That’s a come-on question, of course. The answer will depend on your needs. My initial complaint was that there are too many iPods. When I visited the Apple Store there were about 100 people there and iPods were walking out the door (with their purchasers).
Too many choices, Apple? Some would say so. I say the choices are nearly perfect. I’d like a bigger color screen, smaller iPod, longer battery life, wireless updates, etc. But the spread between iPod models ranges from $30 to only $100 and each model gets you more. Much more.
What’s my favorite? Besides the pink iPod mini?
I sprang for the iPod photo when it hit the streets. For the same money now, I could almost buy a 20gig and 60gig white case iPod.
I just haven’t seen anyone buy the iPod U2. Or, tell anyone they did.
What do you think? Too many iPods? What’d you get?
Just bought a pink iPod mini for my girl. It was the last one in the store. Saw a bunch of iPod shuffles being sold. Mostly to high school kids. College folks go for the mini. People with money buy the more expensive iPods. I haven’t seen anyone with a U2 iPod.
Not too many. Choice is good. And the staggered pricing is market driven. Your headache won’t go away until you have something plugged into your ears . . . so, consider your budget and enjoy!
The selection is about perfect, especially as the white ipods are all color screen (I should have waited a couple months). Looking at other cheap mp3 in stores makes me wonder how anyone would buy anything but an ipod. You have no clue whether or not it will work right, what music stores you can buy from, and whether or not it supports the seemingly constantly changing security formats. With ipods, you know they work, any song bought at itunes works, and digital security is not even a thought because once again ipods and itunes work. Last thought, I’ve never seen anyone with the U2 edition either. Why pay more for red and balck paint?
I have to say that nothing beats my shuffle for ease of use, although I intend to purchase a regular iPod at some point. The mini’s are just too “in between” for my tastes.
Apple’s selection is great, but I actually don’t have any of the current ones. I used to have a 20 GB 4G iPod, but I ended up not using it much so I sold it on Ebay. I didn’t have an iPod for awhile. One day I was playing with a friends 3G iPod and I found that I loved the touch sensitive buttons and the red glow of the 4 top buttons. I decided that I wanted an iPod back in my life and bought a 3G 15 GB iPod on Apple’s web site for 169.00 (reconditioned). I loved it ever since. Its an amazing device. I’ll definitive treasure my iPod.
I have to say that nothing beats my shuffle for ease of use, although I intend to purchase a regular iPod at some point. The mini’s are just too “in between” for my tastes.
My boss gave me and another worker an iPod photo as an end of year bonus. I looked at the mini and shuffle, but that’s going backwards. I can work all day and have music all day. Sweet.
It wouldn’t hurt Apple to trim the color choices in the mini line. Green and gold are fine if it’s money and metal, but on iPods, it was ugly and uninspiring. Nothing wrong with keeping the hot selling colors and phasing out the losers.
I bought the 1 GB shuffle and my wife has the silver mini. We take the shuffle everywhere. It’s size is perfect. A 1 and 2 GB offering would be even better. (And, hint to Apple… since you’ve loaded the shuffle already with several double-click and triple-click menu actions, next time add a double-click on the >> [next song] button to advance 10 songs. And even better, add a triple-click to advance 50 songs.)
Then, if they carved an Apple logo into the power switch, offering slightly more friction, it’d be perfect.
Lastly, I’ll bet colors are coming for the shuffle line, introducing even more choices.
Alright, I don’t have an iPod. *gasp* for all those who’ve read anything I’ve posted. I do have a Creative JukeBox Zen Xtra. My friends all have iPods. I have alot of friends who love Apple products. It’s pretty common in Athens, Georgia. The only ones who don’t have iPods (who can afford one) have looked at the competition and found something they considered better. My friend has a 6 gig iriver. It holds over 2 thousand songs on a six gig hard drive. Of course, it was 280 dollars. Thats a bit rediculous. My player holds 10, 000 4 minute songs that play at DVD quality. 4 times as much as his with a hard drive nearly 7 times bigger hard drive for the same price. Better compression I guess. But The Creative works as an external hard drive. Can your iPod do that? this forty gig hard drive was 280 dollars. my sister has a 30 gig. 200. dollars. I found one MAJOR problem with them. The freggin software is made by the devil himself. Once you figure it out, it’s pretty easy to use. But it has no manual or anything on HOW TO USE IT. and it’s like what is this supposed to do? so if you have the two hours it takes to figure the software, its good. The player itself, in my opinion, puts the iPod to shame. It was easy to learn to use, and comes with music pre-loaded so you have all the classics (like mozart) and it comes with tutorials ready to play. Tell you how to do anything on the player. So the only reason I would choose an iPod over mine would be the evil software on mine. BUT WAIT! The newest windows media player can load songs on to the player! The newest media player is super easy to use. hmmm, now it’s starting to look bad for Apple there. Problem is marketing. Most people know about creative. They are one of the biggest music affiliations ever. everything is considered top quality. Their warrantee is pretty nice too. especially if you buy the good one (I’m too cheap to buy the good one). If apple could drop its prices it’d do better. If anyone notices anything fishy in my post, Please correct it. If I said something wrong, it needs to be fixed. thanks for your time.
