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iPods Around the World
Joey Patterson writes "Did you ever notice how well the Apple iPod always fits in with the local scenery, no matter where you take it? Well, ipodlounge.com has a photo gallery featuring 800+ photos of people and their iPods in various places around the world. Some of these pics are very cool (like this one, taken by the Kuwait water towers), while others are downright odd (such as this pic from Sierra Leone, Africa)." I just want a picture of an iPod on my desk. I have a camera ...
And can ipod even double up as a portable HD.
Yes, you can use your iPod as a (very) portable Firewire HD.
Don't forget to think different.
IMO yes it is worth every penny. i had a hango PJB100 which was also 20 gig.
first off, the music management app was crap! iTunes is VERY straight forward.
second, USB when talking about collections of this size is a nightmare. the pain of waiting literally hours for progress bars was just too much! firewire makes the process so fast, you hardly notice.
thirdly, the ipod uses a 1.8 inch HD and as such, is about the same size as a pack of ciggys and is light enough for its presence to not be felt in a pocket. any other portable MP3 player that has anywhere near a decent amount of storage space uses 2.5 inch disks and are bricks in your pocket!
fourthly, the ipod acts as a 20gig portable firewire HD
lastly, contacts and calendars are synched to it as well
each to their own though i guess....
Several reasons.
1) Yes. Firewire is worth it. Fililng 20 GB at 1.5 (theoretical) MB/sec will take a bit longer than at 50 MB/sec (theoretical). We're talking minutes instead of hours here.
[Apparently the newest Jukebox support USB 2.0. I stand corrected.]
2) Dimensions. The Archos Jukebox looks and feels like a brick. An iPod will fit in your pocket, an Archos will not.
Archos [archos.com]
Dimensions: 115x83x34 mm. (4.5"x3.2"x1.3")
Weight: 350 g (12.3 oz.)
iPod [apple.com]
Size and weight (20GB model)
Height: 4.0 in
Width: 2.4 in
Depth: 0.84 in
Weight: 7.2 oz (204 g)
In every category, the iPod is at least half an inch smaller. Not to mention an archos has those huge rubber feet things. By weight, an iPod is 66% of an Archos. 66%!
3) Batteries. An archos runs off 4 AAs, an iPod has an internal rechargeable battery, which charges fully in 3 hours.
4) Interface.
Having used my roommate's Archos (before it broke for no apparent reason) -- the user interface is abysmal. The screen is small, poorly lit, and it's difficult to tell what you're doing, what song you're playing, etc. The buttons are small and poorly designed.
None of these are problems with the iPod.
The iPod has large, easy to use buttons. The scroll wheel is a marvel, letting you get from one song to another in seconds. The screen is huge and well backlit. (160-by-128 pixels for the iPod, "Up to 8 lines" for the Jukebox).
4) Internal memory. The iPod has a 32MB internal buffer, the Jukebox 2. More memory means less hard-drive reads, and more continuous music.
Seriously, they don't even compare. You definitely get what you pay for.
I agree with what many people said here. However, I think there is more to it. I had a Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 and enjoyed it, but it had several fatal flaws the iPod doesn't: Size. The size of the Creative unit was like a like a CD Player on steriods. I have an MP3 CD player that was much smaller. Navigation (interface). The interface makes or breaks the device. On the Jukebox (archos or creative), the user interface is sometimes counter intuitive. If you want to find just a group or album, there's a lot of work. On my iPod, I can get to any album or artist quickly. Screen updates are fast, whereas the NJB3 (the one I used most prior to the iPod) was a dog as I waited forever for the menu options and kludgy layout. For me, I have a large MP3 collection mainly from my CDs, navigation of the screen makes or breaks the device. I liked my NJB3 (two replaceable batteries) and I used it often (especially in the TankBag on my motorcycle), but the iPod is all that and more. The Archos jukebox can be used as a harddrive, whereas the Nomad JB3 couldn't. However, neither of them compare to the iPod for simplicity, easy of use, and size. It's that simple.
Check my iPod feature comparision site for details...needs a bit of updating, but you can use the comprehensive chart to compare with other HD based players.
It is smaller than most...doubles as a portable HD...works beautifully and of course, FireWire makes a difference. Do you have 15 hours to move 10's of gb's of music files via USB? There are no cons to owning one, and I'm sorry if the price hurts your wallet...it doesn't bother mine.
It can be more than a portable HD: you can even startup your computer (Mac) from the iPod, either in OS 9 or OS X.
I fix Mac for clients; it's fun to walk in the door using the iPod as an MP3-player, then attach FireWire and boot & fix their system from the iPod. And make an emergency backup to the iPod if necessary.
And iPods cans also double, euh triple as (readonly) PDA's
"These are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others." --Groucho Marx
http://www.t20.org/kuwait/ :)
thats the link to all the pics we took that night in kuwait. we started off at the science center and finished the night off at the kuwait towers. we tried to see if we could catch any wifi signals from the top of the tower but couldnt find anything strong enough... incase of war in kuwait... expect to see more pics up
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12" ibook, G3 700, 640MB RAM, 20GB HD
We've been Slashdotted!
I want to thank SlashDot for mentioning iPodlounge and the iPods Around the World photo Gallery.
Dennis Lloyd
iPodlounge.com