oblar

I have been thinking a lot about buying an Ipod recently, but I have noticed that there seems to be a person who is very adamant about their hatred for their ipod for every person who is in love with them.

personally, I have yet to meet a single person with an ipod who dislikes it, or wishes they had another MP3 player, but I have met people with other Mp3 players wanting for a different brand. I ask this of those who dislike the Ipod, what do you hate about it?

I tend to notice mainly two arguments for this (other than the obligatory "I hate Apple" statement): 1) They use micro-harddrives that tend to crap out due to not being solid state and 2) The price tag is crazy.

However, I have a reason I can see their price tag. So far, I have yet to see a single large capacity Mp3 player that has such a nice user interface. Personally, I would hate to have thousands upon thousands of songs only to have to click >> a few thousand times to get to the song I like. Using a small (512megs or less) I don't think this problem would be too bad, but when you get to the 5 GB+ then it becomes very important for me to have a nice interface.

Has anyone had any first hand experience with another Mp3 player that has just as nice a UI as the ipod? What sort of battery life? Pretty much the only two major concerns would be battery life and the UI. Since I would rather have a solid state device if I were to work out (since I realize that constant jarring is a definate bad thing for it), but I mainly would like this device for car trips, programming, and the like. Basically times I am not at home and sitting around without music.

i hope this is coherent.

(brandon11983: you are a lucky one not having to really deal with these issues. If i had seen that Ipod for that pricetag it wouldn't have been an issue*grin* Very nice grab.)

brandon11983

Along with my iPod, I also have a 20 GB Creative Nomad Jukebox 2LX. I picked it up from Wal Mart for $158 around Thanksgiving. The proprietary software it comes with for transferring music and data is junk. It no longer wants to recognize my computer when I connect it. I was able to get the music off it via Virtual PC, but none of the data. The interface is very much like that of iPod. On your issue of solid state versus hard drive players, I would not be concerned at all with the player being jarred and skipping. I never experimented with the Nomad, but my iPod has not skipped once and I either rollerblade or ride my bike to work everyday, sometimes over rough surfaces. Solid state players cannot offer the capacity that hard drive based players can. Obviously I will never listen to 20 GB of music on the way to work, but I want all of it at my disposal. I cannot pick what I want to listen to before I leave for work, because I have no idea what I will want to listen to.

Regardless of whether they admit to it or not, most people say they hate iPod because they simply hate Apple. I cannot think of an easier to use system than iTunes with iPod. It is designed to work with iTunes, if you do not like this, then it simply is not the player for you. People bash iTunes by calling it an overbloated MP3 player. Anyone familiar with it will tell you that iTunes is not JUST an MP3 player. It is very much a full featured jukebox that can handle all your music related tasks. After the initial setup, ripping a CD is simple as clicking the "Import" button and watching the magic happen. iTunes creates a folder (Artist Name) in my mp3z directory, a folder inside (Artist Name) called (Album Name) and inside there are all the tracks, with numbered filenames for easy reference. Plug in your iPod, and the songs are transferred to it within seconds (literally) via the FireWire interface. (allow USB 2.0 more time to fuck up of course...) I cannot imagine it any simpler or more efficient.

Feel free to chime in with any more questions, and I will happily answer them.

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Jeff

I don't hate iPods, I like them quite a bit. But there's better MP3 players on the market.

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sixate

A couple of years ago iPods were the best. Now there's so many other players that are just as good or better. Even if an iPod is better than most it's not $150 better. That's why I say fuck iPod! My 30gig Namad Zen Xtra has been a great MP3 player. I don't have one single complaint, and I can change my battery in less than 5 seconds.

