Why buy an iPod?

Bit of both really. I’d heard that the sound that you get from the iPod is one of the best on the market. However, seeing as my iPod is a refurbished (refurbished=cheap) huge clunky giant from the early days (it’s the one which boasted being able to display pictures), people do stare and comment. But hey, it’s an iPod. And getting 40 GB at a cheap price is a bargain, no matter what people may say.

I bought it because I thought it would be able to run either iPodLinux or Rockbox soon enough. Unfortunately, Apple apparently didn’t like that possibility so they added some layer of encryption to their iPods… That’s the last time I bought anything from Apple, or that I bought anything “assuming it would run something soon enough”.

Luckily there’s been some progress lately :)

Because stealing one would be wrong.

I guess I just don’t understand the allure. The content is encrypted, which locks you into iTunes or something else that’s compatible. With other players, you can just drag and drop content into and out of the player. It doesn’t have an FM radio, either. You can’t replace the battery yourself unless you’re very tech savvy.

It’s good marketing of a good look (you gotta admit that the iPod is extremely cool-looking). That’s all it is man.

NO, THE CONTENT IS NOT ENCRYPTED. NO, IT’S NOT LOCKED INTO ITUNES.

I have a couple dozen movies on my iPod touch… didn’t get ‘em from iTunes or Apple. Ripped ‘em in myself.

The default format for music files in iTunes is AAC which is not proprietary. It’s an open standard – supported on other brand MP3 players – that is superior to MP3. You can, of course, choose to save files as MP3 directly if you prefer.

Music purchased on iTunes no longer comes wrapped in FairPlay DRM. That is indeed only accessible to Apple products but it’s no longer used for music. Amazon was the first major player to get DRM-free music from the major labels. But Steve Jobs made the first high-profile plea from a distributor.

The point on DRM is that it’s not Apple’s attempt to lock you in. It’s the MPAA and RIAA attempting to get you to pay multiple times for something you’ve got fair use rights to.

Of course, from Day One, you could rip music in to MP3 format directly from CD.

I’m afraid you are allowing a lot of misconceptions to cloud your judgement.

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BTW, I once purchased a Sony MP3 player because it was so small, had an OLED display, and had Sony’s nifty tactile controls. But the music library and management system was ridonkulously difficult to use. It completely devalued the thing.

@IchtheosaurusRex The content is encrypted, which locks you into iTunes or something else that’s compatible.

Where on earth did you get that idea? I have more than 24,000 songs on mine – the result of thirty years of collecting music – LPs, CDs, Tapes – and only a few hundred are Apple/iTunes related.

As for FM radio – why use radio in a device primarily designed to allow you to select your own music?

I have used an iPod since their inception – I love music – but do tend to use my BlackBerry nearly as much now, it has a 16GB card and can hold way more of my genuinely favoured songs, video etc., than I need. I use the iPod in the car, the BlackBerry everywhere else. The music on the BlackBerry is loaded directly from iTunes with the supplied software.

I think that you might need to become a little more “tech” savvy.

I got an iPod when I was…13 I believe. They were the “thing to have” but I liked the features. Mine was 15 GB (I have a 32 GB iPod Touch now) but I liked the fact that it held a lot and I didn’t need to use memory cards or anything. It was dependable, slim, and it sounded great! I ripped all my CDs onto it and downloaded a lot of music, only about 60 of my songs come from iTunes.

I have a new Blackberry Curve as a phone but I don’t like to use it as an mp3 player and prefer to stick with my iPod. It has a great UI for music and the like and I just can’t find anything to replace it.

The iPod was my first digital music player of choice when I finally migrated from carrying around an old Discman. I’ve been a big fan of them ever since. My first one was one of the older white brick models with the B&W screen, an iPod actually meant for playing music! It was great and only died due to my own fault (a clumsy drop). I used a Nano for the years in between then and my current iPod and it was a great solid music player with excellent battery life.

I am currently using an iPod Touch. I bought it because I wanted more than just a music player, and it is exactly that (without having to pay a ridiculous monthly fee). That said, it certainly does do a great job at playing music and other media. The UI is easy to use, the integration with iTunes is actually something I enjoy (whereas others may see it as being ‘locked in’). As a web developer I enjoy designing websites with the iPod’s browser in mind. I could go on and on about all the other features the iPod Touch has, but they are really second stage to the simple fact that the iPod is an easy to use and reliable portable media player.

