ipod

[ali]

anyone else have an ipod - mine froze up on the way to work this morning & i can't get it to do anything... & my computer's not recognising it... help!!!

[wellfleet]

i have an ipod and it's the worst birthday present i've ever received. the problems i've had with it have made me hate it with a passion. go to your manual, they have many pages of troubleshooting. there's a way to sort of reboot the unit without erasing all the songs. also, the apple forum is great for off the record tips like how to get your songs from your ipod to your computer, an application that apple can't legally support.
although if all else fails, you may have to pay up to have it fixed. the ipod is the biggest scam perpetrated on the american public... (well, you know, from a limited, consumerist perspective)... it's a piece of crap, the battery is a scam all onto its own and i hate it. AAARRRRGGH!
good luck... call apple if you're still under warranty.

[ali]

i guess i've been pretty lucky with it so far, i've had it for 12 months & it is absolutely no question the best thing i have ever bought. i LOVE it. considering i've accidently dropped it a few times (& nearly died from shock each time), it's been very good to me so far... the worst thing about it is i was about to listen to wordless chorus (z has been my "walking to work" music lately), so no more mmj....  :'(

[ycartrob]

I got mine in May and it has crapped out on me twice. Luckily we have an Apple store here in Nashville and I just go in their and replace it.

My earphones got blown last month (hhmmm, wonder how that happened?) so now I use some old school, Sony walkman headphones, which work just as good. They don't "look" as cool as the ear buds, but I am passed all that ....

[dragonboy]

I went with a Creative Player only because I read that the ipod battery only lasts about 7-8hours? Can anyone confirm that?
My battery lasts 24hrs which I need for long flights from the UK to Japan etc. 7hours in I'd still be somewhere over Mongolia!  ;)
Granted, it is a bit chunky & doesn't look as cool as everybody's ipod but I've had it over a year now & haven't had any problems with it.
 :)

[Specialist]

i got mine in August and it has served me well. Ali, have you tried holding in the menu button and the center button? usually that restarts it.

Oh and my ipod battery has lasted me 24 hours before. But now i have this cable that plugs into the ciggarette lighter in my car and it plays the ipod through the cars radio, it also recharges it.

[ali]

i think the ipod battery is "suppose" to last 12 hours... still doesn't help that much with those long flights! my flight home is only 1 hour, so i can't use my ipod on the plane

[wellfleet]

the battery life depends on the model but it used to be between 8 and 12 hours. that said, after a year of usage your battery life goes down dramatically because it doesn't hold a charge well. i had to sign up for apple's bogus protection plan so i wouldn't have to pay for shipping to have it fixed. and they don't fix anything, they send you a new unit, which is why you lose all your songs and why i feel so ripped off.
i was on the phone with apple customer service who are very nice and when i had to send in my unit i asked what about all the music because i didn't want to have to reload all of my cds into the computer. they said that's not a function that apple supports but that i should look at their message boards. how ridiculous is that? there's no question that the ipod is a design marvel, it looks great and is convenient size-wise and has many many features, but the aggravation.... ugh... i miss my old walkman!

[dragonboy]

I hear you - that's my worst nightmare!
My player is full now with about 370 Albums. Losing everything & having to start again would be a SOB.

[wellfleet]

well, the deal is that the ipod, cleverly enough, also functions as a spare hard-drive. so through some computer wrangling, you're able to transfer songs rather freely. it's just lame that after spending so much money on a seemingly cool product, there are many caveats.
for example, i couldn't get coldplay's x&y to load into itunes. or the beastie boys five boroughs... and that was sad. i had to ask a friend to download these albums off kazaa and burn them for me so that i could then load them into itunes. apple won't share their fairplay software with others, and others won't make their cds compatible with apple products. it's like a giant pissing contest between big business and we're the ones wiping it off... when i started working in the record business i became very opposed to illegal downloading for myself and when i couldn't get promos of albums i shelled out the cash and oftentimes couldn't use the cd at home. no machine in my house would recognize the beastie boys' cd except my mother's ancient discman. this is turning into a rant... sorry!

