I find the iPod an amazingly frustrating machine. So good, but...
At the mall yesterday doing some last minute shopping (!!) I wandered into the packed Apple store. They had the nano up through the video iPod on display. The video iPod was better than I expected -- Jay Leno was playing on it and it was remarkably clear and smooth. The display is bright, and easy to read. All the iPods now do pictures as well. You can rotate through them quickly just by slinging your thumb around the dial. The machine and the interface are works of art.
But then there are the guts. Battery life sucks in comparison to other machines out there. They play only MP3's, and to get high quality MP3's requires quite a bit of space -- though this doesn't really matter for most people when the disk size is 30Gb. And you are locked into the iTunes store and the $0.99/song charge -- in particular, these new subscription services aren't available.
This later one I'm particularly interested in. I still hear lots of new music on the radio that I want to listen to -- but based on one song I'm unwilling to spend real money. Having constant access to one of these services would mean the cost of trying out a new album or band would be nothing.
On the other hand, that black iPod just looks so much better than anything else!
Grrr!
Try the Yahoo Music service, and the Rio Carbon. I've been doing this solution for the last 6 months, and my life is great. :) The Rio lasts for 20 hours, has 5GB, and is smaller and lighter than a deck of cards. The Yahoo Music is WMA at 192kbs and sounds great. They have over a million songs that you can download fast (10 sec / song), and listen to on your computer or the Rio for as long as you pay the ridulously low $5/month. Also nice is that it remembers your music preferences, and recommonds new music that other similar people are listening to... which is how I stay so hip. :)
Posted by: Andy | December 24, 2005 at 03:08 PM
5 buvks a month!? That is low!!! I'll definately be checking that out, thanks Andy!
Posted by: Gordon Watts | December 27, 2005 at 02:23 PM