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FIRST IPOD, ITUNES EXPERIENCE

I’ve made no bones about my disdain for Apple’s iPod and its hype in the past.  I guess I was sick of the marketing, and even more sick of the huge flocks of people who so willingly bought into it.  I’ve owned a number of mp3 players, all of which were not Apple, and all of which I enjoyed immensely.  Build quality, functionality and sound quality were fine for all of them, although I have to say I was always left wanting with the software they came with to manage my music library. 

However, years on, and having my most recent mp3 player stolen, (Creative Zen Touch 20GB), which I loved, I decided it was time to try out the Apple offering, and since flash drives are not offered at 8GB, that’s where I decided to put my money. 

The reasons for the about face are many, but here’s a few:

• I’m tired of crappy music software and sketchy transfer ability.
• I’m tired of not having owned an iPod, which makes it difficult to argue about with people who do own one.
• I’m slightly less anti-iPod after seeing years of innovative accessorizing from both Apple and third parity manufacturers.  No denying it, there are some cool things you can pimp out your portable audio experience with, if you are an Apple-ite, that you can’t do if you aren’t…or at least you can’t do as easily.
• iTunes intrigues me, and as someone who’s on the cusp of releasing some music of his own (finally), I figure I had better get a grip on how music is being consumed these days. 

So, I picked up an 8GB Nano.  I’m immediately struck by the way cool packaging…the extremely solid branding of Apple’s iconography is convincing and reassuring.  I feel immediately like I’ve done a good thing, and that I’m now part of the club.  And I don’t doubt for a second that this is exactly how I’m supposed to feel.    In taking this little player out of the box, I’m digging the gadget-factor big time.  Silver back that’s all shiny…vibrant colour display…small form factor with a great interface…and the programming on the unit itself..the menu system and features….very very slick.  Better than all the mp3 players I’ve used thus far…more intuitive and easy to use, without sacrificing any functionality (except custom eq settings….why couldn’t this be there?), and in fact adding some great features, like an alarm clock….way cool and kind of useful.  Again, on some level, I don’t doubt that the design philosophy at some point was, "fulfill this criteria…make the iPod be in the hands of the owner more often".  It seems simple….if my iPod becomes more integrated with my daily life, I’ll probably buy another one if this one goes astray or dies, and perhaps even consider the rest of the Apple product offering, hoping to find the same engineering awesomeness there as well. 

At this point, I’m very impressed with the experience.  Time to fire up some music.

So, I decide to set things up manual style…as I already use and love Media Monkey to organize my extensive music collection.  iTunes is slick looking, but it’s clunky feeling to me, though I guess it’s probably related to the familiarity thing…I’m just not acquainted with it or it’s design philosophy.   I let iTunes find all of my music and set up a library for it…and then I transfer an album to my iPod..all good.  I eject and listen to the iPod on the stock earbuds that came with it, and yes!  music plays…but, what is the deal with these GARBAGE ear buds?   Granted, not everyone has my canals, but they won’t stay in at all…rendering them completely and utterly useless.  Into the trash they go, no questions asked.  I’ll have to find another solution.  This is a disappointment…some foam thingies or rubber covers might make these a bit more universally acceptable….and I think I can expect some effort here, for a premium product.  Oh well…not a deal breaker.  I probably wouldn’t have cared for the sound much anyway’s.   Bit of a snob there….

Now the real trick…will Media Monkey talk to my iPod?   It did and I’m elated.  I use it exclusively now for managing the content on my iPod as well as my library, so the only thing I need iTunes for is buying music.

Which is my next gripe.  Well, soon to be.  I fire up the store, get my account happening and started browsing…right on.  I’m really really digging the selection and honestly, the integration with iTunes the program is tight and well thought out.  It makes consuming music really quite simple, and it’s fun to do.  So I buy Radiohead’s Greatest Hits to begin with, as the album price makes it a great deal for the # of tracks you get, and let it download.    It does so quickly, and I transfer it over to the Nano and check it out.  Sounds good!  It was a very easy way to part with $10.  Sound quality was decent, at least on my Nano, and the Sennheiser sport headphones I picked up.  (which I’m not sure I will keep, at $70 I expect them to blow me away a little, and they don’t.)

With the first purchase over with, I start looking around and getting a bit starry-eyed, like a kid in a candy store, at all the selection right there for me to dive into.  In the meantime I’m fast filling up my Nano with some favoured selections culled from my library.  As I did so, some of the selections I transferred over got the "converting for iPod" message, which got me curious.  Then I realized that a few years ago, in a bad phase, I had ripped a bunch of CD’s in Windows Media Player using the .wma format.  Whoops!  

Well, I can tell you that the transcode from wma to whatever Apple uses sucks.  Yuck!  No big deal, I can re-rip those cd’s easily…but it got me thinking, newb to the Apple-verse as I am, that I didn’t remember choosing a format or bitrate for my Radiohead purchase on iTunes.  How shocked I was to discover that the bulk of the iTunes music store is using 128k bitrate, and some music is now being offered at 256k.   What a joke!!! 

So now I’m back to being a bit anti-Apple…and essentially for 2 things.  Brutal lack of choice for downloaded format or quality, even if it’s a premium price for that choice…surely there’s a business model that works there.  And the crap headphones that come with it.  Ugh. 

All that said, for most people, I guess it works out just fine, considering the massive sales iTunes post every year.   But it won’t get much of my money….I need better choice than that.   Overall though, I love the player itself.  It’s incredibly well designed and accessorized.   Nice to finally put a face to the name, iPod.