Thing I noticed about the iPod TV ads
 

They encourage you to dance around and really shake the shit out of your iPod, which contains a hard drive. Hold it right in your hand! Dance around! Don't worry about dropping it on a hard surface or anything!

Will it fail? Doesn't matter to Apple... if you've bought into the iTunes approach you can only replace it with another iPod... because no other portable player will play your iTunes library unless you convert all your files, and that's a royal pain in the ass, and will lead to quality degradation of the music.

The warranty is one year so you should expect to buy a new one every two years... what a fuckin' cash cow for that company.

Did they ever resolve the dead battery issue? I remember hearing a year or so ago that the iPods would stop working after about a year of use, because the battery would no longer hold a charge. That's pretty common for rechargeable batteries, but the problem with the iPod was that they didn't offer new batteries for sale. There was basically no way to replace the battery. I don't have an iPod, so I don't know if that's still true, or if they fixed it.

I don't know if that's shrewed, or stupid. Microsoft is evil, but people still buy their crap. Maybe Apple is deciding to follow suit. They don't care if their customers are pissed off in a year or two. They still make the sale.

Argh get a grip. Batteries last for ages, mine's a 2nd generation, had it for years, still only run out of battery once and I use it every damn day for hours. You can get a new battery fitted by apple for 100 or a 3rd party for 50, kits are even cheaper.

It has a little trouble reading new tracks from HDD while being swung about but keeps 5-6 (depending on size) in ram so it's not exactly a common problem.

I've dropped mine from around 1m onto concrete a couple of times and from a lesser height onto wood floors, thrown it onto the bed and it's bounced onto the floor a few times, scratched but works perfectly. One time it bounced off a bed, into the corner of a radiator HARD and then onto a hard wood floor, thought that was the end of it for sure but it was right as rain. For the record I've given my powerbook similar treatment and it's still working fine (2m onto concrete in a thin case, 1m onto concrete without), if a tad dinted. You can rip music in iTunes in MP3 format, AIFF and unprotected AAC (which is supported by some other players) as well as Apple Lossesss then convert them to something else if it suits you.

I am looking at getting a 4th gen iPod, primarily as I'm interested in using it as a photo dump and mine was before the connector used for that but otherwise I'd have no reason to upgrade, after years of hard use it's as good as ever and I know plenty of others with similar stories. Apple make quality hardware, I guess most PC users aren't familiar with the concept. 1 year warranty is standard, you can buy an extended warranty (3 year) for generally very reasonable prices and with ipods they usually just give you a new one without much hassle.

OK. I'm just jealous. I want one.

I've got a 2nd generation going cheap, battery is in good nick....

Two questions:

1. What competing product offers a better scenario? Isn't the DRM used by all the major music stores kind of icky and restrictive?
2. What's Mr. Tivo doing watching freakin' commercials?????

UT, i don't think it has a hard drive - i think it has flash ram

The smaller ones use ram, but every unit out there that's 5 gigs and up are hard drives.

It's fair to have an iPod but the current ads are for iTunes+iPod. The iPod, and all competition, play mp3 just fine. Most others also play WMA (debbil begone!) and one even plays OGG. Only iTunes and the iPod play the DRM-encoded iTunes files. What I will continue to do is rip everything to fairly high bit rate mp3, as it's a kind of universal format right now. That way I still buy the CD and so I get the full-quality "originals".

I have CNN/Fox News/MSNBC on as background filler all day.

Which one does OGG?

I admit, I have been using 64kbs wma lately when I rip CDs. I can't hear any quality diff between that and MP3 at twice the rate to justify taking up the extra space.

(If y'all don't want to talk to me anymore now that I've admitted voluntarily using a Microsoft "$tandard," I'll understand.)

iRiver does OGG

iPod
 

Heya,

The iPod Mini does have a 1" 4GB Hitachi hard drive in it. The Creative players are the ones with the 4GB CF card that are being bought and cannibalized by photographers, as they are much cheaper than the other options!

I have a 2G 10GB iPod. It's an awesome player, and I've dropped it many times. I've seen the competition, specifically the Archos players, just fall apart and not handle the beatings that an iPod can take.

That, and I have a Mac and a PC with XPlay that I've used it with, and it's FAST. USB 2.0 does not have the speed that Firewire does for long sustained transfers.

Mitch

Before I procured my powerbook I used ephpod, found it to be flawless, is Xplay better these days? Last I knew it was still in beta.

xplay
 

Jag,

Xplay was much better than Ephpod IMHO. I did use Ephpod for 2 weeks, but Xplay let me edit ID3 tags on the iPod itself, and it let me copy to and from. Quite a useful product, and I did buy it.

Mitch

Didn't you see the small text at the bottom of the screen? "This dance performed by a trained professional on a closed set. Dance responsibly, obey all state and local dance regulations, don't drink and dance." ;)

Eh, the iPod itself is only 3 years old, you old fogey.