Jul 25, 2006 10:27 PM
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(Updated Jul 26, 2006 02:02 PM)
The iPod is a great player. Make no mistake, it sounds amazing. The iPod video in particular stands out for its audio-visual quality. This is partly due to the fact that it comes with quality headphones and high density LCD screen. Much of the inconsistencies of the previous versions (firewire interface, incompatible with windows) are now history.
However, if you ask me "will you recommend I buy an iPod?", the answer is emphatic "NO". Inspite of my vehement opposition, friends and family are blindly buying this imported headache generator, leaving me no choice but to rant about it at mouthshut. And fix the damned things when my near and dear come crying.
What’s wrong with it?
The package: the iPod typically comes with the player, the headphones, a CD of iTunes and nothing else. No detailed user documentation, no extra pair of sponges for headphone, no separate charger, no bonus discs. Take the player, pay the premium and get lost.
The hardware: The device has a stainless steel back that gets oily-smudgy superfast and is tough to clean. The serial number on the back is impossible to read without a lens and happens to be required to install the software. The front face of the iPod on some versions is sensitive to scratching. The click-wheel is too sensitive and lacks sensitivity control in software.
Most important: the iPod cannot be serviced by anyone except Apple. The hdd cannot be replaced, the batteries cannot be replaced (easily). Lithium-ion batteries go dead in 2-3 years normally, so your ipod is converted into an expensive paper-weight after that.
Feature-set: the iPod plays aac, mp3 & mp4 formats. Thats it. No support for ra, wma, ogg, 3gp, divx, xvid and other increasingly popular formats. Though the player is firmware upgradeable, in iPod’s history, Apple has never released a patch that has given a new lease of life to the player (in contrast to iRiver’s support). Converting to-fro supported file formats is a royal pain. There is no easy way to convert your favorite hindi songs ripped from a vcd/dvd into the MP4 format required by Apple. You need to download third party tools for it.
Software: the lesser the said about iTunes, the better. The most useless piece of software ever written on this planet. Thank god! Apple does not do programming for the Airlines industry or we would be locked into flying Air Deccan for life.
For a MP3 player, iTunes is slow, huge and painful.
iTunes does not allow you to backup/restore your iPod.
- If you connect someone’s iPod to your machine, the iPod is formatted. If you connect your iPod back, its formatted too. iTune deceptively calls this initialising. The same can happen to you if your friend borrows your iPod.
iTunes insists on screwing up the tags of your music. If you have music without tags, the filenames get mangled in no time.
iTunes does not synchronize cover images by default. you have to enable it.
iTunes adds all videos to "movies" category. To move them to "music" category is extremely painful since you have to do it one by one file.
iTunes player interface sucks. Its not skinnable either.
To add images to iPod, you have to use iTunes only.
To add videos to iPod, you have to use iTunes only.
To add music to iPod, you have to use iTunes only.
Although the iPod shows up as a separate hard drive on your computer when you connect it, if you drag-drop content into it, the iPod refuses to play it. Turns out - the iPod only plays what is listed in its internal database (which is prone to corruption every now and then) and requires that the filename be changed to code and sorted into obsure folders into a hidden folder.
Compare that to the simplicity of any other MP3 player. Drag-drop-play.
I personally use Media Monkey to synchronise the iPod(s). Not only its a great free player, it synchronises the iPod beautifully and faster. And its fully compatible with WinAmp plugins. Pity it cannot transfer images and video due to Apple’s short sightedness.
Calling Mr. Loaded No Brains (with a short sight) to come and buy the iPods before they become extinct.
-- Added Jul 26, 2006 , 1.50PM
Thanks readers for your comments. Very insightful. w.r.t. some of the comments:
Most iPods that come to me for fixing are dumped unceremoniously without their boxes. So I have to squint and figure out the serial on the back of the device. Do you intend to have the box handy everytime?
All players on the market (except the iPod) work quite well with standard s/w installed on user's machine like Windows Explorer (drag-drop), Winamp/Windows Media Player (playlist sync). What's Apple's excuse?
When the battery on a Nokia phone dies or the battery on your digital camera dies, we dont blink an eyelid. The batteries are available in open market and are user replaceable. Not on the ipod.
Even chinese based Flash MP4 players (INR 3000+) and every multimedia phone (INR 6500+) support formats such as 3GP/MP4/WMV etc. For a product that is in 5th generation, the iPod seems to have stunted growth. You are better off buying a Nokia 3250 & a 2GB SD card. Cheaper & more feature packed.
The iTunes software never warns that your friend's iPod will be "formatted" if connected to your machine. It deceptively labels it as Initialising. What about backup of your own stuff? iTunes doesnt support that. What about mangled ID3 tags in iTunes ver 6? Clearly, for Apple versions do not translate into improvement.
IMPORTANT: occasionally if your iPod's database goes kaput, if you connect it to your computer and access it's hard drive, Windows will prompt you to format it. If you do, then you can possibly kiss your iPOD goodbye. Displaying its height of stupidity, the iPods firmware (operating system) is not on a chip, but on the HDD. So if you format the iPOD or your HDD crashes, the iPOD is toast. The "iPod Updater" software can be used to recover some iPods which have been accidentally formatted, but heed my warning and be careful. Every other player have their firmware on a chip which cannot be accidentally erased.
