Some questions about ipods
Hello, this is my second thread, in my previous thread I had questions about mac laptops in general. Now I have questions about the I pod's. I've been researching mp3's for the last month extensively. I've only had one mp3 player so far, the I River H10 5gb version which I enjoyed until it ceased to have the ability to transfer files a month later after purchasing it. I am now considering an i pod nano 1 gb, (I say it holds aprox 10 albums) which is enough but not too much (I think) to work with on a daily basis. There's that and the fact that the battaries on the i pod's die after a year and a half and are irreplacable. I curently have a pc. The only way I can see myself enjoying the ipod nano is if I am using anapod explorer with it because I detest the idea of having to use i tunes to deal with all that. I want drag & drop simplicity. (I have already tagged my entire mp3 collection so that is already taken care of.) The problem is, I'm thinking about getting a mac laptop either a mac book pro or the new i book's coming out "intelized". Is there software for the mac that is similar to anapod explorer? Anything drag & drop/simple? Or would I have to use like virtual pc/ boot camp with win xp or such? I dread the thought of having to do that though : /. Also, from what I've gathered is that i pod's are formated pc or mac. If I got a nano today, and used it with my pc, would it be possible to use it with my mac when I got it in the near future?
Comments
Originally posted by adamlogan
Maybe I'll give i tunes a try on my pc before closing my mind to it.
Good idea.
I have a 3 year old 15 GB 3G iPod. Original battery still going strong. Don't believe everything you hear.
You're worried about not having drag and drop simplicity on a Mac?
I think I'm correct in saying you can reformat the iPod for the Mac version of iTunes or keep it formatted for PC if you want to use Windows iTunes and Boot Camp. Maintaining your current hierarchy is not a problem. iTune's Library hierarchy is Genre>Artist>Album but you can sort within that hierarchy according to any criteria you like. Eg. Selecting "Bob Dylan" in the artist column will display all and only songs and albums by Bob Dylan. You can then sort those results any way you please. Click on the album column and all tracks will be sorted by album in alphabetical order. Click kind, they're sorted by file type. Click name, they're sorted by the song title in alphabetical order etc.
The default file format in iTunes is m4a (aka AAC nothing to do with atrac). But iPods will play mp3s and you can choose to import music as mp3 if you like (or aiff, apple lossless, wav). In addition, you can vary the bit rate/sample size and sample rate. So I normally import music as AAC 160 kbps but if I'm using a track in a video I can import it as a 16 bit 48 kHz aiff. I have music encoded in all five file types in both iTunes and on the iPod.
Main restrictions are no WMA and music purchased through iTMS will, in theory, only play on the iPod. But this is easily circumvented. Don't be fooled by the rhetoric. Apple knows DRM doesn't work. Anyway, d/l iTunes and see. I have a feeling you may be in for a few (pleasant) surprises.
With iTunes, ALL of your interaction with your music is done within the application. You do not deal with the files directly like so many other systems would use. A word of warning: If you do start monkeying around with folder names, file locations, etc., iTunes will cough at you that it can't find stuff.
Use iTunes to do everything. Once you wrap your mind around how it works, it works very well.