[Closed] Tell me why we would WANT / NEED an I.Pod ? (luddite alert !)

everybody else has got one, so you NEED one as well.
a cheaper option would be to go to tk maxx (or a pound shop) and buy the cheapest headphones you can find, stick the headphone end in your ears, the other end in your pocket, then walk around everywhere nodding your head.

There are some quite clever ways of playing an iPod in the car I've noticed (though I own neither a car or an iPod...)

iPods are just one of the many mp3 player options and do seem like rather over-priced rubbish in that crowd. Cease being such a dedicated follower of fashion 😉 and seek a cheaper and less crass player.

The mrs has a very good point. Of course you can burn to dvdr, but it's still not terribly convenient; you might have several hundred tracks on a disc, trying to navigate to a specific artist or song will be a bit ofa pain. Pods have a pretty intuitive search capability, you can flick through cover art, or scroll up and down through alphabetic lists. I have my iPhone with me all the time, and listen to 6Music usually, but I also have around 1100 tracks at 320Kb on it for when I want to have music playing. As I work in a noisy environment my earphones act as earprotectors as well. I've also got a Nano 8Gb with around 8-900 tracks on, and a three year old 80Gb Classic with around 8000 tracks on it. I never have music playing when I'm riding, but I love to have the option of playing music when [i]I[/i] want it, and having a pod with a good wide selection of stuff on is fantastic. The cost/capacity equasion keeps improving all the time, too, my 80gig was £250, and my Nano around £150ish; a Classic now is 160Gb, for around £185! You don't have to use the iTunes store for downloading, Amazon and emusic songs play quite happily, it's not at all difficult to get an iPod to hook up to a car stereo, and there are loads of options for playing pods through home audio systems or with dedicated dock players; Yamaha have a whizzy new one that has the pod sit in a wireless transmitter so you can sit with the speaker unit across the room and pick tracks with the pod by your side. There are small portable speaker units so you can take your music collection away on holiday as well, which dvd's won't allow.

They're not very expensive (especially if you get a non-Apple one), so why not just buy one to keep her happy and if you don't use it then give it to a grandkid or friend or whatever.

Well, if you don't like listening to music when you're out, on a trip, away from your gramophone for whatever reason, then no reason at all to have an iPod (or some crap copy of an iPod). You can just sit at home in your slippers, reading the album cover and nodding away in your comfy chair until sleep - or death - takes you in its gentle arms.

I am a luddite, official.

But, the iPod is one top piece of kit.

All our CD's are on iTunes, so I can listen to anything, anywhere. Also do not underestimate PodCasts - you can setup auto-downloads for your favs, currently into Mark Thomas and his interviews.

For driving, we both have iPod 'connectors' in our cars, so no need to carry any CD's around - the wifes is a simple transmitter (£30) whereas mine is wired into the cars stereo so I can remotely operate it and the car also shows the tracks etc (retro-fitted into an old Beemer for £160).

iPods are just one of the many mp3 player options and do seem like rather over-priced rubbish in that crowd.

£185 for 160Gb is hardly overpriced. Sure, you can get an Archos with the same capacity or greater, but it's twice the size at least. The whole, " buy something else, don't be part of the herd" mentality just means you're part of a different herd. It's nothing to do with 'fashion', or 'individuality', that's just sheer snobbery. It's all about buying the best designed, easiest to use tool for the job, and that's what Apple do. It's all about system integration and ergonomics, something that many people fail to understand, or chose to ignore.

Another Luddite here!

They sound worse than CD's, which, as any fule kno, sound far worse than vinyl.

However, they do sound far better than cassette tapes, are superb for the car, great for travelling (don't bother with expensive ipod docks, just buy a reasonable pair of PC speakers) and are a the biz for audiobooks.

On-One are about to release a retro version for fixie/singlespeeders though, so might be worth hanging on for that:
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As for the sound quality versus other MP3 players, have never read a review where the actual Apple product has been beaten by a competitor.

Was sceptical when I received mine, now use it a hell of a lot in the car and when travelling.

great question as the wife is dropping hints she wants one ..

same reason stick all our favourite tracks on it and buy one of those fancy docking/speaker stations and take it round the house.

Ask her if she has you ever tried carrying all of her cassette when she's out biking. Even worse when you want to change the album! Job done!

generic ipod (sansas offerings are best IMO) +fm transmitter = in-car music library. Can be made to play through most hifi systems by a simply headphone>RCA cable. If recorded at high bitrate is *almost indistinguishable from CD.

You dont need one, no.

I have all my music (around 400days worth) all in a little box the size of a fag packet, that i can take every where.

so when i come to your house i no longer have to endure your music taste, i can impress mine open you! Ace.

i can impress mine open you!

upon, surely? 😀

They sound worse than CD's, which, as any fule kno, sound far worse than vinyl.
However, they do sound far better than cassette tapes, are superb for the car, great for travelling (don't bother with expensive ipod docks, just buy a reasonable pair of PC speakers) and are a the biz for audiobooks.