[ali]

i hear what you're saying... the fact that it works as a spare hard-drive is really cool - i've used it a few times to transport files from work to home (the disc burner on my imac has decided to sulk so i can't burn work at home) which has been great.

the whole copy-protection thing does get a bit complex... for some reason (not sure why, not really going to complain) i've never had problems downloading protected cds onto itunes. i'm on a mac, so not sure if that helps. the only problem i've ever had is that sometimes the first track on the album won't download. but i've found a way around that   :)

[ben grimm]

Mine has been a dream really, dropped it a couple of times, once it got stuck and made that whirring sound until the battery ran out and then it was fine again, sometimes it thinks the hold button is still on even when it isn't but otherwise its the best present i ever got. I take it to gigs with me (when mixing) its great to plug it into thhe desk and have something for any possible event ready to play, there's a bar in town that has ipod dj battles, you play three tunes and have to play something cooler than the guy before you its good fun, you hear some strange tunes. I've DJ'd with it a few times too.

[tomEisenbraun]

for example, i couldn't get coldplay's x&y to load into itunes. or the beastie boys five boroughs... and that was sad. i had to ask a friend to download these albums off kazaa and burn them for me so that i could then load them into itunes. apple won't share their fairplay software with others, and others won't make their cds compatible with apple products. it's like a giant pissing contest between big business and we're the ones wiping it off... when i started working in the record business i became very opposed to illegal downloading for myself and when i couldn't get promos of albums i shelled out the cash and oftentimes couldn't use the cd at home. no machine in my house would recognize the beastie boys' cd except my mother's ancient discman. this is turning into a rant... sorry!

it's not that they make they make those Apple-resistant, they try to make them copy protected. It won't just not open in iTunes, it also won't open in Rhapsody, Windows Media, etc. You can;t open it unless it's with their software. But you can bypass it.

That flaw right there is not an apple flaw, but a dick move by Sony.

[wellfleet]

hey tom... well, the thing is, Apple owns some proprietary software called FairPlay and if a CD runs that copy protection program, then iTunes can read it. The problem is that Apple won't share that technology with the record labels. So the most popular MP3 player in the US (yep, it's true) isn't compatible with the copy protection on most, if not almost all CDs. It's a big shoving match between Apple and EMI and SonyBMG. I know you can bypass it, but why should you have to jump through hoops or get a degree from MIT to be able to use a CD that you paid for. If you read up on it (Rolling Stone has been following these battles very closely) you'll see it's a bunch of big companies wrangling for position. I'm not saying you're uninformed at all. It's just that it's not only SonyBMG, it's also EMI and smaller labels managed by these labels. Universal and Warner realized that because there isn't a uniform copy-protection program that will not hamper usage, they won't use it until it gets sorted out. This is why Universal is still the biggest label in the world and why they are so successful. Universal lowered their prices across the board, puts their money behind their artists and continues to market their artists beyond the first month push. It's just good business. I learned a lot working in the business and one of the things was that when you're truly successful, you don't need guard dogs, you need to get people to not want to rob you blind. The sad thing here is that us consumers, especially dedicated music lovers like you and me and pretty much everyone here are caught in the middle...

[Dee.]

I don't know how long my battery can last.  I'm always recharging it.  I've had it for a year now and it's still going strong.  The newer models are supposed to have a 20 hour battery life.  All of the new improvements are going to make me jealous.  

[wellfleet]

they had this funny sketch on SNL spoofing Steve Jobs always unveiling a smaller iPod until he introduces the iPod Invisa, which is invisible... well, you had to be there, but it was pretty good.

[beckstrous]

I've got an iRiver. Didn't want to be locked into iTunes and al lthe iPod hype and I've had it for a year with no probs :-)

[corduroy_blazer]

i have the 4 gig mini and i love it.. i do wish i had some more room though - shoulda bought the 6 gig before they dropped the mini.

[Ophelia]

i have the 4 gig mini and i love it.. i do wish i had some more room though - shoulda bought the 6 gig before they dropped the mini.

I have this one too! What color is yours??

[corduroy_blazer]

I have this one too! What color is yours??

silver. you?