AmyLEnsor's Full Review: Apple iPod 1st Generation 5 GB (MAC) MP3 Player
When my husband told me that Apple was going to announce some groundbreaking new product, I just groaned and rolled my eyes. In my house, these pre-announcement announcements always stir up a flurry of activity as my husband hits his various rumor sites and message boards looking for the skinny. Then the inevitable happens and he pre-orders whatever product it is as well as checking the brick and mortar stores for it; then he takes whichever he can get his hands on first, returning or selling the other. Just this month I had to confound the poor FedEx man by sending back the new Powerbook my husband had ordered; a few days before he was able to drive to the Apple store over an hour away and get almost what he wanted by going to two other stores for a bigger hard drive and a third party RAM upgrade which didn't quite work right and had to be replaced. He never actually plans to do this, it just sort of happens in the heat of the moment. Can you tell from all this complaining that I still haven't quite forgiven him for that Sony AIBO that we have collecting dust in the closet? Well, that and for having to deal with the bemused expression from the FedEx man.
I must admit to being a little curious about the new product Apple was going to announce. Truly, I understood the hype was calculated and I personally felt that unless it was a device that could fold the laundry, grill a perfect steak, change a poopy diaper all while providing a high bandwidth connection to the Internet and satellite TV, I was going to be disappointed. And since I figured that it would be yet another PDA in the already full PDA market, I didn't think too much about it. Then it was announced and it was some sort of MP3 player and my reaction was along the lines of, "Ohhh, OK, well what do you think?" Meaning, will it be successful and ultimately benefit the company and the stock? If not, I don't want to know about it. My husband said that it sounded like although there were products that did some of the same things better, this would be great for Mac users who wanted these specific features in one package. Of course, he was one of those and he ordered one. "But don't worry," he said, "they won't be out for a few weeks and I'll be able to cancel my order if I decide I don't want it."
Love at first sight
What happened next in this tale of electronics acquisition gone right was that the Apple store in a mall near us had its grand opening; we decided to go check it out that weekend just for fun. I had no agenda, but my in laws were visiting from out of state and had agreed to watch our daughter so we could have some time alone together. As an evening trip to the mall sans toddler sounded kind of fun. We arrived, stepped through the door, and lo and behold, there was the sleekly glorious iPod. "Mine should arrive tomorrow," said my better half. "The last tracking info said it had left Taiwan." All of a sudden tomorrow didn't seem soon enough. Now when my husband told me that he had ordered an iPod, I wasn't exactly resistant since I figured that I would get to use it. But standing there in the store, I suddenly had this feeling that I would not be getting my hands on this new toy anytime soon. When I asked him how much usage I could expect to get out of it, it wasn’t much. It turns out that he planned to take it to his office. I wanted one of my own, because darn it, it was cute! It was new and did I mention, cute? It seemed to make so much more sense than the new cell phone that I was carrying, an early Christmas gift. But why quibble, my birthday is also in December so and this would make a great early gift for that momentous occasion!
There was actually a method to my spendthriftness. Since I do a lot of walking and enjoy listening to heart pumping music while I walk, I thought the Apple iPod might come in handy. Seeing it there in the store, with its adorable chrome and Lucite look, I just knew I had to have it! I tried out one of the demo model, and as the music poured richly from the little ear buds, that was the end. My husband jumped at the chance to spend money in the Apple store on one of my whims. It just makes him seem not so crazy. Suddenly I was the proud owner of an iPod.
We took it home and my husband got it all set up. Basically that meant charging it and setting up my G4 Titanium Powerbook with the new version of iTunes. As an aside, let me just say that I inherited this Powerbook when he got his new one. I love having powerful computers for checking my e-mail and writing Epinions--what if I were still suffering with a lowly G3??? Perish the thought! I know I sound horribly spoiled, but my husband swears we're doing our part to help the economy and how can I argue with that?
What It Has!
* A 5 gigabyte hard drive accompanied by a rechargeable lithium polymer battery packaged together in a small (2.43" x 4.02" x .78"), light (6.5 ounces) unit. The battery gets up to 80% of its charge in the first hour, becoming fully charged in 3. The drive can hold up to 1000 4-minute songs compressed at 160 Kbps MP3 mode, or other data when it is set in FireWire mode. Once the drive is formatted, the actual storage capacity is less than 5 gig--I believe mine is about 4.6, and with 433 songs, I have 3.1 gig left
•A 6-pin FireWire cable and AC adapter. The iPod will charge while it is attached to your computer, or the FireWire cable can be used in the adapter and charged in a regular electrical outlet.
• Ear bud style earphones with Neodymium transducer magnets, a 60 mW amplifier and a frequency response of 20-20,000 Hz
•CD-ROM with iTunes2 software and electronic documentation.
•Up to 20 minutes of skip protection.
•A 2" diagonal LCD display with white LED backlight
•160 by 128 pixel resolution
•multilingual display support (just make sure not to change to Japanese characters unless you can figure out how to change it back). The iPod can display different languages simultaneously, however, so if your mp3s have tags in French, German, English or Japanese it can handle that.
