from my CDs to my computer using dBpowerAMP than Apple’s worthless, piece-of-crap, couldn’t digitize-a-song-to-save-its-goddamn-life, why-does-my-song-have-so-many-skips-in-it?, time-wasting encoder.
I have Windows 98 and it seems the ipod will not work with 98, is this true? I have been at their site and it seems you can’t view their library without downloading the software to run the ipod, can I do this with W98? just to download songs to the computer and worry about the ipod player later?
I was concerned about sound quality before I got my iPod. (I asked about Apple Lossless in GQ.) Now that I’ve gotten an iPod and have used it, I’m satisfied with the quality of the sound. I’ll mainly use the device in my car(s), and the ambient noise is such as to make no odds even if the sound were not especially good.
There’s something I never think about when I’m not using the iPod; and something that, when I am using it, I can’t really pay attention to (since I’m probably driving): Does iPod have a shuffle mode? As I’m driving along, trying to pay attention to these wacky Washington drivers, I’m unable to find it if it does.
Mine shuffles. I don’t know if all generations do it, but mine is a 20gb click wheel version. To find it, from the main ipod screen, go to settings, then the main menu and turn on the shuffle option. When you go back to the main ipod screen, you’ll see an choice that says shuffle songs. When you choose it, the ipod will shuffle through your entire music selection.
Also, there is another option in the settings screen that says “shuffle off”. You can select it and choose shuffle songs, or shuffle albums. If you choose to shuffle songs, you can then, go to a playlist, or an album, and the ipod will randomly play through all the songs in the playlist or album.
While you may be concerned, perhaps you don’t realize, or simply can’t tell the different between an MP3 (or whatever compressed format you’re using) and the original recording. There’s generally a significant sound quality difference.
Furthermore, the poor quality of most headphones further degrades the audio experience.
Not with the proper choice of bitrate and encoder. If you have a link to objective (ABX) test results where a significant number of people can tell a 192+ kbps LAME MP3 apart from the original, I’d like to see it.
All iPods have a shuffle mode. The regular iPods and the Minis have it buried in a menu option (“Extras,” IIRC). Turn it on, and the iPod shuffles whatever playlist/artist/album you opt to listen to.
Well, we’ll see if I have to change to apple lossless. I’m getting new headphones(etymotic er6i) this week.
In anycase, you were advocating re-encoding a mp3 from AAC. Thats Lossy format to Lossy format and it causes a much bigger difference then WMV to quality MP3.