I can tell you for sure, my choice of music players has nothing to do with popularity or it being “the hot thing to have”. I don’t give a shit about that nonsense. What I do care about is reliability, ease of use, and feature set, and the iPod Touch is the winner when evaluated with other compact multimedia players.

As others have said, you are incorrect about the encryption. Sure it’s not as easy as other flash based players to add or remove songs on your own (ie without using iTunes), but resourceful folks can figure it out.

@DarkScribe The database is proprietary. If you want to add media without iTunes you have to use other applications which reverse-engineered the protocol and thus are far from perfect. I’d like to drag my music onto there.

@robmandu AAC is propeprietary in that a patent license is required for all manufacturers or developers of AAC codecs. Apple is known for actively opposing the truly open Ogg Vorbis, which you can’t run on your iPod.

Oh, and don’t get me started on iPod accessories.

Please, don’t try to claim Apple is open and doesn’t try to screw you over. It’s not and it does.

@Vincentt DarkScribe The database is proprietary. If you want to add media without iTunes you have to use other applications which reverse-engineered the protocol and thus are far from perfect. I’d like to drag my music onto there.

Not so. I use no “hack” type software – just what is supplied. Don’t forget that now even the iTunes store has two levels of costing – fully protected and free to distribute (among your own devices”.

The BlackBerry desktop software asks at install whether you want to use your iTunes song collection as a music source. That has no relationship to reverse engineered software,. I think that Apple would react if a company the size of RIM was doing something naughty.

Yah, the iPod’s internal db is proprietary. The iTunes db is also somewhat proprietary (containing info not in the media file itself)... but all of the actual music, movies, videos are stored on your computer’s hard drive in original format in a simple directory structure. So… your media is not locked in.

I don’t undersrand the appeal of Ogg Vorbis for the typical iPod end user. It’s not technically superior to the regular person – and even if it were, consumer-grade earphones and whatnot would likely remove most of that edge. The “free”-ness of it doesn’t have any meaningful impact on the price of the music I buy or the price of the player I listen to it on. If Apple (or Amazon) were to sell tracks in Ogg Vorbis right now, I’d be willing to bet you a new iPod touch that the price of music would not change a single cent.

And who’s talking about iPod accessories? But since you brought them up, what other brand of digital media player has such a diverse range of partners and products? Yah, some of them suck… that’s expected. But many are great.

I don’t know that Apple does or does not intend to “screw you over”. Sometimes it seems that claim is made when a company is out for a profit. I personally have had excellent service out of the few Apple products I’ve purchased. They are often superior in build quality, specs, and, of course, design when compared to offerings from competitors.

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I can appreciate that the iPod is not for you, @Vincentt. I understand you have specific features and functionality you desire in order to maintain the utmost control over every aspect of your digital media. That’s great!

But most people just want something to plug in and listen to music or watch movies on. The iPod is consistently the best at this. Indeed, the market numbers show that definitively – and not out of some misplaced sense of coolness factor. To that end, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt concerning the iPod’s actual technical features and value does not help the competition. It just stifles the market.

I have a shuffle, which I LOVE because it’s insanely portable and clips to anything, the battery lasts forever,and if it gets stolen it was only $50. It’s 4GB, which is honestly fine for me considering I can fit a good 200 songs on it, and I’m totally happy to switch the music on it every few weeks to add my new favorites and remove the ones I’ve gotten tired of. I listen to iTunes on shuffle mostly anyway, so I never even turn the shuffle off.

I’m sure I’ll get a “real” iPod someday, but for now (what with being a poor student in a somewhat dangerous city and traveling a lot) this is just right for me. I didn’t look at anything else because I’m a very dedicated mac purchaser, and tend to hate the interface of all other hardware at this point.

@DarkScribe It’s not that RIM’s being “naughty”, it’s that they had to reverse-engineer the format to be able to support it. In other words: it takes a lot of work and is more difficult to do. Or in other words: you mostly have no choice but iTunes just to put media on your iPod.

@robmandu The media is not locked in, no. However, loading it onto my iPod is cumbersome. Metadata I add is locked in. @IchtheosaurusRex wasn’t allowing misconceptions to cloud his judgement – he’s right that you’re locked into iTunes.

