We just got our first iPod as a gift - so, iPod: C or D?

short-term classic, long term dud.

classic.

i have never used an ipod! i cant even imagine when i'll be able to afford one.

Nick you know what I'm talking about come on. Ok 'bad' is stretching but they could/should be so much better. As priorities go It's like an afterthought in the design process to them.

the actual iPod product is close to classic, everything else dragged into this "revolution" is ridiculously talked up (podcasting?) and drives me nuts. fucking mac users rebranding the wheel.

I know, I don't use iTunes to manage my mp3s, just to transfer them. It's just that I'm so paranoid about the device failing and taking the result of hours and hours and hours of ripping CDs with it that I feel obligated to keep backups even of stuff I physically own.

Still using the stock earbuds, yes?

(stepping away from this thread... I'm cranky today)

Hooray! (It's what we do best.)

I've had the same iPod for 4 years and it runs just fine still. Hurrah longevity.

As for deeply classic status, basically it justified itself completely when, having brought it with me on my Australia/NZ trip, I fell asleep in Melbourne and woke up in the middle of the night (yay jetlag) to hear this utterly random thing by Jeff Mangum, who I'm kinda indifferent to otherwise, that sounded beautiful at 3 am. It was followed without rhyme or reason by a random Britney Spears song and that was even cooler somehow.

Then later that day I heard Mya before going to meet Tim Finney for the first time and I remember us talking about "Case of the Ex."

Small examples of the many random and wonderful surprises I've gotten just by packing up an iPod with any amount of randomness and seeing what happens. Of course other mp3 players allow similar, but I like me my 2nd generation white case and monochrome screen still.

by the time it breaks properly I think I'll be ready for something twice as good at a quarter of it's current price though ;)

classic: as ned implies above, the shuffle function is perhaps the most immediately classic quality to the wxperience: it forces you to listen to your own collection like radio. the unseen hand of the robot dj. profound discoveries and head-scratching moments of "how the hell did i end up with this?" ensue.

dud(dy kravitz): a complex feeling of regret, nostalgia and perverse pride about my crates of vinyl and cd's and lost years in used record shops seeking the once-obscure and now immediately accessible and portable. record collecting in its old physical sense becomes more and more quaint, outdated, and eccentric. the iPod being the physical manifestation of the way things have ended up, not the cause so much.

2GB of iPod nano can be dud for the way it constantly ends up being nothing more than the "incoming (rips/downloads)" folder in my pocket. Even that isn't SO dud really though.

1. After transferring a shitload of files to your computer (either via an external hard drive or through slsk), you actually have to double-click/open an mp3 file in My Computer/Windows Explorer before it's actually displayed in your iTunes music library (and therefore before you can transfer it to your iPod). Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to have to double-click a shitload of individual songs??

2. And then once you double-click on the file, it gets moved from your original folder to some pre-defined group of folders sorted by artist and album AND the filename is completely renamed. So you have to scan all around you iTunes music folder to find the folder that the renamed mp3 file is in (like if the mp3 was originally burned on some no-name various artists compilation, for example). Why the FUCK don't they just leave my mp3s right where I fucking put them thank you??!

For those two unfathomably dumb gripes alone, dud.

classic

If they're all in the same folder you can just click File->Add Folder in itunes, or File->Add File to Library and shift-click a bunch of files and add them at once...

2. And then once you double-click on the file, it gets moved from your original folder to some pre-defined group of folders sorted by artist and album AND the filename is completely renamed. So you have to scan all around you iTunes music folder to find the folder that the renamed mp3 file is in (like if the mp3 was originally burned on some no-name various artists compilation, for example). Why the FUCK don't they just leave my mp3s right where I fucking put them thank you??!

Go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced- in the General tab, make sure that "keep itunes music folder organized" and "copy files to itunes music folder when adding to library" are not checked. This should force itunes to leave your files alone- I use it so I can keep files I've purchased from other mp3 stores (Bleep, Kompakt, etc) in separate folders.

Mine's been going well battery-wise for three years, but the headphone jack constantly get fucked up. I always have to apply consistent weird amounts of pressure and bending to the headphone wire going in thr socket to get full stereo sound the past year. I had it repaired by a third party but the same problem came back a few months later. I think I might finally bight the bullet and get a new one this Christmas (unless knows of some miracle headphone recovery.)