• The audio formats supported are MP3 (up to 320 Kbps), MP3 Variable Bit Rate (VBR), WAV, AIFF. There is also upgradable firmware in order to support future audio formats.
The system requirements are an Apple computer with a built-in FireWire port running OS 9.2.1 or later OR OS X v. 10.1 or later. The iTunes2 software is also a requirement and is included on disc. Pretty much any Mac sold in the last two years, other than maybe the lowest end iMacs will meet these requirements. Earlier computers will not have the necessary FireWire port. If there are any Windows users out there who wish to buy an iPod, a company called Mediafour is working on the XPod, a software package that will enable the iPod to work with Windows ME, 2000 and XP. Check the end of this review for a link.
The iPod has an attractive, streamlined appearance with a white dial and white buttons on the shiny, white face. This is apparent from the product photo, but I mention it again because it was the look that made me bring this little guy home. The top of the unit contains the FireWire port (IEEE1394a), the headphone jack (35 mm) and a hold button. The front has the LCD display with a ring underneath that is divided into four different buttons: menu, pause/play, a forward and a backward button. Within this ring is a dial that is rotated for volume control and to move between menu options, and it clicks as the selections are made. This clicking sound can be turned off, but we older people like it as it makes the interface more familiar. A round button right in the center works kind of like a selection key once you've dialed around to where you want to be.
Menu Features
The first screen that appears in the display has 6 menu items:
Playlists takes you to a menu of all the various playlists you've created in your iTunes on your computer
Artists lists all the artists in the library alphabetically
Songs lists all the songs in the library alphabetically
Settings allows you to use the shuffle play and repeat functions as well as set the backlight and sleep timers, adjust the contrast, turn the clicker option off and on, set the startup volume, change the language display.
About tells you how many songs you have, how much room is left and gives some version numbers
Now Playing takes you back to the song info screen. The playlist is listed at the top and underneath is the number of the song, as well as all the song tag info. It scrolls past periodically so you can read all the information.
Pressing any button turns the unit on, pressing and holding the menu button turns the backlight on, or you can set it to automatically light up when using any control. The sleep timer dictates how long the unit will run before automatically switching off, but this means it will power down in the middle of a song and not just when the unit is at rest. If the sleep timer is set to off, the music will play continually until the pause button is pressed; the unit will power down after about a minute after that. Pressing and holding menu and play simultaneously will restart the machine; pressing and holding the forward and backward buttons simultaneously will cause the iPod to go into FireWire mode to use with other devices. You can select the different menu options while your music plays, so if you suddenly decide you want to hear Just a Little Talk with Jesus by the Bluegrass Cardinals repeated ad nauseum, you can go back through the menus to turn on the repeat option. After a few seconds of inactivity, the display will revert to the Now Playing screen and you can then adjust the volume to really crank it up.
My Experience So Far
I have already admitted that the design was what captivated me and was the deciding factor in my purchase of the iPod. Well, that and the sound, because listening to the device in the Apple store, I was actually impressed with the quality. I already have a perfectly serviceable Phillip's Expanium CD MP3 player that I have been using regularly over the last few months, so it wasn't like I even needed a new MP3 player. But I can honestly say that this has been one of my best purchases in a long time (besides my Omron pedometer). It took a little bit of getting used to before I could manipulate the controls with ease. I think the dial is pretty intuitive, but the menu button also functions as a back button, and for some reason I find myself wanting to use the arrow buttons to try and move around. Several times I've hit play instead of select and end up playing the first song in the library instead of moving to the playlist of my choice.
I was impressed with the quality of the sound when I listened to the music on the display units, using both the included ear buds and the fancier over the ears headphones that the Apple store sells. I have heard that there are those who are not overly thrilled with the quality of the headphones, and that is probably par for the course, but not being a true audiophile, I cannot give in depth commentary on this. I can say that I wasn't particularly pleased with the way they feel in my ears. With my Expanium, the ear buds were constantly loosening up in my ears and falling out, so I went out and got a Sony Sports Walkman and used the earphones from that device for the Expanium. The ear buds included with the iPod stayed in better than the ones that came with the Expanium, but were they actually uncomfortable. I thought that by removing the little foam coverings they might fit a little better, but I found that they started to slide out. I'm usually using my iPod while walking, jogging or using an elliptical trainer, so I wanted something a little sturdier. The Sony Walkman Sport earphones work well and although do not provide quite as rich a sound, the trade off is worth it. My husband only uses the included ear buds and he actually goes to sleep with them on sometimes, so he doesn't find a problem with the comfort.