As for Ogg Vorbis – I don’t want that to lower the price of the iPod. I want that so I can plug in my iPod to my computer and I can just play music, so it just works. Sure, it’s not something your typical end user will want, but for the ones that are looking for something not proprietary, AAC won’t cut it.

I mentioned the accessories to demonstrate that I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to debunking the myth of openness. I think I’ve had a go at that enough, so I won’t get into that.

So yeah, I’m not saying the iPod is for nobody – the only reason I was criticizing it is because I felt it was incorrectly labeled as open. It’s easy to start shouting FUD when your belowed company is being criticized, but I only mentioned facts. Whether those facts concern you is for you to decide. This isn’t the main reason the iPod’s not for me, btw – at the moment the main reason is that it crashes reproducibly, a well-known problem with the G2 Nano but I don’t suppose anybody’s buying that nowadays so that shouldn’t hold anybody off.

Oh, and as for plugging in and starting listening – remember that you first have to install iTunes or codecs?

And another thing: being the biggest in the market doesn’t mean being the best at plugging in and listening to music or watching movies, obviously. VHS, anyone? Or should I mention Windows? :P

Why am I continually getting myself into such discussions? Sigh…

@Vincentt, it seems most of your complaints are not actually specific to Apple, iTunes, and the iPod. What product is there that does everything that you want? The Sony I mentioned attempted (poorly) to utilize a similar scheme but using Windows-based DRM.

Regarding the term “open”, I used it in describing the AAC format. I was not attempting to imply that the entire iTunes/iPod infrastructure is open. It’s just that @IchtheosaurusRex had said, ”The content is encrypted, which locks you into iTunes or something else that’s compatible” and that is not true.

As I’m sure you saw on Wikipedia, “AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including Fraunhofer IIS, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dolby, Sony Corporation and Nokia, and was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Pictures Experts Group in April 1997” as well as “AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 specifications.”

So, do I wish I could easily port my star ratings, album art, play counts, etc. over from machine to machine? Hell yah, I do. But would that stop me or most people from buying an iPod? Well, obviously not.

Show me any Apple product and, like you, I can point point out a dozen serious flaws. However, the challenge is to find any competitive product (that is, not a bunch of cheap/free components you gotta cobble together yourself using custom drivers, duct tape, bailing wire, a wing, and a prayer) that can exceed the entire Apple package.

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I’m not trying to argue for you to come over to the dark side of Apple. I’m glad you know exactly what you want. It’s that you have yet to suggest anything else on the market that’s better.

Ease of use, both in navigating/interacting with the device and in loading/maintaining your media collection to play/view on the device.

Not to mention the access iTunes gives you to content. Videos, Music, Podcasts, Audio Books and more.

No reason to buy one.
The power of marketting. They tell you you need it. Over and over and over.
You go out and buy it.

There are cheeper units that do the same thing. I got an off brand .MP3 player for $15. It holds 200 songs. Might not be as pretty as an iPod. But does the same thing.

@robmandu I’m not trying to argue that there’s a better product or that you shouldn’t buy Apple – just that you shouldn’t buy it if you want something open. Because if you consider that important, then yes, there are products with less lock-in. And even if it’s not much more open than Apple’s products, it still can’t lock you in for the simple fact that it’s not as widely used. It is correct that the content of the iTunes DB is encrypted, and even if it’s not worded completely accurately, the drawn conclusion certainly is correct – that you’re locked into using iTunes.

And yeah, unfortunately exactly what I want is never available, for all products. If only because I’d want them to be gratis ;-)

With the risk of sounding like the typical pompous apple fan – I’m going to attempt to defend my decision and the iPod. The notion that this is all just a big marketing ploy is an extremely large understatement. I believe most of the time the product markets itself – it’s not the typical salesmen “puffery” you find in most products.

Most simply, it does what it does incredibly well. One of the best things about the iPod (and most apple products) is the user friendly interface. They always have updates from time to time (so your product continues to grow in a sense and get even better). I have an iPod touch which is wifi enabled – having the internet in the palm of your hand along with all of the music you own is quite empowering – yet alone any other games and applications you can fill it with. I think there is much to appreciate about this piece of technology.

