Apple iPod

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Tom

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Bill Gates was quite evaisve when asked over the weekend about the success of Apple's iPod. He did, however, admit that the Apple folks are quite creative.

When I was in Best Buy today the guy told me they'd sold every iPod in the store.

I realize we have anti and pro Apple foloks here and I don't wish to start a war. I was an Apple guy long before the first IBM PC, then later switched to PC and DOS. I have a Creative Jukebox 3 MP3 player (20Gb hard drive), but I've yet to see anything as slick as the iPod. I'm probably going to defect to Apple when it's time to replace the Creative.
 
>>  . . . but I've yet to see anything as slick as the iPod.
====
Am beginning to look for an upgrade to my old Bantam mp3 player. I "am" a devout anti Apple person  :mad: so would probably never purchase an iPod and am always looking for same or better features in competing products. Right now, the top player on my list is the Dell DJ30.

So, am wondering if you can give me more detail as to the features that make the iPod "slicker" than a DJ30? From what I read so far, there are not that many -- and the DJ has features not available on the iPod. Here are some items I found so far:

o A hard drive DJ can store almost twice the number of recordings. For example, it takes a 40gb iPod to hold the tunes (10,000) of a 20gb DJ due to the lack of WMA format on the iPod. As far as quality is concerned, I can find no reviewers that rate the WMA less then the iPod format. I have WMA as one of the formats on my old Bantam and it's just fine for my needs. Tremendous sound.

o Battery life is longer on a DJ.

o The DJ supports WMA format and now allows music management via Windows Media Player 10 and I read somewhere that Real Player will be their next supported SW. Other reviews I have read do not rate iTunes that much higher then MusicMatch also w/DJ. They both have a few features unique to each.

o Clearly the iPod is over priced because of demand and clever marketing. I can get a new DJ30 with docking station for $250 - probably close to $200 less than an equivalent iPod.

o Voice recording. This item I have not looked into in depth as yet -- but understand the iPod requires a $50. add on to do voice recording whereas the DJ comes with that capability within the basic unit at no extra cost.

o Assessories: Am not sure of this one either -- but with Apple comptuer stuff, one has to pay a premium for each add-on or assessory. From what I see so far, that is true with the iPod as well.

There was some other item concerning the limitations on what can and where one can download via an iPod but I didn't quite understand at the time. Most outlet's for the DJ give several free months of Napster -- but that is not one of my big concerns. I "would" be concerned if I am limited to sources of download of tunes. Can I shop around or like most Apple stuff - does Apple decide where I can purchase (or in this case, download)?

Anyway -- am looking forward to those with more knowledge posting comparison stuff. The Dell looks very good to me right now, but if it has a gigantic flaw or two I would like to find out about it.

Thanks for starting a timely thread for me.
 
Bob Buchanan said:
So, am wondering if you can give me more detail as to the features that make the iPod "slicker" than a DJ30?

Sorry Bob, but I'm not familiar with the DJ30 and it's clear that you've already made your mind up against Apple. So I doubt anything I would say could change your mind.

I just know that, when I've played with iPods belonging to friends and family, I had an immediate "wow, this is cool" reaction. Call it touchy feely or anything else, but I was very impressed with the different models I played with. Chris really has a problem with anything that has lots of buttons, but I figure that she'd have no problem with the iPod.

I am also impressed with the ease of use when using Apple iTunes software on my PC to copy visiting friend's and family members' music to their respective iPods. This is in contrast to the first PC-based software for the iPod that I experienced a couple of years ago; That was downright awful.

I hasten to add that I've spent zero time looking at iPods in stores, researching them, or soliciting information from sales people. Today I was looking for a spare battery for my camera and the store had reorganized their floorspace since I was there last. They'd put the iPod stuff where the digital cameras used to be and the cameras were now where the cell phones used to be. Seeing the iPod display, I was curious about prices though and that's when the guy told me they'd sold them all (actually, he had one 60Gb model left).

it takes a 40gb iPod to hold the tunes (10,000) of a 20gb DJ due to the lack of WMA format on the iPod

FWIW my 20Gb Creative Jukebox 3 can't hold 10,000 tunes, so presumably it has the same format issue you mentioned.

I hope you get some useful responses to your message.
 
We have two iPods, Lorna has a Shuffle and I have a Mini.  As for carrying 10,000 tracks in a one device, why?  You can only listen to one at a time :)  Use the computer to store the tracks and download some to your iPod or other player when you want to listen to them.
 
