Apples iPod Mp3 player

[joelongwood]

Quote:

......maybe us PC users won't have to get a mac to use this player if another company comes out with one that's just as good.

If the computer industry is any indication, I wouldn't hold my breath, Neruda.

 

[coolvij]

joelongwood: wow.....getting feisty, eh?

Let's all be happy - let the differences between our PCs and Macs NOT be barriers to us................................................ .................................................. ..................................cuz we all kno PCs are better.

!

 

[joelongwood]

Quote:

joelongwood: wow.....getting feisty, eh?

LOL! Well, coolvij, at my age, I'm allowed to get a bit feisty at times.

 

[coolvij]

hee hee ha ha haaaaaaaaaa..............

Well, I wouldn't call myself NOT feisty.........actually, I've lost more than one friend for being too "honest" (feisty?)........ but I like it that way.

 

[Xevion]

MACDef - The reason why the G4 felt so slow to me was almost definantly because I rarely use PCs with less then 256MB of ram. My mother's PIII 800 feels much slower then a backupish Celeron 400 I have because the PIII has only 128MB of ram, and I do heavy multitasking, which OS9 wasn't particularly good at particularly with so much RAM, and the OSX beta simply performed horribly.

In my experience I tend to like responsiveness over visual appeal, and I am used to Windows more then MacOS, so it works better for me (Although I was brought up on literally everything. Started with a Commodore, and then a PC, and then some Macs, and then more PCs, and then some Macs, and finally lots of PCs and recently Macs from a recent job I had). I have used Linux and find it useless for my needs. PCs are cooler, nah nah nah! (Sorry, I just had to say that)

You are right, lets not make this a Mac vs PC debate, I was more looking at what I thought was 64MB of ram and remembering an absolutely horribly slow crashy laptop (Untill I downgraded to OS8.6) with 64MB, I didn't see the extra zero, and in general any PC with under 256MB of ram has an absolutely poor user experience if they are a heavy multitasker. If you want to see a desktop screenshot I would be glad to pull one up

.

 

[Odin]

Well......why isn't there a sound review of it yet...I've been waiting since I saw the player. Once somebody here proves me that it's the best sounding player, I'll get it in Chrismas!

 

[chadbang]

I installed iTunes 2 on my computer and it seems to deliver everything Apple promised with a bit more.

The program looks identical, but with a pop-up window for the equaliser. There is supposedly an iPod icon that appears when iPod is attached to transfer files, but I can't check that out because, well, no iPod yet... The eq, again, seems taken from SoundJam, as a few of the pre-sets share the same name. One really neat thing is the crossfade between songs. Works great and just adds a nice touch when your listening. It pulls off the neat trick of even crossfading songs on a cd stacked with mps. (I couldn't get it to crossfade a regular, non-mp3 cd). Another addition is an "audio enchancer". Whether it is new, or borrowed from Aborehum's "Realizer" that came with SoundJam, I can't tell. However, I notice a SoundSpace2Lib extension added to the system folder. "Soundspace" anyone know what that is? It just does a bit of spacialization and perhaps adds a bit of eq. I didn't do a crucial listen, but its the sort of thing that adds a bit of punch when you're listening through computer speakers - fair enough. It's adjustable "High"-"low" as to the amount of enhancement you want. Likewise, the crossfade is adjustable to up to 12 seconds of crossfade (really like that touch). I forget what compatablilty the program had before, but these support plugins were installed by the installer: Nakamichi SS2 Plugin, Nomad II Plugin, Nomad Jukebox Plugin, psa[play Plugin, :Rio500, Rio600, Rio800 Plugin, and, of course, the ipod plugin. So far as the iTunes makeover, it's functional and not cosmetic, adding a nice little host of features to the program.

Apple keeps it simple again!

 

[lextek]

How did you get iTunes2? I thought it was coming out until Nov.
Has anybody listened to music on iPod? I wonder if the EQ setting would be transfered to the iPod? I think they can be saved for each song in iTunes2.

