My iPod Odyssey: PC User Loves His Pod

The Background

In July of 2003, a coworker showed up one day with his new 10 GB iPod. This was a Gen3 Pod, and I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

I decided right then to start saving my money...for an MP3 player. Note: I wasn't planning on getting an iPod. I was first thinking of getting a Creative Labs Nomad.

So, I started selling old comic books on e-bay. I sold all kinds of stuff on e-bay. The money started rolling in...but I wasn't convinced the Nomad was a quality player. To make a very long story short (I actually started to write it all, but figured you’d want to get right to the details), I:

• Started to seriously consider the iPod
• But then shied away because the battery life was poor
• Started to seriously consider the iRiver iHP-120
• Planned to get an iHP-120 by July
• Heard Apple would probably release something new this past summer
• Decided to wait…

And boy, did waiting ever pay off!

Apple announced it’s newest iPod in early August (I think) and it addressed my biggest concern, the battery life. Now advertised as 12 hours, I figured that was probably 6x longer (or more) than I usually get with my portable CD player. Would I ever need more than 12 hours of battery life? I didn’t think so.

Ironically, I had just bought a suit…and a pair of Cole Haan dress shoes. My “slush fund” was somewhat depleted. I guess the planets were aligned or something, because in the middle of August I got a promotion and a massive raise. I was determined to get my iPod. A week later, while driving from central Utah to Vegas for a company convention, I listened to the aforementioned coworker’s Pod for a few minutes. I was hooked.

That was a Thursday. By the following Monday, I had my new 20GB iPod.

The 4th Generation iPod
In case you don’t know, the 4th generation iPod dispenses with the four buttons under the screen. Controlling the Pod is accomplished with the Click Wheel, as featured on Mini iPods. I didn’t realize it before I got it, but the wheel does click! I thought the center button would click, but that the play, pause, menu, forward, and reverse “buttons” would be operated “tactilely,” that is, like the way one scrolls through the songs and adjusts the volume. Nope! You actually press down on the section of the wheel you want to operate.

Something new with the 4th gen (at least I was told it’s new) is that you can create “on the go” playlists, which is a handy feature. You simply find a song you want to add and hold down the center button for a couple seconds. Once the song blinks, it’s added. You can add complete albums in this manner. So, when the mood strikes me for some blues, I can easily create a playlist without connecting to my PC. One can also save “on the go” playlists for future listening.

Another new feature is that you can shuffle your songs right from the main menu. It’s handy, but I actually don’t use this feature, and I’ll explain why in the “What I Really Love” section below.

I guess I had this expectation or delusion that my Pod would make my music different. It’s the same music, obviously. But it did change they way I enjoy my music. It’s just so much more convenient. Before my Pod, I’d glance through my CD collection and decide which CD(s) I’d bring to work that day.

Now, I just put my Pod in my pocket (shirt pocket!) and I can hear exactly what I want, whenever I want. I can go from a Mozart piano concerto, to a Rush concert, to a Peter Gabriel favorite, to a Buddy Guy classic, to a U2 track without swapping discs or even touching a CD player. At this moment, I have 2,043 songs on my Pod, which works out to 8 days and 14 hours (just the Led Zeppelin comprises 3 days worth!). All of that music in such a tiny package, and I’ve still got 1.78 gigs free. My friend with the 3rd gen 10GB says my 20 is smaller than his!

What I Really Love

• Ease of use (including iTunes)
I can't imagine an MP3 player being any easier to use. A big part of that, obviously, is the Click Wheel. You can scroll through hundreds of songs in a blink. And the menu structure is highly intuitive.

You use iTunes to manage songs on the iPod and iTunes is also incredibly easy to use. Importing albums to your computer hard drive doesn't take too much time, and once you connect the iPod, you simply drag the songs you want to the iPod. At least, that's how I do it. You can also set your iPod to automatically synchronize with the iTunes library. The iPod is incredibly easy to use.

• Smart Playlists
I’ve used iTunes for more than a year now, but never made a Smart Playlist. With a Smart Playlist, you can hear exactly what you want. On my Pod, I’ve got some classical music and lots of live stuff. I don’t want to hear that stuff when I shuffle my songs, so I have a Smart Playlist that omits those categories. And creating a Smart Playlist is easy to do.

Here’s what’s really cool. With the original “no-classical” and “no-live” playlist in shuffle mode, I was hearing some songs too often. So I created a Smart Playlist for songs that I hadn’t heard yet. The Pod keeps track of how many times a song has been played, (and when it was played last, too). I simply made a “rule” in the Smart Playlist that only songs with "0" plays were to be included. After they played, when I’d connect my Pod to my PC, those songs would automatically be taken off the playlist, because I’d set the playlist to update automatically ! How cool is that? No repeats, and it took me forever to go through all those songs. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it was just exciting to see this kind of functionality in the device.

With Smart Playlists, you can add songs using a wide variety of criteria: date added to the Pod, year the music was released, bit rate, genre, personal rating, length of song, date last played, songs starting with a certain letter or ending with a certain letter (!), etc. The options are not quite endless, but the possibilities are.