Bob,

I just looked into Napster and discovered some interesting facts in their FAQ's. With a subscription, you can download as many tunes as you want BUT you can access them only as long as your subscription is in effect! No way to burn them to CD unless you actually buy them :mad:  for around $.88/track or $.99/track if you use Napster Light and don't have a subscription. That makes the DJ 'free' months of service a sort of 'Gotcha!'.
 
My niece bought the iPod mini when she was here on vacation a few months ago. She'd brought a bunch of CDs and a portable CD player with her and she wasted no time copying the CDs to her new mini. IIRC it holds approx 1,000 songs. I really liked the small size. Since she was taking it home to the UK, she had to buy Apple's worldwide adapter kit which I thought was a bit expensive. But, the total cost was still only about half of what she's have paid for it in the UK. So she was a happy camper.
 
THe big question in my mind is: Will the ipod play MP3s? The early ipods would not play MP3s and I have heard the newer ones will. Whats the scoop?...how difficult is Apple making it to get to this format? All my tunes are already ripped into MP3 obviously.

Howard
 
Karl said:
Bob,

I just looked into Napster and discovered some interesting facts in their FAQ's. With a subscription, you can download as many tunes as you want BUT you can access them only as long as your subscription is in effect! No way to burn them to CD unless you actually buy them :mad:? for around $.88/track or $.99/track if you use Napster Light and don't have a subscription. That makes the DJ 'free' months of service a sort of 'Gotcha!'.

Thanks, Karl. That's the kinda stuff that really hacks me off about a vendor. How would that work?  if I downloaded to my PC then to my DJ and then my subscription runs out -- how do they get to the tunes on my DJ to stop my playing them. Or is it just copying to CD or elsewhere that can't be done?

One eBay vendor was doing an interesting thing -- in that "it appeared" he would give a $50. rebate on the DJ if the user bought into Napster.

As mentioned in my original note, the Napster free months are really not a concern as I would not use them anyway. It seems that the locks on the downloads have already be breached -- it took hackers only 7 days to break the code. Stupid is as Stupid Does . . .  :)

http://www.macmischief.com/article.php?id=133
 
hleap said:
Will the ipod play MP3s?

It didn't occur to me that they might not. I just checked the format of the songs I ripped with iTunes and they're M4A, whatever that is. I know that approx 2 years ago I took MP3 format songs, copied them to an iPod and they played just fine.
 
Bob Buchanan said:
Right now, the top player on my list is the Dell DJ30.

Bob, I just looked at Dell's web site to see the DJ30. Do you know if they're on display at any stores such as Fry's? I'd just like to hold it and play with it.
 
Tom said:
Bob, I just looked at Dell's web site to see the DJ30. Do you know if they're on display at any stores such as Fry's? I'd just like to hold it and play with it.

The new Dell Stores are in many major shopping malls now. That's where I first looked at the DJ. I had read a bit about them, then came across one of their stores in the Galleria in Roseville. They're really not stores, but rather those smaller island things they do in Mall corridors. Here's the CA locations:

http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/kiosk?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~section=ca

I don't think they sell in other stores such as Fry's. Not sure exactly where you live, but there is a Dell Store at the Weberstown Mall in Stockton, (209) 474-1208 -- plus I see others in Concord and Pleasanton.
 
OK thanks Bob. I know where that Mall is in Stockton, so I might stop by there next time I go to West Marine. I rarely go into Stockton itself. Recently made a belated special trip to go to Tap Plastics, not far from that mall only to find the store had closed down  :(

Didn't realize Dell was doing those small booths in the malls. It's pretty much what the phone companies are doing now.
 
Gee Tom,
You mean you haven't heard about that new telephone company - the Dell System?? ;D

Bob: I don't know how they shut them down. Suposedly they only support WMA format; not MP3. It may have something to do with that - pay your money and then you can download the MP3 version. I just don't know.
 
"THe big question in my mind is: Will the ipod play MP3s? The early ipods would not play MP3s and I have heard the newer ones will. Whats the scoop?...how difficult is Apple making it to get to this format? All my tunes are already ripped into MP3 obviously.      Howard"

No the iPod has always been able to play MP3. My 1st generation one does, and it still functions on it's first battery. The prefferences in iTunes has a checkbox for downloading unchanged versus downloading to a lesser format/bitrate to conserve space on the iPod.
 
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