iPod

What do you think about the iPod?

  • It's useless

  • It's ugly

  • It's too expensive

  • It's useless, ugly and too expensive

  • Oh man! Only for mac users? I hate Apple!

  • It's cool!

  • I really love it! It's sooooo cool!!!


Results are only viewable after voting.

ksv

web developer
What do you think about the Apple iPod? Useless or cool?
(I'm going to use the results in an article about the iPod I'm going to write)
 
Originally posted by Zapchud
Hey, hvor skal den artikkelen inn hen?
hyggelig med flere nordmenn her :D

Den artikkelen skal inn på en foreløpig uoffisiell norsk mac-nyhetsside (oi, det ble mange adjektiv ;) )
Tror det er planer om å lansere siden en gang rundt jul eller tidlig neste år, er ikke helt sikker. Jeg tror det blir virkelig stilig!
 
We dont understand norwegian (yet) damnit :p

Anyway, I think its cool, I just dont have any use for it :)
 
But unless it is a stepping stone to a much cooler PDA, then it is pretty much useless.


24 hours in a day. 11 of those I am at work, or driving to and from work. The rest of the time, I am at home, sleeping, or out doing something where listening to music is not necessary.

So I either have a stereo/hi-fi/computer right next to me, or I'm not listening to music.

I have no need for an mp3 player. Maybe if I got off my lazy ass and went running, but even then the 20 min of shock protection wouldn't be enough to keep it from skipping.

FaRuvius
 
well here is *my* rationale:

I need a device to suck mp3s off my friend's computers, but I dont do that often.

I need a device to play those MP3s, but I dont do that often.

I need a device that interfaces with both a mac and a PC to get those files, the iPod doesnt do that.

I need more than an MP3 player.


I got the iPaq H3870, (which I will be reviewing in 2 weeks). With a microdrive by Eye Bee Em I can get MP3 files from friends with any platform thanks to USB (yes I know its slow but hey what can you do), and I can listen to them while traveling from athens to my town in peloponesus (or vice versa) while checking my mail wirelessly (using my cell phone) and then playing a game of _____ (fill in the blank), and post that using my translation dictionary to find a word that I want to tell the cute german chick sitting right next to me.

Sure the iPod *only* costs $399 (in comparison to $900 of the iPaq + microdive) but the extra features on the iPaq make it more wantable and expandable. Having a 5GB HD on the iPod does nothing for me since I can probably get a 30GB FW external HD for about $250~$300, so storage wise it wouldnt be such a good deal.

I consider myself sort of a power user and this device doesnt fit me, besides, at home I have my mac connected to my stereo for MP3s, at work I have speakers and MP3s to listen to. I am rarely away from both for long periods of time, so there is no justifiable need for me to have *any* MP3 player (although I would have liked a mini disc player just for the vanity of it :p)


Admiral
 
Originally posted by FaRuvius
but even then the 20 min of shock protection wouldn't be enough to keep it from skipping.

Currently I have a Rio 500 mp3 player and it has much less than 20 minute shock protection and it has never skipped. Ive raced BMX with the thing on, Mowed grass on a FAST commercial mower while in school, and seriously it has taken some hard hits. Never has it skipped. 20 minutes should be able to handle anything short of a drop on the ground.
 
Originally posted by swizcore


Currently I have a Rio 500 mp3 player and it has much less than 20 minute shock protection and it has never skipped. Ive raced BMX with the thing on, Mowed grass on a FAST commercial mower while in school, and seriously it has taken some hard hits. Never has it skipped. 20 minutes should be able to handle anything short of a drop on the ground.

No, of course it doesn't skip. The Rio 500 uses a kind of memory instead of HD, so you don't need shock protection at all on it. I guess the 20 min shock protection in the iPod is a 16 MB memory chip.
 
http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/electronics/5784.shtml

Now *thats* an mp3 player.

The iPod costs $399. The Archos Jukebox costs $349
The iPod has 5gigs. The Jukebox has 20gigs
the iPod works with mac os.
The Archos Jukebox works with mac os, winblows, and linux.

The Archos Jukebox also has dual audio out, and a backlite display.

The only thing the iPod has on the Archos Jukebox is:
1) Firewire, for faster transfer
2) Apple cool-ness.

Oh, and did I mention that the Archos Jukebox 6gig version is only $249????

WTF? Why would you pay $399 for something you can get elsewhere for $249? So it has firewire and apple coolness? Ok, maybe!

Still, I expected a much lower pricetag from apple. I just thought they wanted it to sell like crazy.

Its going to flop. No doubt. The only thing innovative about it is its firewire port. thats IT. No infared, no bluetooth, no 802.11b, no ethernet... no imbedded linux or darwin (wouldn't that have been neat?).

Please, someone, tell me if I'm wrong here (and please do, because I don't want the iPod to go the way of the pippen, newton, eMate, etc etc)
 
ok, so the ipod is pretty darn small and has a rechargable lithium ion battery... and a backlit display (white led's.. cool!)... and firewire lets you transfer an entire cd's worth of mp3's in a few secconds.... still... way too much money!

