OT ipods

And that's the whole point. It's a music player. It plays music. It lets you download music from the internet legally and simply. It rips your collection without any fuss.

Radio headphones option. Recording was definitely optional. iTunes is good software, I don't see the need to use other software. In what context do you mean 'copying music' - loading the player, or copying from the player?

Ah. Clearly, as iTunes has proven to be such a problem, Google is too.

Yeah. But if only they provided some means of plugging it into an external display device, say, a TV or monitor and audio system... wouldn't that be great? Cart about music videos and stuff and plug them into the TV when you're bored, or into a car AV system, or maybe a presentation and plug into a projector.

That would be kinda neat. What would be even better is if they made a remote control to use with it...

...ah... if only.

But wait.

They do.

Richard

I'm not a hippy, and yet Vorbis has a lot to offer to me.

Considering where you're most likely to listen to a portable music player, the slight improvement in quality in using Vorbis over AAC is hardly worth thinking about.

Why is it that when I tell people that I, somehow and against the odds, manage to rip and listen to music, without any fuss, my point gets lost in the ether? How many iPod / iTunes owners have even tried it any other way?

The point is, *why* try it any other way?

If you do it any other way, it generally turns a simple, one-click process into something involving picking a different encoder, then navigating to an external mounted drive, picking which files need transferring, then dragging and dropping.

F*ck that. I'll stick with, press rip button, plug in iPod, wait a few seconds, unplug iPod and go.......

So they're not included then. Apple and options remind me of BMW and options.

Both.

iTunes wasn't a problem, it just lacked functionality and had an exorbitantly large system footprint. I am familiar with google but I have no idea how to interpret those graphs and I certainly don't know how it makes the iPod any better than an iRiver for music playback.

Great.

Sorry about that. I've done it many times on tens of machines and it has never failed yet. I am available for pro-bono consultancy if you want to have another go.

In your opinion. I've used it on occasion and found it childish and cheesy. It's lucky that you happen to like what Apple offers, because as usual they don't give you much choice.

You could be arsed to answer the bit where you saw a gap for a sarcastic remark.

I suppose it depends on the meaning of user-friendly. You appear to think that choice isn't a good thing.

Now we're talking religion.

Are you telling me nobody gave her any advice and she didn't try hard to learn to use the shiny new wedding present?

I could say the exact same about my setup. Except it is more powerful, less locked-in, and better value for money.

Now you're telling me where I'm most likely to listen to my ripped music collection? You then excuse the lower quality.

If Apple was a car it would be an early SLK.

If you don't know the answer, it's unlikely that you're going to learn it from me.

Not every other way.

You obviously missed my earlier post. I just rip and go as well.

If someone could point me to some variety of Linux that will install and be working *with the same level of functionality* as OSX, or even XP, within half an hour of opening the box, then I'll happily try it.

Erm, well, Linux, as installed as standard sucks as a user experience, it's only once you're tweaked it to hell and back that you can get something that's remotely nice to look at and use.

As it happens, OSX just works, looks nice and can also run all the open source s/w that you use Linux for.

Obviously, NAHAY?

For 99% of home users, yes, it is.

Ahhh, the standard issue anti-Mac defence.

There should be some sort of Godwin's law for this.

Yup, that's about it. OK, I'll admit I helped her a tad with OS9, buy she made the transition to OSX without hassling me.

Bwahahahahaha.

You appear to know absolutely f*ck all about this subject.

iTunes represents the same value for money. Lots of value for free.

Solid, reliable and with class leading practicality and design?

I have. I had a portable MP3 player in 2000, a little watch-sized Panasonic doohicky. It came with some turd of a Real Jukebox application, didn't play nice with Macs, and was quite pointless only supporting tiny SD cards.

I've also played MP3s on Windows CE machines from 1998, messed with very early MP3 software on IRIX boxes, Linux, and of course PCs.

Of course, having owned literally hundreds of computers, I have tried most things at some point ;) I control iTunes via VNC on my Apple IIgs (that's Apple II, not Mac II) via AppleTalk, for example.

Richard

You can order what you want, but don't necessarily have to pay for things you don't need? Isn't that the way most car manufacturers do it? Because the analogy really falls down if you want to imply iPods are overpriced in comparison to other devices...

Copying to the music - loading to the iPod - is perfectly accomplished with iTunes. It is flexible, fast and reliable. It includes protected files from the music store and also includes contact/calendar information.

Copying from the iPod? Now, why would you want to do that? Of course, if you want to share your music with other people, you can do it just by copying the library to the iPod in disk mode, or third party utilities... but you surely can't tell me you think that Apple's (very easily bypassed) attempts to make it necessary to have an IQ in double figures to steal music using the iPod aren't logical, given the market share they have achieved?

Richard

No, over-rated and style over substance.

It's not free software in the generally accepted meaning of the term. It is closed source and subject to a restrictive licence.

Congratulations, you know f*ck all about cars and f*ck all about computers. Hang on, you know f*ck all.

Thanks for your well-thought-out, lucid contribution to the discussion.