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50 Fun Things to Do With Your iPod
Ant writes "Jason Kottke's Web site has compiled a list of 50 fun things to do with your iPod besides listening to music with those white earbuds: From the article 'In the four years since its introduction, the iPod has proven to be a versatile little device. Despite a relatively closed architecture, hackers have found their way in. Content creators and software makers put information at your fingertips when you're on the go. Would-be designers have added to the fashionable stylings of the now-ubiquitous white ear buds. Hardware makers and enthusiasts have augmented the iPod with new add-on gadgets. Here are a few dozen things you can do with your iPod besides listen to music.'"
List 45-50 are slashdotted, so here they are:
45. Blend in with a device everyone has
46. Untangled from useless features in cheap chinese knockoff
47. Free of battery failure with compulsory annual replacement
48. Go deaf
49. Buy back from eBay the iPod you gave someone for XMas, with original receipt and no shipping cost
50. Invitation to the iPod nano class action lawsuit
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Listen to music! Gosh its a music player for Gods sake, not second coming of a slice bread..
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."--Howard Zinn
Alright the #35 one should not count. That sounds like something fun to do with an altoid box, not an iPod.
iBuzz: a music-activated, iPod-powered vibrator
http://www.lovehoney.co.uk/product.cfm?id=5294
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
I love my ipod, and listening to music on it is great, but it has definitely made me an audiobook junky - it somehow feels like I'm pulling one over on The Man at work when I'm listening to a book that is actually interesting and possibly sucking my atention away from the job at hand.
I realize that this isn't really specific to ipods, but getting one for some reason made me willing to check them out - kind of thought they seemd like a corny idea before.
installing linux on it and playing doom was definitely fun, but the audio on the nano in linux is still [retty glitchy, so it's just kind of novel to have.
what i'm really looking forward to, or hoping for at least, is the rumored video support for nano in a possible forthcoming firmware upgrade. the nano is just small enough to sneak by veging out on videos all day at work - the laptop is a bit sore-thumbish. hooray!
Buying one for your wife... meaning you have to upgrade your home machine to play iTunes... honest dear it just won't run on this single CPU one...
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
One thing you won't be able to do, at least with Apple's factory setup of the iPod, is listen to radio (unless one day they charge for satellite radio). This could be so easily added as it is seen on competitors' devices but if users aren't listening to downloaded music, rather something from a source they do not control, then they are not buying things on iTunes. Am I correct to guess that this is a marketing thing and not because they can't fit a little radio on there? If so, that should be a big criticism of the device.
Seriously, god knows how many reviews/blogs/posts/whatever complaining about whatever mp3 player not having radio. Why would I want to listen to what someone else picks and ads and stupid people when I can listen to what I want, when and where I want to listen to it!
Really, it's not to hard to come up with a few good reasons. -- Paul
OpenSource.MathCancer.org: open source comp bio
I was at the gym this morning in what apparently was Sports Bra Sunday since a lot of women were wearing them without a shirt. One woman had an regular iPod sitting in the front middle of the sports bra while running on the treadmill. I'm not sure if that's the most practical place to put it or she was too cheap to get an arm-band or waist iPod holder.
...is a very interesting offbeat iPod product.
Stokes' Field Guide to Bird Songs, which I've owned for a number of years, is a three-CD set of recordings of about 300 bird songs. iBirdPod "software" is nothing more than a very elaborate script--I think it's just AppleScript but I'm not sure--that loads these CDs into iTunes (and thence to your iPod), but makes extremely clever (ab)use of the title, artist, and album fields, the playlists, and the feature that allows the user to define starting and ending times for each track.
For example, the track named "Towhee, Eastern" is by "artist" "drink your teeeee, towhee," from "album" "Pipilo erythrophthalmus."
It's contained in playlists "birdPod-All-alpha" (which includes every bird alphabetically by common name), "birdPod-All-phylo" (which includes every bird alphabetically by scientific name), "birdPod-Forest" (which includes only forest birds), "birdPod-Shrub-Brush," "birdPod-Sparrows" and "birdPod-Urban."
Every track is "cued up" to start at the very beginning of the most common song... particularly useful since the Stokes CD's sometimes double up two or three songs in one track.
So, if you're in a forest setting you can call up the "birdPod-Forest" playlist and you hear a bird calling something like "Drink your tea," scroll through the "artists" until you get to "drink your tea," and play the song to confirm it. Or if you read about Pipilo erythrophthalmus you can scroll through birdPod-All-phylo, read off that it's the towhee, play the song, and make a mental note that the mnemonic for remembering the song is "Drink your teeeeee."
When I learned about it, my first reaction was what? they're charging money for that? I could do all that myself. Then I remembered why I didn't have my Stokes CD's on my iPod already... and I made a quick mental estimate of just how long it would take me to organize the songs... and decided it was money well spent.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Despite the fact that you were modded a troll, I don't think you really meant to be labeled as such -- you're just providing an honest opinion on this device. The iPod (all of them) is not a remarkable piece of hardware in any way. There are superior players out there (hardware-wise). Similarly, iTunes is not the absolute easiest thing out there to use (despite the fact that by default, iTunes will automatically load the songs onto the iPod without any problems ... I suspect that you are using the Windows version, which you only just installed), but I would say it is up there. Still, the combination of those two things (plus the large, nearly *worldwide* iTunes catalog and minimal DRM) has granted it top-dog status.
