Do any of you have an iPod? Which model do you have and what do you like and dislike about it?

I'm thinking about getting one and just want to see what you all think of them.

Thanks!

I have an Ipod Photo 60 gig (4th gen). My sis has an Ipod Photo 30 gig (4th gen). Looks good and lots of storage :-) :-) Colored screen, can view photos uploaded to it. Compared to other Ipod models, this sure is bigger (but still fits in your pocket).

Heard about Ipod Nano. Hell lot better than Ipod Mini I must say

Educate the old guy.

I thought an ipod was some super-duper system that was like a giant cd . you paid into a service and could downloead a bunch of music into it

My wife got me the 30GB Ipod for father's day. I love it! I haven't come close to filling it so far. There are pleanty of sites to download free music from artists who wish to spread their stuff over the internet and if you need specific artists who don't condone 'free' distribution, the cost of downloads is relatively cheap.
I have all my CD collection (200 cd's) and two years of live Grateful Dead concerts (1970 & 71) and still have 19GB of free space
C.

Oh, BTW, It has made my stereo system obsolete. I got a Bose Ipod system and simply set the Ipod in place and listen through the Bose system. Sound quality is just as good as my former componant stereo system.

Thanks for the responses guys. It sounds like all of you are happy with your iPods.

Blaster76,

An iPod is simply a music storage device made by Apple. Most of the iPods (in particular the full size iPods and Minis) are hard drive based. They have a little mini hard drive in them just like your computer does that stores the music. A couple of the newest iPods (Shuffle and Nano) are Flash memory based. These store the music on little flash memory chips. These don't hold as much as the hard drives as it is newer technology and more expensive to manufacture comparing Gig for Gig to a hard drive. The upside that I see to the Flash memory based iPods is that they don't weigh nearly as much and there's no moving parts in them like there are in a hard drive, so I figure there's less to go wrong and overheat, etc.

You can copy your CDs onto them and also download songs through the iTunes software and website for about $1 per song. Books are also available for download as well as radio broadcasts called Podcasts that can be downloaded.

The other thing is that almost all of them have extra stuff that they can do. All of the color screen models can store photos. Most allow you to also store contacts, they have a calendar and a few games.

Thanks again and any other responses are welcome!

My two cents on this is to get a digital music player that will work with the music you already have downloaded.
iPods use a special MAC oriented format that is different from PC oriented MP3.
You can convert back and forth and use your music but it's extra steps and the harder something is to use the less likely you are to use it.
So - if you have alot of MP3 music I would say to get some type of MP3 player not an iPod.
If you don't have any music in digital format yet then get what you like.

The wife got me the 15 Gig just before they discontinued that size and went to the 20 Gig for the same price.

I like it. The only issues with mine at least are the battery meter now being entirely accurate since the last 10% lasts a long time and it's hard to read the display in low light without activating the backlight.

After I got it, the wife had to have one too and she loves it for taking to the gym.

I just wish it was easier to use it in the car. The battery powered FM transmitters don't work that in my opinion.

Paul

Get one of these:


I just don't know if they fit on 1st gen 15 gig though. Have one. Charges the Ipod while it broadcast music wirelessly. Got it for 75 USD

The bottom plug is the same. I'm just being cheap and avoiding spending the $70-80.

For broadcasting over a FM channel, part of the issue in Dallas is finding a clear/weak spot on the dial that you can broadcast over. Have you had this issue or does the DC power give you a strong enough signal to overcome this problem?

Paul

Slodder (or anybody else for that matter), correct me if I'm wrong. I thought that iPods can play things in MP3 or even WAV format. It's just that the stuff you can download from iTunes comes in Apple's format. Maybe I'm wrong on this or there is more to it.

I will second the notion that iPod has rendered CDs obsolete for me. I hardly use them; in fact I will take my CDs, download them to my computer, and upload them to my iPod.

As for a media player and MP3 players, I just use the PC version of iTunes. As a devout PC fan, I was hesitant to use anything converted from Mac as I hate Mac's interface and one-button mouse , but I love the general organization features and the direct link to their music store is good as I get much (but not all ) of my music from them. ITunes has the pretty much the same interface and features that the Mac version has, but is designed for PC use.

I do notice that files are converted to MPEG-4 (?) when uploading to my iPod, but since I don't use any other media player, it is not a problem for me. I will say that Windows Media Player (at least the version I have) will not play the converted files, but again that is not a problem as I don't use it anymore.

BTW, I have the 4GB iPod-mini and really like it (just not the ear buds). The interface could be worked on and tweaked, but this is more nitpicking from myself and friends that have tons and tons of music files.

Jeff

Yes I think that is correct. iPods play standard MP3 files but only iPods or Apple-based software can play the iTunes files.

Jim

If you have a CD burner then you can always burn a CD from your library directly from iTunes including any songs you have purchased. You could then rip those to MP3 if needed.

The only issue is that one of the upgrades to iTunes removed the artist & song info from the tracks when you burned the CDs.

Paul

Where did you hear that? All iPods support a variety of audio formats, including standard MP3 and variable bit rate MP3. There's nothing Mac specfic about iPods, they're fully supported under Windows and MacOS.

I've got an old 20 gig 2nd gen iPod that I've had for several years. I love it. Though lately I've been very tempted to get an iPod photo. Being able to back up my pictures in the field without having to carry a laptop would be great.

Re: FM transmitters. Most are junk. The Belkin Tunecast II is the best one I've used that's still being sold. Especially after you do this cool antenna hack. With a better antenna, it can override weaker stations (within an extremely limited range, of course).

Over here in the Philippines, I must say they work very well. There had been some areas which still has that strong outside signal. But that's very few.

I tried the I-Car Play also while I was in Minnesotta, Florida and in Edmonton Canada. No problems with outside signal.

Else, you could buy those cables that need technicians to install it in your car :-) :-)

I have an iPod mini. It's a neat little thing.

I got 356 songs in it and some important documents and files.

Angela

Great responses and information from all of you!

I think I have it narrowed down to the 20 Gig iPod (color version) or the 4 Gig iPod Nano. The iPod Nano was just released this past week and is Flash Memory based, which is pretty cool.