As for the Ipod (and pseudoPods) effect on music, I think it's wonderful that an entire moderate sized collection can finally accompany me on my travels. Shuffling big collections is not exactly new (Sony et al used to make 100 CD jukeboxes that could be daisy chained), but it does encourage serendipitous discoveries of musical connections. Perhaps bastard pop/bootleg culture is in part one of the early responses.

I recently played a well fucked record of Kissing The Pink to a twenty four year old and she asked me what the hiss and scratching sound in the background was. Progress?

UH

And iPod = classic. I bitched and moaned about mine for a while, and the software was a little sketchy and at one point it died and I had to replace the whole thing, which the Apple store was happy to do with no fuss. Hasn't given me a lick or trouble in a while. The software upgrades are frequent and really do knock out a lot of bugs every time you upgrade.

I do find it curious that it was only with the last software upgrade that they figured out how to take out the gaps between songs. That's bothered me about iTunes for years. How hard could that have been to fix?

the tagging editor in iTunes is woeful. If they improved that I'd probably not have a problem (except for that whole fucking file/folder rename thing which makes it impossible to revert to any other method). Okay... I would still have a problem. It works for a lot of people but it's not the holy grail of music software.

but it's not the holy grail of music software

I have not found anything like a holy grail yet. What do you use?

/Albums (Original) - i.e. rips of bought
/Albums (Other) - i.e. stolen
/MP3s (By Artist) - i.e. randoms
/MP3s (Classic Pop, Rock, etc) - randoms by genre
/MP3s (Dance, Electronic, Ambient, etc) - ditto
/MP3s (Friends)
/MP3s (Mixes)
/To Be Moved - i.e. into above folders
/To Be Tagged
/Videos

I realise I'm a total stuckist on this but iTunes just confuses the hell out of me and smart playlists aren't filterable in the way I wish them to be without having to corrupt my id3 tags to help it out.

I'm still not 100% happy with

/MP3s (By Artist) - i.e. randoms
/MP3s (Classic Pop, Rock, etc) - randoms by genre
/MP3s (Dance, Electronic, Ambient, etc) - ditto

this part of my method, but it beats database + big lump of EVERYTHING for my brane.

I admit my position might be a bit more nuanced if >93% of my music weren't on vinyl, but so it goes. As it is, it seems like even if your collection is already CD, there's still a fair amount of grunt work getting things together and organized for the iPod. Slaves to the machine! To what benefit? Can the occasional totally staggering juxtaposition of two unexpected MP3s actually be worth hundreds of dollars?

I don't really care if it be music OR BBC world desk stuff. TAKE THE BUDS OUT YOUR EARS.

I always have my headphones in reaching distance, but I don't listen to them 24-7 or anything. You have to admit, music is better than train noise.

eh?

this is ... this is INSANE. this is the craziest complaint i've ever heard in my life. of COURSE you have "access" to them. they're, er, on your computer first, remember? so you can just back them up from there. what are these "people" doing: copying everything onto the iPod and then deleting it from their computer? deleting their brains too?

i've heard about people who had iPods, and they were total fucking doofuses who shouldn't actually be allowed near technology :(

This thread seems to have plenty of examples of that.

I think what this person is pointing out is that if your computer crashes without backup and you lose the data the iPod can't serve as a backup even though it wasn't involved in the crash. Logically it seems like it should, but Apple is concerned about people copying music to other computers.

aye, i see what you're saying ... but i don't have very much sympathy for people who don't make backups. and an iPod would be a pretty crappy backup device given that it's a portable device likely to get lost/smashed/beer in it!

that said: it's not rocket science getting files back off an iPod, is it? there are umpteen little utilities that will do it for you pretty easily.

I fear my laptop's on its last legs, and I've got about 23 GB of music, about 15GB of which I'd be very very sad to lose. should I just buck up the cash for an external hard drive and backup my files there? burning everything to CD seems like a headache, not to mention further strain on an already shakey computer.

if you're willing to fanny about with cards and cases and so on, you can "roll your own" HD much more cheaply. there's a thread about that on ILE somewhere; if i wasn't at work i'd check and find it :o

Dunno what UK prices are like, but you can make yourself a perfectly functioning, plug-and-play drive for about $150.00 Canuck. Well worth the 15-20 minutes you'll spend assembling the thing.