P.S. Does anyone know ANYONE who actually likes the ear buds? Everyone I know hates them, and throw theirs out. Of course, everyone here is against the US government too…
Alright, I don’t have an iPod. *gasp* for all those who’ve read anything I’ve posted. I do have a Creative JukeBox Zen Xtra. My friends all have iPods. I have alot of friends who love Apple products. It’s pretty common in Athens, Georgia. The only ones who don’t have iPods (who can afford one) have looked at the competition and found something they considered better. My friend has a 6 gig iriver. It holds over 2 thousand songs on a six gig hard drive. Of course, it was 280 dollars. Thats a bit rediculous. My player holds 10, 000 4 minute songs that play at DVD quality. 4 times as much as his with a hard drive nearly 7 times bigger hard drive for the same price. Better compression I guess. But The Creative works as an external hard drive. Can your iPod do that? this forty gig hard drive was 280 dollars. my sister has a 30 gig. 200. dollars. I found one MAJOR problem with them. The freggin software is made by the devil himself. Once you figure it out, it’s pretty easy to use. But it has no manual or anything on HOW TO USE IT. and it’s like what is this supposed to do? so if you have the two hours it takes to figure the software, its good. The player itself, in my opinion, puts the iPod to shame. It was easy to learn to use, and comes with music pre-loaded so you have all the classics (like mozart) and it comes with tutorials ready to play. Tell you how to do anything on the player. So the only reason I would choose an iPod over mine would be the evil software on mine. BUT WAIT! The newest windows media player can load songs on to the player! The newest media player is super easy to use. hmmm, now it’s starting to look bad for Apple there. Problem is marketing. Most people know about creative. They are one of the biggest music affiliations ever. everything is considered top quality. Their warrantee is pretty nice too. especially if you buy the good one (I’m too cheap to buy the good one). If apple could drop its prices it’d do better. If anyone notices anything fishy in my post, Please correct it. If I said something wrong, it needs to be fixed. thanks for your time.
P.S. Does anyone know ANYONE who actually likes the ear buds? Everyone I know hates them, and throw theirs out. Of course, everyone here is against the US government too…
Kyle, yes, iPods work as external hard drives. Always have. You’ve pointed out one of the “issues” that many iPod users/owners have already figured out—it all works well together. Mac/WindowsPC, iPod, iTunes, iTunes Music Store. No one else has that sweet combination. So, you might find a music player that’s a bit lower in cost, some have larger hard drives, some have more features—and most of those work with Windows and don’t work very well without all kinds of “manual” and learning issues. Apple’s prices on iPods are VERY competitive. If there’s a $50 difference on similar (not feature for feature) products, so far, most people (huge margin) are going for the iPod.
Why is that Kyle? If the Creative boxes are soooooooooo good but the software is made by the Devil, maybe you’ve identified one of the real reasons why more people buy iPods. Apple is reporting record sales, record revenue, record profits, great stock increase in the past few years, and what’s the #1 competitor doing? Stock is down, sales are slow, profits are near zilch, stock guidance is down, and there’s takeover talk from—da da! Microsoft.
I like the iPod experience because it just works very well and competitors usually don’t. Guess which music player is the most popular? Which PC music player is the most popular? Which online music store is the most popular? Because, unlike most Windows purchases, people honestly think they have a choice, and they’re choosing the best package.
Just purchased the iPod 30G Photo a week before they discontinued it and lowered the price on the 60G. . Never mind, I love it and with the 30G I have more than enough memory to use it for all sorts of things above and beyond photos and music. I can keep my To Do lists from StickyBrain, move files from my office computer to home and with all the add-ons that are being created for the pod…..I can hardly wait. One of the neatest things that I have seen so far is XtremeMac’s iLingo Translator. I love the idea of travelling to say, Italy, with a bunch of useful phrases stored on my pod which I can recall at the touch of a button.
Agreeing with Bambi that the next version (or the one after that) of the iPod will feature a bunch of new features which will make it more like a mini computer.
Agreeing with Bambi that the next version (or the one after that) of the iPod will feature a bunch of new features which will make it more like a mini computer.
PennyK, welcome! Yeah, I bought in on the original iPod photo and paid top dollar. Great little machine, though. Holds all my music AND all my photos with room to spare. In a year or so, I’ll need something bigger, better, faster. Frankly, I expect Apple to have an iPod that does video and goes wireless. “pPod” anyone? “Personal Pod.“
Alright, I don’t have an iPod. *gasp* for all those who’ve read anything I’ve posted. Does anyone know ANYONE who actually likes the ear buds? Everyone I know hates them, and throw theirs out. Of course, everyone here is against the US government too…
Eeegads, my head hurts. Not from the earbuds, either.
My wife uses the earbuds and loves ‘em. I use a pair of Sony headphones. There must be plenty of folks outside of Athens, GA who use the earbuds (as I hear it told, some folks from there have heads too small for the original iPod ear buds to fit into, but I don’t know for sure as I only spent a week there one night), as you see those bright white buds all over the place; offices, buses, schools, parks, the mall.
To stay on topic, I really prefer the design of the 3G as opposed to the 4G/mini clickwheel.
I have a Belkin TuneDok in the car, and it doesn’t exactly sit firmly in the cupholder. I can’t put much pressure on the iPod less, the iPod ends up all over the floor… thus, the clickwheel isn’t that great of a solution.
I also think the 3G looks a bit more elegant than the 4G… and, for those of us who run dual boot in to iPod Linux, we at least know the software will work easily on the 3G. I can now browse photos (Though monochrome in nature), and I can even dabble in a game of Chess, Tetris or Pong.
. Never mind, I love it and with the 30G I have more than enough memory to use it for all sorts of things above and beyond photos and music. I can keep my To Do lists from StickyBrain, move files from my office computer to home and with all the add-ons that are being created for the pod…..I can hardly wait. One of the neatest things that I have seen so far is XtremeMac’s iLingo Translator. I love the idea of travelling to say, Italy, with a bunch of useful phrases stored on my pod which I can recall at the touch of a button.