Ha! Cassettes were considered proper hifi, when recorded on a quality deck with metal tapes. CD is only 'worse' than vinyl if the vinyl reference turntable costs significantly more than the CD player, and even then you are restricted by the quality of the record pressing and mastering. I used to sell hifi, I have a turntable that was worth around £2000 new, and I could hear the difference between sides if mastered at different places, ie one side at Masterdisc the other at Stirling Sound. However, when I had to take a brand new album back five times because of excessive surface noise I bought my first CD, Peter Gabriel 4, in 1982, and I've never bothered with vinyl since. I honestly cannot be arsed with all the fannying around that's involved with playing it, cleaning dust off the disc, cleaning the stylus, turning the disc over, repeat. I can [i]clearly[/i] hear differences in the mastering of different albums on CD, and in ripped tracks at 320Kb, both on my Yamaha SACD/ DVD-A player and my iPod through Denon earphones, with none of the irritating hiss, pop and crackle associated with vinyl. The sort of people who obsess about vinyl being better than CD are the sort of people who obsess about cable direction. Early CD's certainly sounded dull compared to more modern ones, due to being mastered from stereo safety masters that had been EQ'd for cutting vinyl, where the dynamic range had to be curtailed to stop cutting lathe heads 'ringing' and burning out, or grooves running into one another, causing records to jump. That used to happen on Fleetwood Mac's 'Go Your Own Way', and even now I expect it to jump at a certain point on cd or iPod.

I think the quality issue (comparing to vinyl/CD) is irrelevant. iPods (and things like iPods) change your listening habits, audiophile nuances don't matter because ipods are in the background, not the foreground.

Listening to music is much more casual with ipods, even with CDs you have to take an active role in choosing and playing them (and finding them, and hold on.... why's this one in the wrong box?). With an iPod everything is there and you just leave it to run. Its much more passive, like a radio station but it only plays music you like. But you get less involved in choosing, you just let it burble away in the background.

For me it has had the odd effect that I'm actually far less interested in my music, I play it in the car or when I'm on the train, but I wouldn't put music on at home in the same way thay I used to spend an evening listening to CDs or albums. The plus side is the randomness means you constantly discover bits of music you'd otherwise overlook, the minus is you less of a trainspotter and less of a fan of your own collection and you can't remember what the the track was if you ever try to find it again.

skid artist - you assume people play on randomn or have playlists.

I rarely do either - infact this weekend was the first time i used a playlist for a very long time - i still pick out albums, songs or mixs for the moment - but it does when sat on a train, or elsewhere, allow you to make a mix tape 'on the go'

upon - open, what a schoolboy! 😳

heres why.....
do you want this in your life/ flat/ car /office/ holiday luggage
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or this
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Get one of these [url= http://www.mymemory.co.uk/FM-Transmitters/Griffin/Griffin-iTrip-FM-Transmitter-with-App-Support-for-iPhone-and-iPod ]CLICKY[/url] and you can play your ipod in the car, no problem. Bought the GF one for xmas a couple of years ago and she can't live without it now.

Taken it to France for the last 2 years and it's been great you don't have to put up with all the crap music on French radio while you are driving and with a little pair of travel speakers we have music in the tent too.

I really can't see a down side to them if you like listening to music!

I swear there was some issue with legality over those itrip type fm transmitters...guess it must have been sorted out, doesn't mean it's legal in every country though!

i use my mobile phone with a decent memory card.

why do i need a seperate device?

there was some issue with legality

They WERE technically illegal in the UK as you need a licence to broadcast but the law was relaxed to allow them as they only have a maximum range of around 8 ft.

Which is why they are often very, very useless - especially if your car's aerial is at the back of the car and you are at the limit of the transmitter's range. I have always found them comprehensively shite.

[i]i use my mobile phone with a decent memory card.[/i]

or use spotify on your mobile 🙂

heres why.....
do you want this in your life/ flat/ car /office/ holiday luggage

let alone in your washing machine

Yep Ipod can play in your car, over the radio (in the kitchen / anywhere else you have an FM radio) and the best audio appliances (e.g B&W Zeppelin) are becoming designed around it.

I fought against the Appleness of it but have been overridden by it's ubiquitous VHS'ness.

Plus an a 160GB Ipod you can fit an awful lot of CD's - thus clearing your room for more bike bits / clutter.

I was in the mobile and memory card "herd" till I got an iphone 12 months ago. The argument was that my camera phone with 5MP camera, video camera, 3G, mobile internet, email, 8Gig memory card, etc did everything an iphone did for a lot less money. I have now changed my tune and am a member of the iphone "herd". It doesn't play any more songs or sound any better, its just nicer to use. Therefore you make more use of it. Yes you can get better VFM mp3 players than apple make, in terms of £/GB but apple does ergonomics/intuitivity (is that a word?) better than anyone else. Worth the premium.
Those fm transmitter things are ok but a car stereo with aux-in is much better.

Copy your films from DVD to the iPod, buy an AV cable (and a Red, White and Yellow to scart as well, just to be on the safe side) and take films on holiday abroad for when you are tired of tv you can't understand? Copy your photos to your iPod and use the AV cable to show your folks your pictures? Download videos from YouTube and listen to / watch music videos (or whatever) on the train?