I use the iPod primarily during exercise. As hard drives can be prone to skip when subjected to a lot of motion, Apple has put in 20 minutes of skip protection. My Expanium CD mp3 player also had electronic skip protection, but I found that there were times when the buffer would be easily overcome and I'd have to stop and restart it in order to get it working skip free again. Also, with that device I had to be more sensitive about jostling it, so using it during jogging was not really an issue unless I could set it beside me on the treadmill. I have never had a problem with the iPod skipping, although on a long walk last weekend I thought I had. While running across an intersection, I noticed my song starting and stopping before finally stopping for good. When I checked the unit, it turns out it had been bumping against the Dr. Soy bar and cell phone that I was also carrying in the same pouch of the water bottle belt. I hit play and then switched on the hold option and all was well.
The day after I got my iPodhome, I was I was like a kid in a candy store looking for music to put in it. I started with a base library of mp3s from my husband's collection, then I actually unlocked my toddler proof CD cabinet and pulled out things I hadn't seen in awhile. ITunes2 can import the CDs pretty quickly, 5 minutes or less per CD; uploading the songs to the iPod is even quicker. The base library of over 300 songs went on in just a few minutes which. As soon as the FireWire cable is attached to the port on the computer, the iPod syncs with iTunes2, getting the new playlists. I won't say too much more about iTunes as that merits its own review, but any organization of music on theiPod is done through the iTunes2 software. Although you can select shuffle or repeat play from the iPod device controls, you can't just decide on the spur of the moment that you want to listen to five specific songs and then have them play in that order.
You can do that easily enough by creating a new playlist in iTunes and syncing the iPod, but I was used to having a program button on my Expanium that let me enter specific tracks for a temporary program. At first the idea of having a large number of playlists seemed wasteful to me somehow, but then I realized the true beauty of it. Once I come up with songs that work well with my walking program, I only have to organize them once. With the Expanium I would have to program it every time and then quickly hit play before the unit turned off, or else I had to actually burn a CD with the specific songs I wanted for walking. Plus when I ripped new music, I would need to burn a new CD in order to get those songs included. With iTunes and the iPod, there is one easily updatable library of songs, and the ability to organize them into as many different playlists as you want. I can add my Christmas music now and take it off later, so I'm pleased with the versatility of this product.
As far as the battery life goes, it has worked well for us so far. The other day while I was on my 3 hour walk with my iPod, my husband plugged ours into our entertainment center receiver (using a headphone jack to RCA cable from our digital camcorder) and played it for over 5 hours. The battery was still registering as half charged. He heard from someone on a message board who had used his iPod continuously for 11 hours. Since it charges so quickly, I just leave my adapter around and charge it when I think about it.
Alas, even the beautiful have their flaws
Although the iPod specs state that it can play wav files, we have one song in that format (with an .mp3 extension) that does not work in the device although it does play in iTunes. When I did try to play it, it locked up the device and I had to reset it. I also had one instance where after having not used it for over a day, my unit would not turn on and would not charge. Holding down the menu and play button simultaneously for a few seconds got everything working again with no problems. I was worried at first that I had somehow completely drained the battery, but it appears I somehow managed to crash the hard drive. It hasn't happened since.
The 20 minutes of skip protection can also pose a problem. The good thing is that disk spins up to read the song information into memory, and spins down again so it isn't constantly running. Therefore it doesn't draw a lot of power or give off much heat, which is a plus. Unfortunately it can have a problem with mp3s that are longer than 20 minutes. The complaints I've heard along these lines are that it restarts the song after 20 minutes. I decided to forego compressing these longer pieces of music, so I haven't tested this out for myself. As far as skipping goes, I have never had a problem with that, even when jogging.
One other thing is that the shiny little iPod doesn't stay shiny for long once you start handling it. So far there is no case for it, but there is at least one in development (link provided below). Since the FireWire port is open on the top of the unit, you need to be careful about exposing it to moisture--i.e. don't carry it in your shirt pocket while it is raining. To keep it clean and shiny, I walk around holding my iPod with my eyeglass cloth, so that I can easily polish off the fingerprints. OK, I'm a little obsessed, I admit it. I'm not sure how durable to scratching or dropping it would be, and I have no intention of finding out.
Five Stars!
As much as I love my iPod I debated on the rating to give it. At $399, it is more expensive than many other MP3 players. Also, it currently only works with Apple computers which is more than a hindrance to those PC users. However, I have been thrilled with my iPod and would highly recommend it to others, like me, who have a fairly new Mac, the need for a lot of music storage, the desire to quickly and easily add to and organize their library of songs, the need for portability and a love of shiny objects. I think Apple knew their target audience pretty well when they came up with this.
For more information on the Apple iPod, check out http://www.apple.com/iPod/
For information on Mediafour's XPOD package, check out http://www.mediafour.com/xpod/
For information on sleeves for the iPod, check out: http://www.jrhillandcompany.com/
For information on a car adaptor kit that would allow your iPod to play through your car stereo, check out: http://www.drbott.com/prod/action. lasso?-database= Products&-layout=all&- response=detail.html& Code=0142-IPCK&Publish=Yes&-search
Discontinued by manufacturer, replaced by model #M8976LL/A FireWire interface for fastest digital transfer available Download audiobooks from Audible....More at Amazon Marketplace
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