Why do I own one? I got it as a Christmas gift and ever since I could honestly say I’ve used it almost every day. I have an auxiliary jack in my car so I haven’t used an audio CD in a very long time. I use it while I jog. When I’m reading or writing papers it makes a great reference tool (dictionary/thesaurus applications). It works well as a note-pad. When driving I’ve used maps (mapquest like application). The battery seems to last for days. What is there not to like? I think it’s worth the amount of money.

@Vincentt, at any time, I can port my entire music and video collection to any device that supports AAC, MP3, or MP4 formats. And if I want to convert my music to Ogg Vorbis for a different music player, I can indeed do so right now.

By definition, that is not locked in.

I cannot bring over my ratings, play counts, album art, etc… but I can recreate them. Any other media ecosystem is going to have The Exact Same Problem because no one has created a cross-platform media metafile open standard format. So, my metadata is “locked in” – not my content – but there is no other alternative offered anywhere.

@Vincentt, I was interested to learn more after reading your declaration that the iTunes internal db is encrypted. I expected it to be proprietary formatted binary file – in essence, a difficult to read encoding, but not full on encryption. So I googled a bit.

So far, the best I can find is this which explains…

There are two files:
– iTunes Library.itl—binary file in proprietary format (mute on if it’s encrypted)
– iTunes Music Library.xml—plaintext XML

iTunes operates directly on the .itl file. But if iTunes determines that the .itl file is corrupt, it will rebuild it from the content of the .xml. So, really, there’s no point for Apple to encrypt the iTunes db if they’re just going to store all of the content in plaintext XML anyway.

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The question would be then, why not just port over the content of the XML to some other music player. That’s certainly possible. But I wonder if there’s much justification for it. How many people are migrating off of iPods really? Furthermore, Apple still owns the layout and can change it at any time for whatever technical reason they want… just to screw you over, of course.~

@robmandu I think you answered and responded perfectly, just the way I would have replied. I am lucky enough tho to have a 5.5G iPod and is unsurpassed in terms of audio quality, especially with the internal Wolfson DAC that the newer classics & touches do not have. I will be making the most out of this soon when I have my iPod “imodded” by RWA ;)

Walshy

You are locked in if you’re trying to add songs to your iPod – locked in to iTunes.

The concern with the DB being proprietary (so yeah, encrypted wasn’t worded most accurately) is not that your data is hidden, it’s that the method of building that database is hidden. If you want to add files to your iPod and have it be able to play them, you need to update that database. To do that, you need to reverse engineer it, which is far from optimal – thus, you’re dependent on iTunes.

@Vincentt Why is this a problem? iTunes is free.

@fireinthepriory iTunes doesn’t work on my system. And I just don’t like lock-in.

Ah, the only way to add media files for playback to an iPod is through iTunes. Yes. True.

Again, after sampling the competition, I can’t see how this is a bad thing. I’d think the complaint should be you can’t use iTunes to load up other media players… because their respective softwares flat out suck.

Yah, the method of building the iTunes db is hidden, but I’m also unsure why that is a problem. They certainly don’t want you mucking around directly with the db if they can help it. Insert the wrong control char or delimiter value and you could inadvertently wreck your whole library. You certainly can make many modifications to your metadata (iTunes db) through the provided API: the Get Info dialog box.

And no, Apple does not make a Linux (or OS/2, or NeXT, or Solaris, or AIX, or Windows for Workgroups 3.11, or VM/CMS) version of iTunes. But if you know anything about Apple, they are going for the largest profit share. In the grand scheme of things, very few people who have access to these other OS’s are lacking in finding a Windows or Mac box. This just isn’t a significant problem for Apple’s target market.

@robmandu , @DarkScribe, I have not looked at an iPod in years. There is this bit:

“Unlike many other MP3 players, simply copying audio or video files to the drive with a typical file management application will not allow an iPod to properly access them. The user must use software that has been specifically designed to transfer media files to iPods, so that the files are playable and viewable. Usually iTunes is used to transfer media to an iPod, though several alternative third-party applications are available on a number of different platforms.”

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod#File_storage_and_transfer

I know Wiki is not the most reliable source of information on the Net, but I can just drag and drop music files ripped on my computer into, and out of, my crummy little Creative MuVo without launching iTunes or any other third party application. My even crummier Rio was the same way, and it took a removable SD card. I like that. Reading what you just wrote:

> Ah, the only way to add media files for playback to an iPod is through iTunes. Yes. True.