 

[chadbang]

The underground, Lextex

 

[chadbang]

I went back to "Mother" and I see it's an Apple engineered enhancer. Sounds goods through my computer desktop sys.

 

[lextek]

I just installed iTunes2. Great update. If you like iTunes, you'll love 2. I really like the crossfade feature. thanks underground.

 

[MacDEF]

For those of you who have iTunes 2 already, check out the "Help" menu...

Hmm... "iPod Help"

It provides a boatload of info on the iPod. Browse through there for some good info.

 

[AdamP88]

Could those of you who have iTunes 2 post a link to where you got it? (I want it - I want it now!

)

Also, does the sound engine for iTunes 2 sound better than the current iTunes (disregarding the eq for now)? I've been using Audion lately because the audio engine is much, much better than iTunes. It brings out so much more detail in the music, that it seems like iTunes just smooths everything over. If I remember correctly, the sound engine to Soundjam was pretty detailed too - I'm hoping Apple has improved theirs or just used the Soundjam engine, since many Soundjam people went to work on iTunes.

 

[chadbang]

Adamp88, I just be cool and wait a couple more daysfor the actual release. This "beta" still has some bugs - in fact, in the help menu, McDef . They'll need to do an improved tag importing script (right now it takes a long time for itunes2 to import the tags on mp3). Also the burn software is incomplete. So anyway, Adam, ff you load the beta, you'll just have to worry about de-installing it later. I bet the real thing comes out this week. I was so busy yesterday I did get a chance to do a sound comparision. Hopefully tonight I strap on the headphones and give it a serious listen. I still have itunes (1) and soundjam on my mac, so I'll be able to listen to all three for a comparison.

 

[chadbang]

Well, can't give you a comparision of iTunes 2 and SoundJam at the minute because trying to open iTunes while SoundJam was open crashed iTunes 2. Need to restart. In the meantime, here an kind of flippant, "hi-fi" review I found of the iPod on the web. Fun.

Oh, I can tell you that Apple's "Sound Enhancer" shreds Cannonball Adderley's sax on "Kind of Blue" fairly horrifically. Like I thought, computer satellite speaks: Yes. Goodhead Phones: Why would you bother.

Now for the fun.

From The Register (UK):

"Having held the small, cigarette pack-sized gadget in our hands, we're still not sure about how successful Apple's strategy will be and we certainly haven't been persuaded that it's something insanely great, to borrow Apple CEO Steve Jobs' favourite phrase. But we have to admit that it is a dashed fine machine, and even if the price tag is high, it's arguably best portable MP3 player on the market today.

Behind the dial
First, a quick recap of the specifications is in order. iPod contains a 5GB hard drive, which is less capacious than that offered by rival products, from Archos and Creative Labs, but enough, says Apple, for around 1000 four-minute songs compressed at MP3's 160Kbps rate, though we use 192Kbps. At a rough guess, that would give use room for around 800 songs, which is still plenty.
The drive as a 1.8in unit, believed to have been made by Toshiba or Fujitsu, though Apple wouldn't comment on the source.

The iPod contains 32MB of playback buffer memory, which allows it to load up 20 minutes of music ahead of playback to ensure there's no skipping. And, yes, we did give it a good old shake to make sure. We can't say we've taken it jogging, but playback was very smooth and jitter-free.

It sounds good too. iPod has a built-in amplifier which gives a nice, warm sound that's neither excessively bass nor overly-treble as per many players without a bass-boost circuit. We haven't conducted extensive listening trials - we're an IT site, after all, not a hi-fi rag - but to these ears it sounded better than the Rio we've used in the past and, according to other journos present, much better than the Archos.

We didn't try the "earbud-style headphones with 18mm drivers using Neodymium transducer magnets", but one of our colleagues in the hi-fi press told us we should be fairly impressed. "

droll, very droll. Have to love the British.