Although, if I could get one for $30 I'd buy it. Even for $30 I still wouldn't keep it. All I hear is how great iTunes works with an iPod. Well, I think iTunes is a bloated hunk of shit, and didn't keep it installed on my PC for more than a day.

oblar

Jeff, I am curious what players you consider better? Like I said, the UI is a huge plus for me. I didn't mention this before, but the ability to use it on any machine as a portable Mass Media device is a large plus as well. I don't like having to use some software to move songs onto the device.

sixate, I looked up the Nomad Zen Xtra, and you are right about the price. It is easily 100$ cheaper for the 60 gig as opposed to apples 40 gig, but I found a quick review of it.

i am not a crazy ogg supporter like some people, but it seems to me that apple still has a leg up on the UI and the ability to not use any required software to transfer songs from the device. The zen wouldn't be too bad if there were a free OS you could flash it with to change the UI, but that seems a fair ways off. The size even though not mentioned here seems fairly significant too.

brandon11983

sixate, could you please tell us why you hate iTunes so much? I know you use MusicMatch, why do you like that better?

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Jeff

The newly released iRiver H320 for one. The Rio Karma. The Cowan M3. All great players. Though with the newest generation of iPod, it's almost equal.

__________________
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us.
--Charles Bukowski

tspikes51

Everybody that I know who has an iPod loves it. I think the interface is great too.

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theburner

I do like my Ipod (4g 40GB). Huge hard drive, it has over 3500 songs on it at full quality. HOWEVER, here are the downsides I have found (which are common complaints)
1) Battery Life: BLOWS ASS. If you skip from song to song to song you will get MAYBE 4 hours of life. Then it is time to recharge..
2) Playlists: If you can have 3500 songs on your Ipod, and can't skip from song to song to maximize battery life, you have to make a playlist. How can you predict your listening preferences at any given time? Multiple playlists? VERY time consuming... I guess you can chalk this one up to laziness on my part.
3) Scratches. The Ipod scratches up something FIERCE.

Other than those complaints (which I do consider minor) I am one happy Ipod owner.

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pixelbend

Yeah, I'm not sure why anyone would not like the iTunes interface. But, maybe that's why i am a mac user.

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oblar

just to add a voice to the negatives on iTunes.. I personally dont like any software to manage music in that form... well, not entirely true. I don't mind the one I wrote specifically tailored to my purposes most of my management is just done in a File manager. However, ipod doesn't have a negative against it for using iTunes either, since I can just use it as a mass storage device and put files onto it that way... i guess i like this mainly because it gives me a choice.. not the, you must use X software for Y player..

the playlist bit I kind of expected.. I figured you could make a playlist per genre, and then another one per musician, and yet another per album.. then it wouldnt be too bad. although 4 hours does kind of blow, but for the types of things I would be using it for that is plenty. i would just need to lug the charger around on trips and the such.

out of curiousity, what is the typical battery life when you just choose a single playlist and leave it at that?

Speed_Gibson

I would take a Rio Karma over the iPod anytime. It supports formats I actually use like FLAC and Ogg-Vorbis, and I despise iTunes almost as much as that bloated POS Musimatch. If there was a portable unit sold outside of China that supported Musepack I would give that serious consideration - that is still the best lossy codec out there in my opinion for overall quality.

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irateplatypus

i think the backlash against the ipod is due to it's position in pop-culture. it's a great product but its overpriced for it's tech specs. basically you're paying for the design and the "hip" element of owning own. you'll find similar negative opinions of abercrombie&fitch, oakley sunglasses, the gap, etc...

basically, some consider it pretentious to get an ipod... falling victim to marketing and the image of having one. don't get me wrong, the ipod is a superior product and owning one doesn't make you a bad person... but there can be an aire of shallow image-consciousness about it that some people respond negatively to.

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maleficent

I can't seem to fight the urge to not skip songs - but I'm getting about 4-6 hours when I skip songs, about an hour more than then when I just let it play. (I should just take the time and setup myplay lists the way I wantthem)

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walkerboh4269

I have a #g 30 gig Ipod and I love it. In fact it helped me to make the switch to Mac!

I have about 8 gigs of music and audio books on it. I also have about 12-15 gigs of videos on it as well. I would never want to use anythin gother than an Ipod!