Is precisely what I was talking about when I said you were locked into iTunes. That is not a misconception on my part, but a misunderstanding on yours.

@DarkScribe , I’m an electrical engineer. Tech savvy enough?

@robmandu As I said, the problem is that I’m locked in to iTunes. I don’t really want to use iTunes to load up other media players – if it can’t, that’s just a feature it’s missing and then there’s competition I can go to that can organize my media into folders. I don’t want Apple protecting me – since they don’t support my system I need to use another application that reverse-engineered the protocol which has far higher risks of wrecking my library. If they’d just stuck a notice to it saying “we only provide support for iTunes because that’s what we developed ourselves” then that’d be just fine.

So yeah, Apple has good reasons for not supporting my system. That doesn’t mean it’s OK with me to be locked in.

@IchtheosaurusRex, again, you wrote, “The content is encrypted, which locks you into iTunes or something else that’s compatible.”

The content being encrypted – which we’ve established is false – is not what locks you into iTunes. You might have very well meant something different… but the meaning of the words you wrote was clear. Try saying what you actually mean next time.

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@Vincentt, it’s fine you want to use something else. I just think it’s silly to blame your desire for different functionality on this straw man “lock in” concept.

@robmandu There’s nothing straw man about the lock-in concept – it’s real, it’s there, and it prevents me from properly storing media on my iPod and having it do what it’s made for – play it. How is that “silly”?

Again, I’m merely pointing out that that is something you will want to take into account when considering buying an iPod.

@Vincentt Ahh. I take it you use Linux? When I decided to buy a mac for my first computer, I knew I was shutting out a lot of programs that would not work on my platform. It’s annoying when an awesome program is PC-only, but it’s the price you pay for the system you want to use, and it sounds like it’s the same with linux. Apple products tend to seem totally inclusive and open to apple users. I think this is because the apple programs are so intuitive to us that we forget that not everyone wants to use them. :)

I hope the work-arounds get better for you, since I’ve yet to see an mp3 player with a better interface than the iPod.

@fireinthepriory

“it’s the price you pay for the system you want to use, and it sounds like it’s the same with linux.”

Except with Linux, the price is $0.

@Ivan I meant that not having programs available is the “price” you pay for your system of choice. What exactly do you mean that the price of linux is nothing? You mean you don’t have to purchase an operating system?

@robmandu, Encrypted or hidden – no difference unless you want to split hairs. Actually, hiding a file is a form of encryption even if you do want to split hairs:

Encrypt: Computer Science To alter (a file, for example) using a secret code so as to be unintelligible to unauthorized parties. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/encrypt

If you can’t see the file as such, it’s encrypted, whether or not it is enciphered.

And it’s completely beside the point, which was, you cannot put usable content onto an iPod without using iTunes. Unless you’ve changed your mind about that.

@Vincentt, simply bulk copying media files for simple playback would negate much of the benefit of the iPod/iTunes package… smart playlists, album art, Genius, ratings, etc. would all not be available.

People generally don’t want simple playback… they want the rich experience provided by the combination iPod/iTunes provides.

I still think calling that “lock in” is a false argument.

@fireinthepriory

Linux is 100% free, always and forever.

@fireinthepriory Yeah well, if it wouldn’t lock us in to iTunes it’d be easier to write an alternative application for other systems with equivalent functionality. Luckily what I have now works good enough, but it’s not thanks to Apple. I often take into account whether something will work on my system when I buy stuff, but didn’t pay enough attention (I do was blinded by it “being the thing to have”, I have to admit) when buying my iPod. And now here I am warning people not to make the same mistake ;-)

@Ivan There’s a price beyond money ;-)

@robmandu I’m not calling the iTunesDB features lock in, I call it lock in that Apple doesn’t open up the format of the iTunesDB.

@Ivan I know you don’t have to purchase an OS (or anything but hardware, really) if you use Linux, but to me the unavailability of software would be the cost to using Linux (which I think is part of what @Vincentt was getting at!). Macintosh has that problem enough for me. I’m savvy/tricky enough to solve almost any problem I’ve run across with my mac, but I don’t think I’m tricky enough to do it with linux. If I were a programmer it’d be a different story. :)

@fireinthepriory

The idea that there is a lack of software on Linux is a misconception. In most instances, there are more software options with Linux. Open source is a wonderful thing.