The cities that you list as being supposedly "cool" cities are also heavily populated. I know that New York advises everyone who owns an iPod to get a different (preferably black) pair of earbuds to avoid mugging, which seems to be rather consistent from my view of people in New York. Tokyo and London probably have similar advisories. Just because you can't casually see it doesn't mean that they don't have it. Or better yet, maybe you're not seeing them at the right time. I have noticed that the U.S. west coast has much more of the devices than the east coast (or at least the users don't change out the white earbuds).
The comment about the metal back to the iPod is completely correct: they are designed to scratch, making them unique. It's a design statement by one of the world's most acclaimed industrial designers.
The comment about Jobs not inventing the device is quite true, but this philosophy can be extended indefinitely. At some point, you have to draw the line as saying that this person is responsible (not unlike a person in your position) for creating the iPod. He played a heavy hand in making it easy to use, as well as providing the necessary engineering and financial support to bring it up off the ground. I don't know of a single person who actually invented the PC, the GUI, or the iPod from scratch.
The comment about visiting fancy displays seems ill-mannered: why wouldn't you want to show off your product in the best way possible? So much about products (and people, places) come from the first impression. Those stores have some of the highest revenue densities in the world, and yet, they are designed to be spacious and unintrusive. I happen to find good design (not just technical design, despite my engineering background) rare and therefore, valuable. If anything, the feeling of being a complete tool comes from the fact that you bought what you felt was an inferior product because someone else asked you to do it.
My recipe goes like this:
- Clone DVD to get the VOB files to my hard disk.
- MergeVOB to get them into one huge file.
- Videora iPod converter to do the MP4 converting.
On my rather dated machine the process takes about an hour 40, but the movies are only 700mb and that doesn't make much dent in my 60GBOkay, now here's the kicker. I bought the movies legally on DVD and still have the case and all, why is this illegal? That's just stupid I don't care who you are. I should be able to put the disc in and iTunes should rip it for me, just like a CD.
This is not an illusion, a rip-off, or a ninja technique!
Being half deaf on the left, I wish someone would figure out a "hack" for balance control. Pretty sad such an obvious control would have to be a hack though...
"I can be self-referential if I want to," said Tom, swiftly.
I am so tired of hearing iPod this, iPod that -- these devices are not the first, nor the best, the portable MP3 players. I am also surprised that so many people here in slashdot, who tend to be quite reactionary about privacy and public disclosure rights, seem to blithely surrender to iTunes, that software which rules your music collection -- one which is in some ways spyware (reporting back to apple what you listen to) and is subject to the whims of Apple and its cohorts. At what point will MP3s become unsupported unless digitally signed by some Authorized Party such as Apple or the RIAA? I live my Creative MUVO much better - just drag and drop your music, no sweat, no software, no Big Brother. And, unlike the iPod shuffle which I was misguided enough to get my girlfriend for Christmas, it doesn't require software (iTunes) which caused the CD drive of her computer to no longer be recognized by the OS. I returned it to the store, and am going to buy her a MUVO.
Some things that aren't inluded in that list:
- Convert large text files and into notes for use on iPod
- Rip DVD Movies To Your iPod Using Free Software
- Use your iPod Photo or Nano as a Yahoo! Maps directions viewer
- How-To: Get TV shows off of your TiVo and onto your iPod
And that's just from clicking through del.icio.us search results for iPod a few times.I have a theory.
Apple's iPod is a not a music player. It is a detachment device. When the world gets to be too much, you whip out your little white world and detach into your own universe. Because of this, everything on the iPod, from the pure white face to the uncluttered interface, is straightforward, clean, and unnoisy. I've owned a lot of MP3 players over the years, and the iPod is the only one I would describe as "calming." The rest of them are cluttered with features and buttons, aesthetically noisy, and generally not what you want to turn to when you want to de-stress.
That's not to say the iPod is perfect... all of the ones that I've used have had problems ranging from easy scratching to not being able to forward between songs while using the scroll wheel to adjust a song's position. It also takes far too long to figure out how to turn off the blasted thing, a problem common with a surprising number of MP3 players. But it is the least crappy of all of the current crop.
As for the cost, there are more cost-effective player out there. But your goal is de-stressing, not maximum hdd per dollar. If something costs 20% less but makes you want to throw it across the room every time you use it, it isn't a savings towards your goal. If you can get a bigger hard drive in a bigger player that is so big you can't fit it in your pocket and therefore never take it with you... what have you gotten for your money?
I know lots of New Yorkers with iPods. They all have alternative headphones. The white cords are ubiquitous on Boston subways, however, as well as on Bart/Muni in San Fransisco.
And in Job's defense, he didn't create the iPod, but he has driven a heck of a lot of technology projects through to maturation. He drove the first really end-user-centric computer, his drive brought computers from geeky grey boxes to cool centerpieces of the living room, and he made online music sales a legitimate industry. No he didn't make these things himself, but without him these things wouldn't have been made (or would have taken a lot longer to get where they were). Remember: before the MAC, mice were rare and exotic.
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