Some can’t say enough about iPods. Some would never touch it. Zune wants to overthrow iPod and Zen wants to take a big bite out of iPod’s marketshare. iPod, Zune, Zen and perhaps another MP3? Which type of MP3 player do you like best and why?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Last year I got an iPod (with video) for my birthday. It maybe popular, but it is cumbersome, the program comes with it makes it difficult to get material on it from elsewhere (other than from Apple). Not impossible, but cumbersome. The iPod battery issue made it “famous”. You can’t just change battery (if breaks down), but must send the whole thing to the company and pay some serious bucks for a simple battery change.
The quality of the sound or picture not an iota better than other MP3 players. Other than “cute” design, I really don’t understand how it became as popular as it did.
My next MP3 player would not be an iPod. Rather a player which….
1. Allows to change battery. In case of any portable device, this should be elementary.
2. Allows to freely copy to or from the device any file, or delete any file without having to go through all kinds of hassle and special program. This has nothing to do with copying any illegal files.
3. Has a slightly larger screen. No point to be able to copy entire movies onto the player and expect people to watch a two hours movie on a 2 inch screen. Or forget the picture, and have a truly tiny MP3 player which plays music only. Besides, how many people do we know, who watches a full feature movie on an iPod screen? Really.
I think my wife has the ideal MP3 player. It is a nameless brand, tiny little thing which plays music only (no video screen), runs on one AAA battery and allows an SD chip to be plugged in. Ordinary Windows compatible program (or Windows itself) can copy, delete files freely. It is simple. One can carry any number of chips, if capacity is the issue, but it isn’t, because nobody needs 30,000 songs on a player, that is silly.
Gabor
I’m with gabor. I was turned off from buying an Ipod when I learned that initially Apple wanted people to discard their Ipod and buy a new one once the battery ran out.
I’m going to get a generic MP3 player too. I have many MP3’s (mostly from my own CD collection) and dislike being told when and where I can play the music that I have purchased. I don’t want to make my computer jump thru hoops to get past their scheme. It’s not difficult to do but I dislike it in principle.
To: mendrys
“I’m going to get a generic MP3 player too. I have many MP3’s (mostly from my own CD collection) and dislike being told when and where I can play the music that I have purchased. I don’t want to make my computer jump thru hoops to get past their scheme. It’s not difficult to do but I dislike it in principle.”
Jump thru hoops? Don’t be silly! The reason why people find things a bit dificult when using iTunes is not because of a scheme … it is because iTunes was designes to work in a MACos environment (and then modified so it runs in windows), if you were used to this system (MACos) then using iTunes to make your iPod play whatever you want wuld be simple (not even 1s of thinking required) – you wuldn’t have to learn anything, but I guess you are used to windows too much … Even so you don’t have much to learn (about 5s of looking at the files menu shuld be enough to figure things out) Not doing anything and being stuborn about using the win method won’t get you anywhere … again the problem is not the software or an “evil” corporation the problem is the user!
D.K.
Susan, my guess is you’re shopping for Christmas presents and you want to know what to buy, or you just want to stir up some trouble on your blog.
The iPod is the way to go, hands down. Apple got it right (or at least more right than the competition) in every aspect, and that’s why they own the market.
The people who complain about the battery should learn to use Google, because they’d find that yes in fact the battery CAN be replaced. As for not being able to load songs they didn’t purchase from iTunes on their iPod, or use their iPod as a portable hard drive, not only are those things possible but they are dead easy.
iPod Nano (and maybe a portable mac to go with it :o) ). Plenty of storage, choice of MP3, AAC, Raw CD and Apple lossless encoding, no moving parts, and tiny! Fits into the breast pocket of a Jacket.
I use mine to listen to music from CDs I own, and albums I’ve downloaded from iTunes, and podcasts. Using iTunes also makes downloading podcasts a skoosh.
By the way, have you ever thought about doing a weekly podcast?
Gordon
David, thanks for clearing up some mis-conceptions. I was under the impression that Ipods used a scheme to limit the control over the music on the device that had to be circumvented.
The problem I have is not with the Ipod but the I-tunes service. I do not wish to buy music with strings attached.
I definitely will not be buying Microshaft’s product. “the device is not backward compatible with WMA-DRM9 (Zune utilizes WMA-DRM9.1), so tracks purchased from stores such as Napster or Urge will not work.” is all I need to know.
If you want to follow fashion – then go the iPod route – If you want the best I would recommend anyone to look at the fabulous range from Archos – superb quality less hype
david said:
“2. Allows to freely copy to or from the device any file, or delete any file without having to go through all kinds of hassle and special program. This has nothing to do with copying any illegal files.”
You realy fond this difficult? Win XP recognises the storaged data and you can modify it there (my computer)(even though iTunes is realy smple to use?!)
No, I didn’t find it difficult, but I can imagine that thousands of people out there with less computer knowledge and experience do. The very fact that iPod renames the actual files prevents later direct manipulation of the files on iPod.
I feel very comfortable to directly copy, delete, otherwise move around files by their actual name on the computer. I understand and know the directory structure, way back from the DOS days. For me the simplest way to place music on a device is to use any copy program which identifies the MP3 player as an ordinary drive (iPod does that), and just copy whichever selected file (or delete). Now, iPod doesn’t allow THAT (while many nameless brand MP3 players do).
Having no other logical reason, I must assume that Apple wanted people out there to choose the “easy way”, order music from THEM. That goes on the player totally automatically. Have you tried to put a movie file on iPod? That requires special program, you must buy for money, even if you try to copy a DVD on it you own. I do understand iPod, but I am sure there are many people out there who don’t.
Gabor
To: Gabor
The dificulty in bypasig itunes is the one I stated many times so far – the software was originaly developed for MACos system and not for windows, adding files using i-Tunes is easy; I haven’t tried adding video because i don’t own an iPod capable of video and none of my friens does either … as for the software, if you bought an iPod capable of video playbyck then the software is 100% free you can download it here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
this version of i Tunes is capable of adding movies / anything realy to you iPod …
*As I stated many times when it comes to programs not originaly intended to run on a windows platform a bit of patience is required however using iTunes is dead easy, only if you want to complicate things will you use other programs which might mix your libraries -> but I think that complaining about how othary ways of doint things are dificult is a bit pointles?!
D.K.