Oh, and listen to some music as well!

Fantastic devices (and I'm a bit of a luddite!).

iPods are just great.

Ive burnt my entire collection in lossless format on my 160gb, and Ive used it nearly every day/night for 18 months.

Theyre both great albums.

iPod Shuffle (clip-on version) rules for cycling.

Great when they are working - had a Classic 120gb which lasted about 5 months before constantly freezing. Was about to buy a new 5th gen Nano until a mate bought one and that crashed as well from the outset. Could well be isolated incidents, but kind of left a bad taste for me so im looking to get a Sony instead.

do you want this in your life/ flat/ car /office/ holiday luggage

Abso****enlutely!

I love my cd's, I've got room for them. Why would I want to replace all that joy with a little silver box? Which sounds rubbish and is nowhere as much fun to browse through? I don't WANT background music dammit 🙂

Having said that, I do have an I-pod. I use it purely for biking, banged about 100 albums on it and forgot about it.

The thing that gets me the most about digital music is it seems so [i]disposable[/i]. Maybe Vinyl to CD had this phase, not really old enough to tell. Fed up with people saying yeah, I've got 100 000 songs/500Gb of music, whatever. Then you ask them what they've heard recently thats great, errrrrrrrrr!

I put aside a couple of evenings to just listen to music. At the moment I have eight albums I've borrowed from a mate, including two of music from the twelth century. While I do just have my iPod/iPhone on shuffle, as I tend to chuck stuff on fairly randomly, I'm always being surprised by tracks that make me check who it is. The Delgados are great for that, as they write and sing in different styles, so it constantly freshens my interest in various artists, and while apps like Spotify are all well and good, you still have to have your always on Internet connection, which will kill your battery. I listen to 6Music for around three and a half hours, which will kill my battery, except for the fact I have a piggyback battery, which doubles the life. I can see the argument for playing complete albums, something that Radiohead have insisted on, but frankly when I'm working I like to have variety, not just play an album straight through; a solid hour of Metallica or Gang Of Four or Otis Reading may be fine for some, but I do like to have my own personal 'radio station', it's all about constantly rediscovering music that might otherwise get overlooked.

yawn @ ipods, over priced and do the same job as any other mp3/4 player, lets inject a bit of originality people, don't beleive the marketing hype that your life will be better with the Fruity brand, it'll be just the same as ever but you'll have less cash

From what I've seen ipods are excellent for ease of use; even my dad can buy stuff off itunes and then get it onto his ipod. Personally I use a Sansa clip which does exactly what i want (which is why I got it).

Why do you need to get a mp3 player? If you're asking that then maybe you don't...

As people have mentioned above before you copy all of your CDs onto iTunes experiment with the compression and file format you select as this can affect whether you use a different MP3 player in the future.

AAC is supposed to be sonically better than MP3 and is used by Apple (Sony & Nokia can't play this format). I created a lossless (WAV) version of all my music and saved it on an external hard drive, and also copied them on to iTunes @ 320k AAC.
Most ipods now have huge amounts of space so compressing music to the largest size (320k) available means you lose less music.

Nokia N series can play AAC as can the E series, most of the newer Sony phones also manage. They can't manage Apple Lossless though.

Xipe - yes totally the same thing with that Fleetwood Mac track .. . weird or what!!!

Sorry Old Fart couldn't be bother to read all the rest but the answer is you probably don't NEED one but they are nice to have, getting cheaper all the time - how annoyed was I when the minute I bought my 4GB nano they brought out an 8GB one for the same price, and you will learn to embrace and love them, maybe just a little. Just waiting for work to sort me an Iphone ... la la la.. 🙂

I spent 2 days in London last week & can see why so many commuters have an MP3 player.

I'm tempted to commute with one but so far my in-built risk assessment has said no, even when I walked home from the station with it on, I was aware of the traffic around me.

I can't stand Apple computers but I do like ipods and itunes. I never use mine for critical listening at home but for travelling and listening to music in the office they're great.

I can only echo what RichPenny said.

Music has become "dumbed down" background noise. I want to hear every note, every chord and be surrounded by music. I want to know what musicians have been playing and what instrument. I want to be moved by music, both emotionally and spiritually. Tinny tat is not where it's at 😯

Long live CDs/vinyl and if that makes me uncool, so be it, don't care at all!

Oldfart

By all means keep your stereo and CG has a very good point about music quality. But yeah, if you want to take your entire CD collection somewhere, for example on holiday or on a plane, then either an Ipod or another MP3 player is a great way to have music on the move. You dont need an ipod. I thought zens were great in terms of music quality.

Personally I like to buy 'hard' copy, then rip it to PC & download it to my MP3 player. I like the artwork. I also like the fact that, if my little electronic device goes "pop", I haven't lost my original copy. Even if my PC also goes "pop".

As for Apple brand vs the rest? Whatever works & is the best value for money suits me. So sorry Apple, you lose. Yes their stuff works. But is it VFM?

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my OCD side would love to index that lot...now let me thing, alphabetical order...of title or artist....mmm how about colours of the rainbow by sleeve clour... the possibilies are endless!