The iPod Dilemma

[Philippine Mango]

Originally posted by: ultimatebob

Originally posted by: beacon
I'm glad to see this thread as I was about to make one myself... I have a 30gb Zen Touch, and before that briefly tried out a 5gb Zen Micro. I LOVED the Micro, but it just had too little HD space. That and the fact that every button on the face of it was touch sensitive - I found that often when I just tried to pick it up off my lap I would accidentally change the song or some other function I didn't want to do (yes I know I could have locked it but I only like to lock my players when jogging or it's in my pocket or something like that).

ANYWAY, I returned the Micro and got a Zen Touch. Was OK... not much to complain about besides the huge size of it. But one day I dropped it from about waist height, and now it doesn't work anymore

SO - what I want to know about the iPod is:

1) does it have the ability to rate songs, and search your song library by most played, least played, new songs, best rating, etc? I believe the Micro had this but I know the Zen Touch didn't. I really want this function.

2) will there be any issues with my 30+ GB collection of mp3's that I have? Does Apple enforce any type of copyright protection through iTunes? Will ripping my CD collection to mp3 result in protected files or any such nonsense?

3) is there any adware or other BS I don't want that will come with me installing iTunes?

Thanks for your time and input guys!

1) Yes, iTunes will do that. You can give songs star ratings, and then sort by rating and/or most played. Personally, I rate all my songs by stars, and then make playlists that way to keep it from playing songs that I'm sick of. All of your custom playlists get copied to the iPod when you sync them up. You can't modify MOST of playlists from the iPod itself, though... you need to use iTunes. The only exception to this is the "On the Go" playlist, which can be modified from the iPod.

Lol, I laugh at people like you... You carry all these damned songs on your MP3 player and yet you hate/are sick of the majority of them and then complain you have no space.. Maybe you should consider transferring songs that you *actually like* instead of the bottom of the barrel music that you have in your collection on your computer. Carry the music you'd listen to and then it wouldn't be a problem, there is really no point in the rating system except on P2P sites...You either like the song or you don't...

 

[slackerinabox]

OK, getting my iPod this Friday. That means you iPod haters have about a week to convince me why player X is better!

 

[exodus454]

i love my ipod (20gb photo), but the minimalistic design really CAN be too much sometimes - it can be counterproductive to the point where it actually makes it slow and more annoying than a normal mp3 player. I find the constant circular motion to be very slow and unnatural feeling, not to mention the lack of buttons that can be used in your pocket. the touch wheel is great when you're looking at it, however it gives you no frame of reference as to how far you're scrolling: you MUST be looking at the screen to avoid overshooting something, and most times you will. The hold button could be located in a much more convienient place, because the location/shape of it currently does not allow for quick and easy access like a hold button should have.

Another thing that annoys me is the amount of screen space wasted. you have ALL that room on the screen, but only artist, album and title are displayed. With all that extra room, why do i have to hit a button to at least see the rating on one of my songs? why cant i see total track length? it just doesnt make any sense to me.

Yet another thing that irritates me about this thing is the volume and the fact that you can ONLY turn the volume up and down from the now playing screen. Say you are in the menus looking through your music and you get a louder-than-normal song come on. you can either click ALL the way back to the beginning and then go to now playing, you can wait 6 seconds for the menu to time out, or you can rip the headphones out of your ears. not the optimal design if you ask me. I could do with a "real" EQ too, rather than presets.

And what the hell is the deal with the ipods scratching so much? you would think that they'd be designed to ride in people's pockets all day. do you ever see an iBook scratched to hell? I never have, and i'd like to think some of them go through more than our little ipods.

Last thing I have to say something about is iTunes. The autosync has driven me NUTS. On countless occasions i've deleted a playlist somehow, erased tracks off my ipod and other stupid things that i do when im not paying attention. which is why i use anipod explorer. drag and drop the files right in there, couldnt be any easyier. I hate having to "add tracks to the library" first.

But overall, I still like my ipod. Why? Because it just works. Theres no screwing around to be done for the most part, and although it may have its problems - "it just works". I'd buy an iRiver or other player, but the ipod is also instantly there when you hit a button, no need to "start up" like some of the other players.

 

[homestarmy]

Originally posted by: TheShiz
i still use a portable mp3 cd player. $50 ftw for years and years and cheap cdrs.

Battery life FTW!

 

[homestarmy]

Originally posted by: brainwrinkle
I like my Creative Zen touch. I don't know if you were using the bundled software, but with a firmware update you can use WMP 10 to sync better than iTunes IMO. Also, the 180 price tag is attractive compared to 300.

My parents and sister have iPod mini's, and I don't really like the build quality or capacity. They just seem kind of flimsy. Plus, the battery life on the Zen touch is amazing. I get about 18 hours on a full charge that takes about 4 hours. It's great on long vacations because I can recharge it without a computer.

I don't have much experience with iTunes, but IMO WMP 10 does a HORRIBLE JOB of organizing my stuff. Some albums will have two different artists after being organized, one with THE of the band, one without and other various issues.