As fars as playlists goes in Itunes you can set up random playlists use the smart playlist feature. It allows you set up varibles so that each time you sync your Ipod it will load a difrent set of songs. Keeps everything nice and fresh.

For those of you who like to say that Itunes is bloated. I have you used Windows lately? Oh wait most of the people who bash Itunes use Windoze and then just bash anything Apple because they are jealous of the easy of use of OS X!

No offence meant to Windoze users. I turley feel bad for you sometimes. Since I switched I hate useing the work Windoze computers. Or worse yet haveing to everyday fix some other problem with me.

JStrider

well i havnt used ipods much... and i havnt used itunes at all... but ive got my mp3s all organized how i like it... and dont really want some software goin in there and messing with my stuff...

whati want is an mp3 player that you plug in to your usb or firewire... its recognized automatically and shows up as a removable drive... like my digital camera does... or a thumb drive... then i drag and drop my mp3s into it...

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sadistikdreams

JStrider, that's exactly what the iPod does.

Why I love my iPod: It has a Hard Drive. It has GREAT sound control, thanks to our partially deaf Steve Jobs. It let's you chose wheater or not to auto-sync. & basically the design. It's not all clunky looking like the Nomad mp3 players. I mean it's WHITE. It matches my iBook.

Plus... It's shiny.

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oblar

irateplatypus: i notice exactly what you state here. People seem to be against it due to its price, but my main thing is not the price of the hardware, but show me an mp3 player with a UI just as nice. I have looked at all of the ones mentioned here, but they all seem to fall short with me. I could never bring myself to pay 300$ for the hardware in the ipod alone. It is the UI that is nice. A circular thumbpad is genius! a few quick turns and you can be through the entire list of 1000.

maleficent: that is one thing I would need to do. Go back through my mp3s (and rip my audio cds that I havent gotten around to yet) and make playlists for each album, then each genre, then just a massive one when I don't care i have been slack at that just because I usually use a file manager and just click on everything i want to listen to.

JStrider: I am with you on that count, I don't want software to start changing things because it "thinks" I would prefer it that way. The ipod gets around that by being a Mass Storage unit. If you plug it in it reads as an external hard drive with all the goodies that entails. I really doubt I would install itunes if I bought an ipod. That is mainly to my dislike of large programs that do things that I really don't need to have done.

Willravel

iPod 'hatred' comes from anti-Mac people (enjoy your PCs, but leave us Mac people alone*). iPod dislike is subjective. Most reports done by major tech groups have come back saying this is it. They have recieved rave reviews overall since their release. There are other great mp3 players out there. I think that if you can tolerate Mac computers, you will enjoy this mp3 player. iTunes is a great tool for orgainization IMO and really isn't the devil, like Speed_Gibson would have you believe. The only drawbacks I can see are the USB harddrive option is slow, the included headphones are kinda crappy, and no OGG Vorbis support. If you can get past that and think the price is okay, go for it and enjoy.

*I think that anti-Mac people should go and enjoy a world of PCs. I never preach about Macs to PC lovers because I realize how annoying and pointless it is. It is equally annoying as a Mac person to constantly hear everyones opinions about how Mac sucks. 'They are slower!', 'Macs are for retards!', and 'Macs are f***ing gay!' are good exaples of why it doesn't matter what either side says. This thread was about whether oblar should buy an iPod or not. Give it a rest for a second so we can try to give him some good advise. Sheesh.

elcid

this anti-mac thing is weird. it's like anti-toyota people campaigning for chrysler k cars from the 80s. i've used mac and widows both for years. sticking with the car analogy, if i add up all my windows crashes and freezes versus the same on macs, it's equivalent to an mid '80s corolla versus a mid '80s reliant--the reliant was cheaper, but it didn't run very well. windows is convenient and a good choice only because of market share, not quality. remember beta vs. vhs?

sixate

The first time I tried to import my music library it crashed. I had to import a few gigs at a time. The sound quality sucks compared to when I play my music in MM. MM does everything and then some. iTunes is bloated and loaded waaay slower than MM. The equalizer in iTunes is useless. It does nearly nothing. Plus, if I remember correctly, it installed Quicktime piece of shit on my PC. I could go on about a few other thing I disliked, but it's rather pointless. It's just a preference of my, just like you prefer iTunes over everything else. It's no big deal. What you like about it I hate, and I'm sure the same can be said about your opinion of MM. Although, the newer version on MM suck dick. I've stuck with 7.2 because after that they ruined it.