@Ivan Sure, but we’re getting a little off topic here ;-)

@robmandu ,

> People generally don’t want simple playback… they want the rich experience provided by the combination iPod/iTunes provides

Actually, simple playback is all I do want. I can’t be ficking around with the screen while I’m driving.

Maybe a little

@IchtheosaurusRex, you “can’t be ficking around with the screen while… driving”???

You are so doing it wrong.

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BTW, as an EE, I’d expect you to understand the nuanced difference between encrypt and encode in computer science use.

When you say encrypt, cryptology is the expected intent. Encoding is when something is translated to another format (regardless if a third party knows how to read it or not).

WinZip == encoding.
AES == encryption.

So use your wide-open generic terminology if you want, but you will continue to find your messages are lost in translation.

Yup. Here’s how Apple “screws” you over. Good luck getting similar with your Linux craptop.

What other option/brand/vendor allows you to walk into their retail storefront, checks out your machine, and fixes/replaces it so that you go home with working (upgraded!) equipment the same day? Not Dell or HP or Acer. Not that beige box you bought piecemeal at Fry’s. Nothing you got on New Egg. Keep your “free” and your complaints. I don’t want none.

Craptop? Come on.

True. Yours is indeed probably not.

Well, my $300 “Linux craptop” will forever have the latest and greatest in open source software, and I get to hear the “Wow, that looks even better than a Mac!” comments once or twice a week at school. And if I did have a problem, I bet the software would allow me to fix it myself.

Sure, if there’s a hardware failure, I’d need to shell out some cash, but considering that I’d need to buy 3 or 4 of my “craptops” to spend as much as you did on just one computer, I’m OK with that.

I researched iPod’s viciously, read all the reviews, found out what people didn’t like about them. After all that they are still 10 times better than the competition. I am not an Apple person really, and I never thought I would own an iPod, but after all the research I ended up buying a Touch 2g and I love it. The biggest reason I bought it was because of the stuff it does besides music.

@robmandu My comment was mostly meant to point out that I was interested in having a sensible discussion based on arguments. Instead of replying to what I said, you start making fun of my system and mention something completely unrelated and insinuate that that invalidates everything I said.

@robmandu , you seem to be intent on quibbling over minutiae, but you haven’t even come close to answering my question. What’s the point? Do you just like to pick fights here?

The fact is that I’m looking for a new music player. I don’t give a shit about videos or photos. My little 1GB MuVo is OK for the gym, but I’ve got around 8GB of MP3s ripped from my CD collection, and I’d like to transfer them to a portable to listen to through the stereo in my car. I would like something that I can power from the 12v accessory circuit. Maybe even a dash mount so I can see what it’s doing without crashing into the car in front of me. I can find tons and tons of accessories for iPods but next to nothing for other players, so I wanted to know what is supposed to be so great about them.

I’ve more or less settled on this model . It has a built-in equalizer, which is useful in a car. I can charge it with any USB charger, but I can’t find much else in the way of mobile accessories. But guess what? It lists for $99, which is $50 less than an iPod Nano with comparable storage – except the iPod doesn’t have a slot for an SD card if I max out the internal memory.

So what exactly is so great about it that I should spend that much more?

And oh, yeah, there is that battery thing. My brother-in-law brought me an iPod Nano with a dead battery (as in, won’t hold a charge; yes, Rob, I know they are rechargeable). He’d gotten a battery from someplace on the Net and wanted me to put it in for him because he knew I had a soldering iron. The battery leads are soldered to the mainboard, but that isn’t the worst of it. They glued the damned thing to the back of the screen! WTF were they thinking?

@IchtheosaurusRex, I have made a full-on effort to answer your question here. You said the content is “encrypted” and that “locks you in”. Those statements are false and I provided a great deal of technical explanation as to why. If that was honestly what kept you from buying an iPod, I think you should reconsider the position.

If anyone here is disingenuous and trying to pick a fight, it’s you with your troll question. You don’t want to know why buy an iPod. You want to explain to iPod owners how they’re wrong.

And you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

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Your next-to-last quip here finally gets around to asking what you really want (why is that so damn hard for you?).

@robmandu , I don’t think anyone else here had a problem with what I meant by “encrypted” or “locked in.” Both terms refer to the fact that you can’t put playable content onto an iPod without using iTunes. And yes, that’s one of the many reasons I have rejected it. If anyone else is still following this discussion, does it seem to you that I was unclear or confused about anything?