Added Feb. 14, 2005: My iPod is getting smarter!
About a month ago, I noticed something amazing. My iPod would automatically update playlists without connecting to a PC! I had created a smart playlist that included all of my Robert Plant songs that I hadn't played since Nov. 15, or something like that.

After playing through most of the songs, the next time I came back to the playlist, there were only a few left. So now, instead of needing to connect to update playcounts and playlists, the iPod is doing it automatically! Another great feature.

Added Oct. 9, 2005: My iPod is getting dumber!
My iPod stopped updating automatically. I called Applecare support, and they told me my iPod should never have been able to update by itself without connecting to my PC. This is a bizarre occurence. I don't know why it started doing it (and believe me, I'm not making this up), and I don't know why it stopped doing it. If it ever does it again, I'll post again.

Added March 10, 2006: My iPod is getting smarter again!
Well, my iPod is updating automatically again. I called Applecare and the technician I got this time didn't think it was strange that my iPod would update automatically.

Let me specify what is going on. I have several smart playlists that have one criteria as playcount=0. So, obviously, after a song has been played, it is taken off the playlist. In "normal" mode, one would have to synch with a PC for the stuff to come off. In "bizarre" mode, the Pod automatically updates. I think I'll call Applecare again in a few days and see if they really do think it's weird.

• Battery Life and charging
I tested my battery to see how much life I could get out of it. I got 11 hours, which falls short of the advertised 12, but is still pretty darn good.

The Pod will automatically charge when it’s connected to the PC. As I understand it, 3rd gen Pods would not charge with USB, but mine sure does. You can also connect the iPod to a wall outlet using the supplied Firewire cable and outlet adapter. It charges reasonably fast.

Updated 01/12/06
I had tested my battery in the fall, and it wasn't pretty. About 8 1/2 hours. But, I just did it again, and it was almost 12 (like 11 hours, 50 minutes). This was with the unit out of my carrying case, with EQ and Soundcheck off, with a playlist of songs from 3 to 8 minutes, playing randomly. Probably a best-case scenario, but I think I can expect 10 hours. I'll have to do another test with more "real world" settings.

• Extras
I can play games, enter text notes, store “vcards” of my contacts, check items on a calendar, check the time and be alerted by an alarm, and easily use my Pod as a hard drive. I no longer drag along my old Zip drive if I need to transfer files to or from work.

• Cool little things
When you plug your headphones into the Pod, it turns on if it had been off. Or, if the Pod is playing and you unplug the headphones, the song will pause.

And beyond those points, an iPod is just plain cool. I'm not a Apple "freak," but they do make cool stuff.

Minor Concerns

• Scratches easily
When I read epinions on Pods and people said it scratched easily, I thought they meant the metallic “back” of the device. Unfortunately, the front scratches easily too. When I got my Pod, there weren’t “skins” for the 4th gen yet. I’m hoping a friend of mine who does countertops can gently buff out the scratches, and then I’ll get a skin to protect it.

• Earbuds
The bundled earbuds aren’t horrible, but they aren’t the best, either. When I got my Pod, I also bought the Sony MDR-EX71, which sound great.

• Gaps between songs
One thing that is somewhat annoying, but probably unavoidable, is that there is a slight gap between songs when there might not be one otherwise. For example, a lot of Pink Floyd's music segues from one song to the other. With the iPod, there is a brief (about a 10th of a second) gap. It's not the end of the world, but it does change the music to some degree.

• Equilizer settings
The Pod comes with several equilizer presets to choose from, but they aren't anything special. It seesm a little counterintuitive to me, but the acoustic setting seems to work pretty well for me, but it's not a big difference.

Added Feb. 14, 2005
I've come to see that it would be handy to have a shuffle switch on the top or side of the unit, something like the hold switch. Probably two or three times a day I start playing an album and want to switch from shuffle songs to not shuffling, or vice versa. I have to go back to the menu, which involves several button pushes. Yes, another small issue, but for convenience sake this switch would be nice.

Technically Speaking
My home PC is a 5-year-old Gateway. It has USB 1.0 port. So when I got my Pod, I also got a Firewire card. When I first connected my Pod, everything was going fine…for a minute. It turns out my PC couldn’t handle the Firewire card. But, I was able to transfer songs using my old USB 1.0, and it wasn’t as slow as you might think.

I have since installed the Firewire card on my work PC, and primarily transfer songs on that machine.

Final Thoughts
It took me a long time to work up the nerve to spend my money on a Pod. I’ll admit that I had some feelings of buyer’s remorse, but they quickly disappeared once I started using the device and falling in love with it’s convenience. Since getting my Pod, there has been only two or three days when I haven’t used it. I even wrote this review listening to it!

I can’t even imagine owning an iRiver these days (the iHP-120 is still $329 at Best Buy! Why would anyone get that when the 20GB Pod is $299?). Sure, there are some things the iPod doesn’t have. But what it does well—play great sounding music—it does very well.

If you are wondering about buying an iPod, stop wondering and get one. If you listen to as much music as I do, you’ll know it was a wise investment.