On a side note, I really don't get this "iPods have no bass" thing. I replaced the crappy Apple earbuds that came with my Shuffle with a nice pair from Sony, and bam - instant bass response.

There's a limit on volume for good reason - your ears!

Humiliation at 33,000 feet: Top British architect tells of terror 'arrest'

To the applause of fellow passengers, the Jewish designer was escorted from a New York flight as a potential bomber. Because, he tells Sophie Goodchild, of his holiday tan
Published: 01 October 2006

Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients. This means the hip architect is familiar with the irritations of heightened airline security post-9/11. But not even he could have imagined being mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and physically pinned to his seat while aboard an American Airlines flight - especially as he has Jewish origins.

Yet this is what happened when he travelled back from a business trip to the Turks and Caicos islands via New York on 22 May. Still traumatised by his ordeal, the 47-year-old is furious that the airline failed to protect him from the gung-ho actions of an over-zealous passenger who claimed to be a police officer. He has now instructed a team of top US lawyers to act for him.

The London-based interiors guru, whose clients have included Peter Mandelson and the husband-and-wife design team Suzanne Clements and Ignacio Ribeiro, said he felt compelled to speak out to protect other innocent travellers from a similar experience.

"This man could have garrotted me and what was awful was that one or two of the passengers went up afterwards to thank him," said Mr Stein. He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear "Arab".

"I was terrified but am fortunate in that I was able to contact a lawyer. Yet someone else who is not assertive could be left completely traumatised."

The incident highlights the increased likelihood of innocent passengers being picked on because they are perceived as "suspicious" or "foreign-looking", especially following the alleged plot to blow up airliners with liquid explosives.

Earlier this month, a plane from London to Washington DC made an emergency landing, escorted by fighters, after passengers alerted crew to the behaviour of a female traveller. It later emerged she had suffered a panic attack. And in August, two innocent Asian students were escorted off a flight from Malaga to Manchester because other passengers thought they were terrorists.

In Mr Stein's case, he was pounced on as the crew and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.

"This guy just told me his name was Michael Wilk, that he was with the New York Police Department, that I'd been acting suspiciously and should stay calm. I could barely find my voice and couldn't believe it was happening," said Mr Stein.

"He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned." Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein. When the plane arrived in New York, Mr Stein was met by apologetic police officers who offered to fast-track him out of the airport.

Mr Stein said: "The other passengers looked and me and said, 'What did you do?' It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. The airline had a duty of care. I've got to travel to the US soon, but I'm paying an extra £500 to travel in business class."

American Airlines apologised to Mr Stein, who was born in New York, but withdrew an initial offer of $2,000 compensation on the grounds it would be an admission of liability. In a letter dated 30 May, the airline said it had done everything possible to try and protect Mr Stein.

It read: "Unfortunately, as in any public gathering, there may be occasions when a conflict arises between people or when one individual's actions bother another... As our crew members may not always be witness to the inappropriate acts of a particular passenger, there may be a limit to what our crews can do to improve behaviour that is perceived as a nuisance."

In a twist to the story, Mr Stein has since discovered that there is only one Michael Wilk on the NYPD's official register of officers, but the man retired 25 years ago. Officials have told the architect that his assailant may work for another law enforcement agency but have refused to say which one.

Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients. This means the hip architect is familiar with the irritations of heightened airline security post-9/11. But not even he could have imagined being mistaken for an Islamist terrorist and physically pinned to his seat while aboard an American Airlines flight - especially as he has Jewish origins.

Yet this is what happened when he travelled back from a business trip to the Turks and Caicos islands via New York on 22 May. Still traumatised by his ordeal, the 47-year-old is furious that the airline failed to protect him from the gung-ho actions of an over-zealous passenger who claimed to be a police officer. He has now instructed a team of top US lawyers to act for him.