I think we’re done here. You’ve been bashing me since your first quip. If we look at anything I’ve written here, can you find anything that says “robmandu is an asshole?” No, you can’t, because I did not say anything to personally offend you, but that might as well change as of now. I have a feeling you didn’t make the cut for your high school debate team. You are evidently incapable of pressing an argument without insulting or bullying other participants, so piss off. Here’s my man Johnny with some tough love for you.

@Icky, hang on to your false argument all you want. Enjoy moving every single media file you have around manually. Live in ignorant bliss not being able to track which songs are your faves, which are played most often, keeping them auto-sync’d. I hope you remain content to live in your self-deluded non-encrypted open-source world.

How are you transferring music to your non-Apple media player? Over USB. Encrypted! And proprietary! Hell by your argument, the only way to transfer music would be with two cups and string. Don’t even think about Firewire. Maybe you prefer to use the serial port instead. I haven’t found one of those connectors… but hey you’re an EE so you can whip one right up.

Oh, and wait, what is this? MP3 (and Ogg Vorbis, and AAC) is a “digital audio encoding format”?? And of course, by your definition, encoding == encryption. Holy crap! Can your non-Apple media player play music files just by pointing it at sheet music then? (And what is sheet music, but an encoding that represents notes, instruments, and rhythm?)

I mean, you own the hardware, right? So it should play whatever it is you want.

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Fact is, @Icky, you’re dealing with computer equipment and digital communications. E_V_E_R_Y_T_H_I_N_G is encoded everywhere along the line. No one else complained about your ridiculously liberal interpretation of the word “encoded” meaning “encrypted” because no one else cares about your ignorant opinion.

You might not like my tone, but it’s one borne of exasperation and frustration because you, of all people, should frickin’ know better.

You have picked a stupid technical basis to reject iPods on. You don’t like that the battery is glued to the screen? Hey, that’s fine. No argument from me. But please, lay off the encrypted and locked in claptrap. It’s ludicrous.

@IchtheosaurusRex @DarkScribe , I’m an electrical engineer. Tech savvy enough?

How is that relevant? I am an Electronic Engineering Graduate, (Electrical Engineering post grad) but that has little to do with my subsequent experience in digital communications etc.

I don’t see your problem – iTunes is free, and if you are running Linux/Unix etc., there are workarounds. I use my BlackBerry nowadays for most of my portable music – loaded from iTunes without reverse engineering as is claimed. RIM have a licence from Apple according to the EULA that pops up when you install it.

If you don’t like Apple products – fine. It is no concern of mine, but your reasoning for not doing so seems contrived.

@DarkScribe The problem is that you have to use a workaround, that is suboptimal. If RIM managed to acquire a license from Apple, good for them, but that shouldn’t be necessary.

@Vincentt, I still don’t understand the need to single out iTunes.

So, iTunes not available for Linux. There are Linux-based apps that are not available for Mac OS X. Would you then not use those Linux-only apps to remain consistent purely on principal? Must all apps be written for all possible platforms?

A device driver is the only way to communicate with a device… like a hard drive. How is iTunes really different in that regard? For most of us, the fact that we’re writing something to a hard drive is great because it “just works”... but the fact is, each hard drive (or other device type) actually speaks its own language. And how data is stored on the device is unique to the manufacturer’s design. A Seagate drive, for example, does not operate identically as a Western Digital. It looks like that to us, the users, as that’s the job of the driver.

My point is, you want to drag your media directly to the player. However to do that with your current solution, it still must go through device drivers, communication protocols, etc. You’re just choosing not to see them as part of your argument. I see iTunes as fulfilling the exact same role as a driver. Instead of dragging music to the iPod directly, I just drag it to iTunes. That’s it. It’s the same amount of work for the user. And iTunes then gives you a great deal of power and flexibility as to how that media is actually used. Your media content is not locked in or hidden away or made unusable.

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About the only thing I can figure, @Vincentt, where the iTunes/iPod lets you down is that you might elect to own multiple, different-brand media players. And you might want one over-arching media management tool that can basically do the job of iTunes but expanded for all brands, all devices and also manage to keep all items in sync with a single point of control.

Actually, that does sound pretty damn cool. But no one has created such a thing yet. It doesn’t exist. I don’t consider that a strike against iTunes, though.

