100 Million iPods Sold

[SmilinJackRoss]

^^^ skirts the question   Seriously though I agree, I dont really have a use for an iPod either. I guess I'm a bit old school like that. If I'm in my car, I'll just play a CD. If on the rare occasion that I need  'straight through' entertainment a CD player or laptop will surfice. Obviously at home I can use my computer to listen to music (I use itunes, don't really understand the hate... most albums I download (for free) have tags, but regardless album covers aren't that important anyway ... makes me feel guilty for stealing it  )

I gotta say my iPod is one of the best purchases I ever made.  I have a lot of music, and I listen to it at home, work, and in the car every day.  this used to require a huge CD book thing (two actually) to carry my music around, and after a few years, it started destroying my CDs, scratching them beyond hope.  And the books were heavy, bulky, and generally a pain to find what I was looking for.  With my iPod, all those problems are gone.

And you wont hear me complain about iTunes software.  I'll be the first to admit I haven't tried any other programs, but I have almost 20 gigs of music, and I have none of the problems Teaflax and others have complained about.  I find it very easy to organize, sort, rip, burn, etc.

[pyro]

I just lost some more respect for Apple and iTunes

they still won't give us Apple Lossless yet claiming again that the current bitrate in use is indistinguishable from the original, which makes me wonder why they even bother having 356kbps as a conversion option if that were indeed the case

[Steve-O]

they still won't give us Apple Lossless yet claiming again that the current bitrate in use is indistinguishable from the original, which makes me wonder why they even bother having 356kbps as a conversion option if that were indeed the case

Because they can.  And because there are some people who have actually deluded themselves into believing they can hear a difference.

I can understand wanting a lossless copy.  There's just something more satisfying about having all the available data, even if you can't necessarily hear all of it.  But if you're going to have lossy compression anyway, going any higher than 192 kbps for mp3 (lower for some of the newer compression techniques) is just overkill.

Even that might be a little on the high side.  Maximum PC conducted an interesting experiment a while back, where they took four different types of listener, from casual music fan to audiophile, and asked them to distinguish between original songs and compressed tracks at various bitrates.  At rates at or above 160 kbps VBR, all four failed consistently, even with songs that they had personally selected.

[Teaflax]

I have almost 20 gigs of music, and I have none of the problems Teaflax and others have complained about.  I find it very easy to organize, sort, rip, burn, etc.

20 Gb is about...what? About 4 000 songs? That's about when it starts getting unmanageble unless you have some really good sorting and searching options.

I have 212 Gb as of last count, which is about 35 000 songs over 3 000 albums/singles. When you're looking for something specific, that's a lot to go through - but if you're vaguely looking for something you're in the mood for (like "kind of soft, yet dark and angry"), AlbumPlayer really comesinto its own, since it downloads all the info from AMG, not just genre, but also styles and tones. Plus it displays the album covers for you to pick from, not a wordy list, and despite being a language person, I really am very visually oriented and find it much easier to browse by sleeve art.

Just to give you an idea, here are downsized versions of the browsing screen while displaying my Prog section, then with one particular "CD" open. I have chosen only to display ratings, as I recognize most of my records by sight (and if I don't, I can double-click the image to open the info screen), but you can chose any info you want; title, artist, year, etc. I just find that the more sleeves I can see, the easier things become.




Trust me, once you've tried the demo, there's no going back.

[SmilinJackRoss]

I have 212 Gb as of last count, which is about 35 000 songs over 3 000 albums/singles.

Holy.  Shit.

AlbumPlayer
Trust me, once you've tried the demo, there's no going back.

Looks and sounds interesting.  Is there a mac OSX version?

[Teaflax]

Looks and sounds interesting.  Is there a mac OSX version?

I regret to say that there is not. It's the work of one single guy, and he doesn't seem to be planning on a Mac version any time soon.

[Wheaty Petestraw]

I held out for so long, but I finally had to get one when they introduced the 5.5 80 gig version. It's a hell of a lot better than switching out CDs every 30-80 minutes (ESPECIALLY when driving), and I can always listen to my headphones at work if someone is listening to something that annoys the hell out of me (Gwen Stefani and Fergie are the main offenders).

I only wish the battery lasted longer.