The London-based interiors guru, whose clients have included Peter Mandelson and the husband-and-wife design team Suzanne Clements and Ignacio Ribeiro, said he felt compelled to speak out to protect other innocent travellers from a similar experience.

"This man could have garrotted me and what was awful was that one or two of the passengers went up afterwards to thank him," said Mr Stein. He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear "Arab".

"I was terrified but am fortunate in that I was able to contact a lawyer. Yet someone else who is not assertive could be left completely traumatised."

The incident highlights the increased likelihood of innocent passengers being picked on because they are perceived as "suspicious" or "foreign-looking", especially following the alleged plot to blow up airliners with liquid explosives.

Earlier this month, a plane from London to Washington DC made an emergency landing, escorted by fighters, after passengers alerted crew to the behaviour of a female traveller. It later emerged she had suffered a panic attack. And in August, two innocent Asian students were escorted off a flight from Malaga to Manchester because other passengers thought they were terrorists.

In Mr Stein's case, he was pounced on as the crew and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and other travellers looked on. The drama unfolded less than an hour into the flight. As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.

"This guy just told me his name was Michael Wilk, that he was with the New York Police Department, that I'd been acting suspiciously and should stay calm. I could barely find my voice and couldn't believe it was happening," said Mr Stein.

"He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned." Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein. When the plane arrived in New York, Mr Stein was met by apologetic police officers who offered to fast-track him out of the airport.

Mr Stein said: "The other passengers looked and me and said, 'What did you do?' It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. The airline had a duty of care. I've got to travel to the US soon, but I'm paying an extra £500 to travel in business class."

American Airlines apologised to Mr Stein, who was born in New York, but withdrew an initial offer of $2,000 compensation on the grounds it would be an admission of liability. In a letter dated 30 May, the airline said it had done everything possible to try and protect Mr Stein.

It read: "Unfortunately, as in any public gathering, there may be occasions when a conflict arises between people or when one individual's actions bother another... As our crew members may not always be witness to the inappropriate acts of a particular passenger, there may be a limit to what our crews can do to improve behaviour that is perceived as a nuisance."

In a twist to the story, Mr Stein has since discovered that there is only one Michael Wilk on the NYPD's official register of officers, but the man retired 25 years ago. Officials have told the architect that his assailant may work for another law enforcement agency but have refused to say which one.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1777847.ece

i've heard about people who had iPods, and they were total fucking doofuses who shouldn't actually be allowed near technology :(

Wow...chill out! Not everyone has 30-60gb of free space on their computer to keep a mirror of their iPod. I don't even have an iPod (I have a Creative Zen, old school) and I have backed up my mp3 collection on data DVDs, but there is something to be said for being able to grab your mp3 player and immediately tranfer any song to your or another computer, versus having to shuffle through your backup DVDs/CDs/external hard drive to find what you're looking for. The iPod is one of the only mp3 players I have heard of where the music is locked and not transferable back to the computer. Clearly there is a reason the iPod does not offer this. It gives people lots of flexibility: good for individuals, bad for music retailers.

No, it's not rocket science, but certainly Apple is trying to make it as difficult as possible to transfer music off of an iPod. A friend of mine used some WinAmp utility to do so, but she had to manually re-tag 90% of the files. And she isn't a total fucking doofus or a (God-forbid) PC user.

well, yeh: 'cos they obviously don't want me to be able to nick round my pal's house, suck up all his tunes onto my iPod, zoom back to mine and go: "wahey!" as i whack them back on to my hard drive.

of course, i can always go round with an ethernet cable, or use bluetooth, or wi-fi if my pal has a wireless router so, as we can see, apple have solved music piracy at a stroke. hurrah!

srsly: i can understand why there's some degree of one-way-ness about it; ie to deter the casual copier.

but i still have zero sympathy for anyone who carries around their entire music collection on their iPod and then cries when it breaks and they don't have a backup (or - worse - because it WAS their backup). FFS, it's tech. tech breaks. especially when it's small and portable and in your jacket when you go to the pub.

xpost: hahahahahah, yes.

ive had so much trouble with my itrip lately picking up satellite radio from passing cars . no, i do not need fucking bob marley breaking into my silver jews playlist at 6:30am.