@robmandu I don’t really feel like discussing with you anymore, but sigh…

The problem with iTunes is that the way it communicates is not made public. And yes, this is the case with some drivers as well and yes, I think when buying other hardware and you care about not being locked in you should also take into account that the manufacturer produces open source drivers or at least is open in how it communicates so people can write their own driver. However, we were talking about the iPod here, and I just mentioned it as something someone might want to take into account.

@DarkScribe , iTunes phones home. In fact, that’s the first thing it does when you activate it. I pay for my Internet bandwidth; they don’t, so the hell with them.

Problem #2 is that I have no less than 7 computers that I use regularly. Every computer has drag & drop to attached storage, and that’s all I need to move content onto – and off of – most music players. The fact that iTunes is free doesn’t make it any less inconvenient to use.

Saying iTunes is “inconvenient” compared to manual media file management is analagous to saying an integrated electronic address book on your phone is “inconvenient” in comparison to the benefits of rotary dial.

Look what I found.

It’s not about locking people out. It’s about providing the best possible experience for the most people.

A good example of this was when Vista first came out and folks were having all those tiresome driver problems. You know how many drivers Vista needs to support? Too many to count! (Similar problem is always ongoing for Linux).

Apple hardware, on the other hand, is a very small subset of all possibilities. Apple rarely has those kind of issues because they keep firm control on the entire hardware environment.

So… what if Apple purposely allowed any Tom, Dick, or Harry to develop all kinds of apps/hacks/whatever to gain unrestricted access to the iPod innards? And then, what if Apple wanted to add some cool new functionality (as they’re kinda known to do from time to time)? Well, they’d have to worry about supporting Tom, Dick, and Harry in advance of rolling out what might otherwise be a fully-baked feature… delaying time to market, increasing competitive risk, and losing them money.

Most people do not want to manually move their music, guys. They just don’t. They actually like that Apple can provide fresh features and functionality and a pace well beyond any competitor.

There is more value in Apple’s current approach for most people than the alternatives you prefer.

@IchtheosaurusRex iTunes phones home. In fact, that’s the first thing it does when you activate it. I pay for my Internet bandwidth; they don’t, so the hell with them.

Not if you don’t let it. On my PC, Mac, and Unix boxes I control all communication – in and out. I will allow it access if I want to buy from the iTunes store, but that is from one isolated system only. As for having multiple systems, I used a mixed PC/Mac/Unix-Linux network. My iTunes directory is on a mirrored central storage system. All iTunes capable systems access it, and non iTunes music apps still use the files in the iTunes music directory.

If you don’t wish to do that, just put all iTunes files on one system and share it – WiFi or wired network.

Where is the difficulty? There seems to be no real difficulty – you give the appearance of trying to justify a bias.

You don’t need to – if you don’t like it then that is fine. No one cares whether you do or don’t and care even less about the reasons why. It is quite acceptable to have likes and dislikes with out needing to justify or explain them, or recruit others to support your POV. I don’t like candy/Rap/American cars/fast food/soap operas/ etc., etc., but I don’t need to provide reasons why.

@DarkScribe, perfect… you nailed it, I think. “Attempting to justify a bias” is indeed what is so vexing.

@DarkScribe Actually, this question was about explaining what you like and don’t like about iPods ;-)

Oh but then again this was @IchtheosaurusRex‘s own question.

@Vincentt Actually, this question was about explaining what you like and don’t like about iPods ;-)
No, like all of them, it started with a question, then it developed into thread. We can respond to the original question or to the thread – we have a choice. I responded to the thread.

(Actually, the original question was not about like or dislike at all. It was about motivation.)

@DarkScribe Yeah, my comment was about you telling @IchtheosaurusRex that no one cares about his reasons while that was the actual question.

@Vincentt that no one cares about his reasons while that was the actual question.

No, my comments are to do with his flimsy claims trying to justify his reasons. All the question requires is your reason for buying or not buying, not a thread devoted to why no one should buy one and bagging the company. As you also do.

I don’t like the Apple company, but I do like the Apple products. I feel no need to explain why.

BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA

I got mine primarily for the apps. There were a few I wanted to try out and so I caved in and bought an iPod Touch. Plus, the screen is much bigger than my Sansa Fuze so I’m able to watch movies on it a little better.