Did I mention I hate Winamp even more.

Plus, BoCo bought an iPod and returned it because he hated it so bad. Our taste in electronics is nearly identical. He has a thread in Computers somewhere ranting about everything he hated about it, which was more than enough for me to know never to buy one. I'm too lazy to look for it now. If your interested in reading it I'm sure you can dig it up with the search function.

oblar

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=43925

there is BoCo's old thread. Thank you for pointing it out to me, but as sailor mentioned, it seems that most of his qualms with the ipod stem from personal preferences. Which is definatley a great reason for him not to own one (why own one if you don't like it?), but it doesn't mean another person may not like one.


it was still an interesting read. i might see about doing the same thing he did do one of those try before I buy (permanently) bits.. If i like it after a week, then keep it, otherwise return it.

maleficent

\
Sounds like my problem with Music Match
WHen I bought my original Lyra, it forced me into installing MusicMatch - I couldn't import songs without it crashing, and I couldn't play songs without it crashing regularly. Itunes (knocking on wood) just works, on a PC.

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sixate

iTunes crashed, not MM. I can import my entire MP3 collection(60gigs) in a matter of a few seconds to MM. It took me 10 minutes to do that with iTunes. Itunes just doesn't work that well on my PC, and that was one of 2 times that my PC has crashed ever since I built it.

Willravel

sixate, that's interesting (honestly). I know a LOT of people who have downloaded iTunes for windows (XP, ME, 98) and nothing has gone wrong. I mean some of them were put off by some of the minor differences between iTunes and PC regulars like WMP, but otherwise they have been fine. I'm just not sure why your computer would have crashed. This is not a particularly taxing load, even the import.

Redjake

I don't hate iPods, I just hate the price. You can get substantially more for less if you choose Creative. Just like Macintosh and PCs.

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billyeggs

The ipod may be expensive, but its worth the extra money in the quality of the unit and the interface. All the others seem to be much more confusing/counterintutitive

Speed_Gibson

what the hell, feel like snapping on bait today -
just stating my personal peference. My only experience is with the windows build but I understand the Mac version is very similar. The reasons I despise the program, feel to to diagree with any or all of these:
0) the interface is incredibly bloated compared to the old-school Foobar2000 (and highly customisable) look I prefer. And I would use 'bloated' for any program that forces to me use or just have a seekbar and buttons on the display at all, even minimised.
1) The huge one and what kills it for me - I need support for MP3,Ogg-Vorbis, Musepack, Wavpack, FLAC, Ape, TTA, among others. Until and unless this supports all of these codecs it will never see serious use from me.

I would buy a G5 and powerbook in a hot second and have wanted to do so for quite some time now. A complete lack of finances and unwillingness to increase my debt that much has been the only thing holding me back.

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goodhabits

You should consider the basic facts.
1. The majority of people (whether they own an iPod or not) like the iPod.
2. Those that own an iPod swear by it, and never leave it at home.
3. The minority that don't like them have never owned one.

Other manufacturers are catching up, so if you're patient u can find a good alternative. But for now, regardless of pricetag, apple has them beat.

Strider2

i love my ipod, and ive noticed theres alot of haters too, but tbh i dont care, any company could bring out anything they want, if it sung and danced for me id still want my ipod, cant beat it imo

MSD

THIS IS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: ipod owners, replace your headphones ASAP, even if only with other earbuds. This is especially true if you go walking, and even more so if you walk at night. Anyone looking for a person to mug sees white earbuds and knows they've got a few hundred bucks if they go for you instead of someone else.

JStrider

or you could color em black with a permanent marker...

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