image Welcome to the geekier side of MvsR. As a change of pace for this site, I will be reviewing the Apple iPod, the mp3 player that has become the bane of the RIAA and the darling of well-heeled teenagers and adults across the United States.

For those of you stuck in a cave for the past couple years the iPod is a hard-drive based mp3 player that can hold anywhere from 10 to 40 gigabytes of music or other data. This means that you can carry not just hours of music in your pocket, but *weeks* depending on the model. For those of you with large music collections, this can be very handy. Because the iPod is hard-drive based, it has moving parts inside. This makes the player more sensitive to motion and uses more power than memory-card based players. Apple has done their best to make the player as sturdy as possible while still keeping the stylish design that it has become famous for.

I have the 2nd generation 20 gigabyte Windows iPod, purchased last April. This is the model that has the buttons around the wheel, compared to the 3rd generation that you will see in Apple stores today. This model is both thicker and heavier than the 3rd generation, but still is not much larger or heavier than a deck of cards. The iPod’s small size and weight makes it great to take around wherever you go.  Rather than carry a CD player and a limited number of CDs, you can have an iPod and carry your entire music collection with you!

I have been very happy with my iPod in the 10 months I’ve had it. The unit has given me very little trouble and has been very reliable. There has been talk recently of the battery problems some iPod owners have been having, and the cost to get new batteries for the unit. There are various hardware and software solutions to this problem. An official battery replacement from Apple will run you $99, but that will bring you back to the original 8-hour battery life of the iPod. Recent iPod updates have helped to make the unit conserve power better, extending the battery life as much as possible.

The other shining feature of the iPod is its integration with the iTunes software. iTunes is many things in one package. It is an mp3 player, library organizer, streamer,  and music store. The software also allows you to manage the music on your iPod very easily. iTunes is a much better piece of software then the MusicMatch Jukebox that shipped with the iPod when I bought it. One of the unique features of the iTunes software is the ability to create “smart” playlists. To create a smart playlist, simply set certain criteria for the music you want in the playlist, and iTunes will automatically add all the music from your collection that matches the criteria. This means that if you want a playlist that is only music you’ve added in the past couple weeks, just one simple step and your playlist is created. As you add new music to your collection, that will be placed in the playlist, and old music will be removed. This is a very handy feature if you want to be able to rotate the music in your playlists so you don’t get bored.

image The iTunes Music Store is a unique feature in and of itself. They have a selection of over 200,000 songs and is continually growing. If you don’t see an artist or album availible on the service, you can contact them and ask them to add the music you want.

You can purchase the music from the iTunes Music Store in one of two ways. You can purchase songs one at a time for $0.99 each, or purchase an entire album at once. The price for an album can vary depending on the artist, album length, and age of the album. Most albums can be had for less than $15-$18. This is very handy as it is still cheaper then the outrageous prices music stores insist on charging for CDs these days. I haven’t seen new or popular older albums avaible for less than $18 in a long time.

Now to the restrictions on the music you can purchase from the iTunes Music Store. Apple had to bow to the demands of the music industry to restrict what you and I can do with the music we purchase from the music store. Only computers you authorize can play the music you purchase from the iTunes Music Store. You can have up to three computers approved at one time. You can burn the music to CD as many times as you want, but the same playlist can only be burned 10 times. There are various other restrictions to what you can do with the music, and if you want more information you can read more here.

Overall, the restrictions Apple places on iTunes users is relatively minor compared to what some services will not let you do. One of the worst examples of this is the newly relaunched Napster 2.0 service. If you ever stop paying the monthly fee for the Premium service you lose all rights to play the music that you supposedly purchased. Personally, I’d like to keep the music that I pay for, and not have it disappear if I ever decide to stop paying the record companies their protection money.

image Overall, I think that the iTunes software and music store work great in conjunction with the iPod. I take my iPod everywhere, and even use it in the car with the iRock FM transmitter. It is nice to be able to have my entire music collection with me wherever I go. It means I don’t have to put up with crappy radio stations or the limited number of CDs one carries with you. If you would like more information on the iPod you can visit Apple, or I would be glad to talk to you if you have any questions.

-DreadPirate

Buy an iPod at Amazon.com