PS: anyone know of a portable music player that has a hard disk and can play uncompressed audio, like aiff's?
 
iPod plays uncompressed aiff audio.
And that other player is prety ugly in my eyes.
One reason to buy the iPod that will always overrule any arguement for me.
Its made by Apple and if i can help Apple stock grow and make their products more visible in a PC world, you bet your bootyshake Im gonna do it.
... And Firewire is a HUGE feature. A whole CD in ten seconds! My Rio takes 15 seconds for one song for petes sake. Comparitively this is as cool as the day I disposed of my 9600/200 for my Dual G4 500. The lack of Firewire in other platforms to this day is a joke. Much the same joke as PC boxes shipping with floppy drives to this day!!! I dont care how many Word documents you can still fit on a floppy. Retire the dinosaur and open the eyes of the PC community. No factory installed zip drives? No ext Firewire drive connectability? Cache speeds below 1mb still!? Need I say more about why Apple products are the best?

BTW, if that 20g mp3 player transfers at the same usb speed of my Rio it would take 50 hours to fill it!!!!! ha. My music collection would be out of style by the time it was finished downloading.
 
Originally posted by kilowatt
ok, so the ipod is pretty darn small and has a rechargable lithium ion battery... and a backlit display (white led's.. cool!)... and firewire lets you transfer an entire cd's worth of mp3's in a few secconds.... still... way too much money!

PS: anyone know of a portable music player that has a hard disk and can play uncompressed audio, like aiff's?

OK, here's a list over features that the iPod has that other players doesn't have:
-Audio formats supported: MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR), WAV, AIFF
-Upgradable firmware enables support for future audio formats
-Up to 20 minutes of skip protection
-Built-in rechargeable lithium polymer battery (1200 mAh)
-Playtime: 10 hours when fully charged
-Charges via FireWire connector to Mac system(6) or power adapter

Height: 4.02 inches (102 mm)
Width: 2.43 inches (61.8 mm)
Depth: 0.78 inches (19.9 mm)
Weight: 6.5 ounces (185 g)

But, yes, I agree, it still costs too much. 299 $, and I'd buy it ;)
 
iPod is very cool, but too big, and probably too heavy. The idea of taking a hard disk jogging is a bit worrying - I hope it comes with a good warranty.

But it won't stop me getting one, cus it is just soooooo cool!
 
Wow, do you seriously mean that it's too big and too heavy? That one was new to me.
Have you read the specifications?...:rolleyes:
 
The pod is very very cool.

However one of it's main selling features (FireWire), is for me a great flaw.

I have a Mac and a PC.

However my PC has FireWire and my Mac doesn't!

So for me the iPod is utterly useless. Unless someone writes a PC version of Itunes2 ;)

However that said I could do with a new Mac......
 
Swizcore and ksv, you both made very valid points. Not to mention that you can use it to transfer files between computers (if you can find two with firewire - I think I could but I know there are people who would have to change zip codes to find two, I know what thats like).

And I like that it can handel aiff's. Thats a major plus for me.

LOL, 50 hours to fill 20gigs on that one I linked to.... thats also a good point (unless it uses usb 2.0, I believe...).

Still, a few points remain:
1) only 5 gigs (sounds silly.. I know...)
2) $400 bucks. Thats just outragious. I could buy a used ibook instead, or a new guitar.... ok, so that isn't completely a valid comparision.


And once again, what I like:
1) Made by APPLE!!!!
2) Cool design
3) plays lots of formats
4) firewire

Its just too much money. I was honestly expecting something breakthrough, like a $99 mp3 player with innovations. Heck, why don't they just make the titanium G4 out of Platinum or Silver? Heh, while I'm at it, how about depleated Uranium? Its unique, expensive.. innovative... EXPENSIVE!
 
Jag var en student i Sverige, 1997-98. Jag har glomt mycket mycket Svenska, men jag vill speler. Oh, jag tror att iPod mycket mycekt snell. Jag oskso vett Norge och sverige ar inte samma. (yes, my Swedish is awful I know)

Hej, hej,
Sam:)
 
Why I plan to get one:

I work in Macintosh based labs supporting digital video and interactive media ish. We have a lab full of G4's, and most other labs are blue and white G3's (i'm hoping for an upgrade to G5's at the end of this year). Firewire -abounds-.
My home machine is a DP500. I live off campus, and frontierDSL has yet to answer a few questions about why, though I can ping my machine, I can't telnet or ssh into it... friggin' ISP ish :p This said- once I leave home- my files are pretty much landlocked. I've tried DVD-RAM disks- but the write (and fail rate) of these disks is way off from what I need to be productive.

My book bag is not very large, and my cd player is quite. The headphones don't help either. I can only carry about four CD's in a little carrying case to school. This limits my music collection appreciably, although it helps that I have a *cough* steady supply of AA batteries at work so that my listening time is, at present, not limited (not to mention being in front of a computer).

The iPod has ONE cable, the headphones, and a tiny little adapter to plug into the wall. If I have a mac with firewire I can charge it from the firewire bus. No need to bring an AC adapter to jack into wall power. One less thing cluttering my bag.

My mp3 collection isn't really big- I just tend to be really finnicky. I also tend to work with extremely large after effects animations. It'd be interesting to see if the microdrive is fast enough to render digital video.

Yeah- I want one and I plan to get one. I can't think of a more elegant product for taking my music (and other data) on the go. Nothing else fits the bill. Period.
 
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