iPod Questions (1 Viewer)

I have been so dead set against buying an iPod for
several reasons....

First, compared to the MP3 players that Creative puts
out, the iPods are expensive as hell.

Secondly, there has always been that problem concerning
what happens when the battery dies. With the original
iPods you couldn't even get the batteries replaced.

I am also concerned about transferring music to the iPod.
I want nothing to do with iTunes, but I do have 30GB of
music in MP3 format on a hard drive that I want to move
over to an MP3 player.

So, my questions are these based on the fact that the only
MP3 player compatible with my mac is an iPod....


1. If I have MP3 music on an external drive, categorized
in folders (Rock, Album Name, etc) can it be transferred
easily to the iPod while still keeping the folder structure?

2. What is the current situation with battery replacement?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Why don't you want to use iTunes Ron? The iPods are worth the slight price premium for all the same reasons you like your new Mac. I'm not sure what you're asking with regard to the folders but syncing to the iPod is easy enough with iTunes. You can create playlists or just sync up the whole library if you like. Not sure about the battery but there are 3rd party vendors that will upgrade batteries if / when it becomes and issue. I've had mine for several years and its battery still works just fine.

I've got a 1G nano -- I followed the herd, figuring if everyone else had an iPod, they might well be the best music player. For Christmas, I bought my dad a Sansa 4GB player. It's nice, cheaper than the equivalent iPod. But my early impressions are the the iPod kills it, no contest, in simplicity of use.

I don't know your reasons for shunning iTunes, but as a music management system for the iPod, it's pretty good. It has weaknesses, particularly its sad excuse for cover art management (especially compared to Windows Media Player). But I love iTunes integrate PodCast system. That works well along with playlists to keep them updated on my iPod. But there was, and may still be, alternate software for Windows to manage an iPod. No idea what's available on the Mac.

Attempting to address your questions:
- iPods play MP3 files (in case you weren't sure)
- iTunes likes to manage music its way. But it's got options in the preferences to disable auto-management and to not copy new music into the iTunes folder. So I expect you can have it pull music from your own locations, without disrupting your organization.
- No idea about battery replacement. I think you can have it done by Apple for overly high fee. I'm not worried: mine's a year old with no troubles. I expect by the time I need it, it will be worthwhile to buy a new iPod.

Just create playlists within iTunes ahead of time and then you can drag the music files out of those folders on the external drive and into iTunes.

I'm not against iTunes the software -- I am against buying
anything through iTunes.

All the music I purchase is 360kbps rather than the crappy
128kbps that most music services offer. Additionally, I don't
want to have to deal with license issues regarding moving
downloaded music from one hard drive to another.

All the music I download is license-free and I can move it
around my hard drives, burn a CD and listen to it at an
increased bandwidth.

That's fine don't use iTunes to download your music. You can import any song you want into iTunes so that's not really an issue. I've never bought a single iTunes song either but use iTunes to manage my music collection.

I wholly agree -- I prefer buying CDs and ripping them to my computer.

But as Andrews says, iTunes the music managment program can be used without ever seeing iTunes the store.

But I suggest you do try poking around a bit in iTunes Store; at a minimum there's some very good podcasts for free.

As long as both computers have iTunes, it's one click from the file menu (and maybe entering your password) to get your music playing. Obviously still less convenient than MP3, but less invasive than most copy-protection I've run into. That said, I've become wary of buying music from the store since my computer (a Dell laptop) had serious issues with the initial release of iTunes 7. The vast majority of my music is 256 or 320 kbps MP3s, but there's still a significant chunk of music I'd be locked out of if iTunes and I decided to part ways. As a long time WinAmp user, I made the switch to iTunes and never looked back. Very intuitive and single window fullscreen — one of the very things that keeps me away from Mac OS X (the lack of truly fullscreen windows) brought me to iTunes. The Coverflow view that was introduced in ver. 7 (formerly a third-party Mac OS X plug-in) is also the closest I've seen a software jukebox get to functioning like an actual jukebox. Even if you never venture into the store (and having grown increasingly disenchanted with Digital Rights Management, I can't blame you!) it's a pretty worthy music jukebox.

There are no DRM issues moving purchased iTunes music from one hard drive to another. Purchases through iTunes are linked to the computers they play on, not the hard drives.

You can disable iTunes management of the songs. It will ask you on install if you want it to manage your folders, just say no. Then they can remain in your folder structure.

You can rip your own CDs at any bitrate you choose. I find 192Kbps AAC sounds good when played back on the big rig. I also rip at higher rates, too. I buy some music from iTunes, but not enough to worry about their 128Kbps bitrate.

Personally, I am looking forward to the Airport Extreme/n with hard drive support, so I can serve all my music files from it instead of a computer.

- Steve

I just got the shipping notice! It should be here on Wednesday--meanwhile, I need to go out and get a terabyte of USB 2.0 hard drives--conveniently on sale this week!

- Steve

I have imported my entire CD collection to Apple Lossles format via iTunes, and have my Mac Mini hooked up to my Denon AVR via optical digital out. It is the world's greatest CD player. Give iTunes a chance, Ron!

As several people have stated, there is no reason to buy music from the iTunes Store although it can come in handy for some hard to find CDs.

However, the iTunes Store is indispensable for podcasts and is well on its way to becoming vital for TV shows. Right now, it is sub DVD quality, which is an obstacle, but considering the new AppleTV device supports 720P, I am hopeful that Apple will bump the quality of their TV shows to at least 480P, at which point it will replace TV on DVD for me -- why wait a year or more for DVDs, when you can have the show commercial free, DVD quality, within 24 hours of its airing.

Ted

This may be an issue. According to Apple's Web site, the HD-based iPods support "AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), Protected AAC (from iTunes Store), MP3 (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible (formats 2, 3 and 4), Apple Lossless, AIFF and WAV".

So you could encode your classical CDs using Apple Lossless, if you wished, but you might need to prepare downsampled (320 Kbps) versions of existing MP3 purchases.

Ron, as others have stated, iTunes isn't just a music store. You can definitely use an iPod without ever purchasing a thing. Hell, you don't even need an account to use iTunes.

As far as software, iTunes is one of the better (if not the best) music applications for Mac. It's created by Apple, so it just works.

The one major reason why I switched from the Creative players to an iPod is because of the Mac support. I still use my player on a PC, but I was infuriated that Creative stopped it's Mac support on the (then) new Jukebox 3.

And also, as was said, you can still use 360k MP3's in iTunes. They copy over with no problems.

And also, as was mentioned, if you do decide to buy DRM music from iTunes, all you need to do is authorize iTunes and they'll play (as well as burn to CD). You can do this up to 5 computers. I have 2 authorized computers at home and two authoried computers at work that will all play my iTunes downloads.

As far as battery life, yes, that is a big concern...BUT, (probably) by the time the battery does die, you'll be WAY past the need for a new one. My iPod is a good 4 years old and the battery is fine, but I can't wait to get a new iPod.

The iPod has its own organization system, but you can keep the files on disk any way you want. Just make sure that when you start up iTunes, under Preferences>Advanced>General that you have "Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library" UNchecked.

Then you can connect your external drive and just drop the root folder that contains all the music over the "Music" Library screen. iTunes will catalog all the songs in its own way, but the files will all stay on your external drive the way you organized them.