iPod?

[orikes]

So... is an iPod worth it?

I've been looking at mp3 players just out of curiosity, considering if I want to get one or not. The price difference between the iPod and other brands that supposedly do the same thing is a rather vast gulf. What's the advantage to having an iPod over the others?

I like Macs. I'd gladly have one at home for art stuff and keep a PC laptop for surfing, games and MU*. So, I have nothing against Macs. I'm just really curious why the iPod seems to be so much more expensive.

Comments

[goweli.livejournal.com]

I don't know anything about the others, but I know I love my iPod. Oh my god, so easy, for the most part, to set up. And iTunes, hugely addicting, at least to me. The only problem is that if you already have music on your computer, then convert it, you can sometimes end up with two copies of it. One in the iTunes folder, one regular. But this may just be user error.

[jengagne.livejournal.com]

iTunes makes it tremendously easy to arrange, copy, and burn your music. It generally imports music in .AAC format, but you can swap a setting and it'll instead rip your CDs into MP3 format instead of .AAC format.

I have all my CDs ripped into MP3 courtesy of iTunes, so I don't even keep the CDs in my car anymore. It automatically imports all the usual tags like artist, song, album, etc... and you can add your own groupings. For example, I have my music grouped into "legal" and "illegal", heheh...

I also like iPod because I like being able to buy singles online from iTunes. Sure, they're in a protected .AAC format... but they have quite generous use rights permissions. You can burn an unlimited number of mix CDs, share your purchases for free across up to five computers (including those of your friends), yadda yadda. My brother and I swap music like this all the time!

If you're debating, why not get yourself a (free) copy of iTunes and play around with that first?

Other than that, I think the iPods in particular are worth it for their great interface and large screen -- that lets you see a lot of info about each song and scroll through all sorts of menus and your customized playlists, which I appreciate. Or if you don't care about playlists, grab the iPod shuffle.

[jengagne.livejournal.com]

I ended up with some duped music because I dragged in some music from a folder it had already "seen". But, one of the recent versions of iTunes has a "find duplicate songs" (or something) command... I used that to clean it up!

[spenceraloysius.livejournal.com]

The advantage of the iPod to another MP3 player (based on my research and testing before purchasing an iPod for bumblepudding in March) is the click-wheel. The click-wheel is patented by Apple and thus not available on any other MP3 player. The click-wheel makes it very easy to scroll through songs, menus, etc. Even if you have hundreds or thousands of items. I don't think the click-wheel is on the iPod shuffle, however.

[niherlas.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is.

The integration between your iPod and iTunes on your PC or Mac is currently unequaled. Competition has yet to approach it in ease of use.

The iTunes Music Store currently has the most consumer-friendly modes. Once you buy your music, it's yours (all-you-eat subscriptions are nice, but where does your music go when you stop paying the subscription fee? Buh-bye). Most coherent pricing model (although the music labels are trying to force Apple to raise prices on popular tracks). More music than any other service. More rights to make CDs of the music you buy.

No, it's not perfect. But it's the best package out there, and strikes the most consumer friendly balance between what we want (copy everything for free!) and what the labels want (your money each time you listen, each time you format-shift, and a little more money, please).

[skotte.livejournal.com]

as fFar as I can see, the iPod has only peripheral fFeatures over any other model.

the iTunes store is nice and all. But notice that keyword 'store'. if you already have music, or are getting your music other ways, or are generally opposed to the iTunes concept (which involves nontransferrable media rights, and proprietary fFormats other than MP3)

the iTunes software, i can't really understand. like i guess people like it, and i know you use it. but i dont really see it has anything phenomenally outstanding over, say, Zinf. It's nice software, but what am i missing here? in any event, an iPod locks you into iTunes.

as fFor the actual iPod device, it seems pretty much like any other device. The LCD display is larger than many other players, I'll grant you. but the amount of info they try to cram into that space seems needless to me. A whole fFile browser? in 2 inches? ok... well, i can see why you'd want that. so you can immediately navigate to something you have stored --

that's the keyword. stored. I dont store things on my MP3 player. I load up a bunch of stuff i might want, and listen to them when i wont have the radio (such as in the volvo, whose radio is busted).

I've played with the little uhm, wheely interface thing, and wasnt all that moved by it. nice i guess. eh.

fFor the price? I'm not that impressed.