Zack Rippy

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, you have probably at least heard of, if not used, an iPod at one time or another. However, if you have been enjoying the soothing shade of the underside of a rock, an iPod is Apple’s incredibly popular portable music player. In fact, it is estimated that more than 77% of all portable music players being sold are iPods.

In the beginning, I just did not get it. I thought the iPod was all hype. There must be equal or better alternatives out there. I quickly dismissed the iPod as nothing more than the current “it” gadget. I also did not care for the iTunes software. It just seemed clunky and unwieldy. I wrote off the iPod altogether paid little to no attention to it.

That all changed last fall. We were visiting with family for Thanksgiving and my brother brought along his 4th generation, 20GB iPod. Once I actually used it, I was hooked. I could not put it down and I had to get one. So, after racking up a stack of Best Buy gift cards as Christmas and birthday gifts, I visited my local Best Buy and took possession of a sleek, 5th generation, 60GB white iPod. This is the first version to offer video support via its 2.5 inch color screen.

My iPod is literally the best personal electronics product I have ever purchased. It absolutely revolutionized the way I listen to music. I have been a music fanatic for as long as I can remember. From popular songs of today to Christian praise and worship music to the Beatles and movie scores - I love it all. Long before got my iPod, I got into the habit of ripping all my CD’s as 256kbps MP3 files. And no, I am not interested in debating lossy/lossless compression or the various codecs…but I use the LAME encoder if you care. I am also insanely obsessive in keeping my digital music organized, both when it comes to the actual files themselves and the mp3 tags. This made getting my iPod loaded up a breeze.

Once I took it home, I downloaded and installed the latest iTunes software, pointed it to my root music drive and let it import. With hundreds of gigabytes of music, this took a while. Once it was finished, I went into iTunes, sorted by album and selected which albums and miscellaneous tracks I wanted copied over to the iPod. Once that was completed, I plugged the iPod into my laptop answered a few simple questions and immediately, my music was being copied from my local file server to the iPod. The USB 2.0 transfer speed was excellent and in no time, my iPod was loaded up and ready to go.

I was taken immediately with how wrong I was about the iTunes software. I had anticpated using it only to sync up my iPod, but never for any actual real playback or daily use. Well, the software had matured by leaps and bounds since I had last seen it. iTunes is an incredibly versatile application. The playlist features are incredible. You can create manual playlists of favorite songs, or smart playlists, which are built based on variables you specify. For example, a smart playlist could be comprised of all music where the Year contains 199 and has a 4 or 5 star rating. That would allow you to have a dynamic playlist of high rated songs from the 1990’s. Another great feature is the Party Shuffle option. Party shuffle randomly plays songs from your entire music library or from a specific playlist. It also allows you to remove or modify songs on the fly, so you only get the songs you want.

The playlist feature is probably what I use the most. I have several playlists I use all the time. I play in the band at our church. On my iPod, I have around 130 songs that we have played in church at various times. They are littered throughout numerous albums or are just individual tracks. So, I created a “Church” playlist and added all those songs to it. Now, at the touch of a button, I have access to almost any song I might have to play on a given Sunday. No more hunting around for a CD or trying to remember who did a particular song. I have a Beatles playlist holding all my personal favorite songs from my all-time favorite band. Nice.

I have many more playlist compilations that encompass various genres and albums that can be played depending on what I am in the mood to hear.

The iTunes Music Store is available if I want to buy music online. I rarely do that though. If I want to buy an album, I would prefer to actually buy the CD and rip it myself. While I understand the desire of the music industry to protect its content, the encryption on media files purchased through iTunes really irritates me. Besides, if I rip it myself, I get it in the quality I want using the encoder of my choice. If I did buy music through iTunes, I would definitely take advantage of software to allow me to remove encryption from the music I had purchased.

Podcasts are also another excellent reason to own an iPod, though you can listen to them on any portable audio device or your PC. A podcast is best described as a downloadable radio broadcast. People put podcasts out there on every topic: from sermons to movies to technology - the choices are literally endless. From within iTunes, you just search the iTunes Music Store for the topic of your choice. There are three podcasts that I listen to regularly: Cinecast (soon to be Filmspotting), This Week in Tech and SecurityNow.

The iPod hardware itself is just unmatched. It is simple and elegant, like most modern Apple hardware. The single handed interface is excellent. I can easily browse through albums, artists, genres or tracks, using just my thumb. The sound quality is also superb for such a small portable device. I can assign a star rating to a song as I listen to it for later inclusion in one of my ratings-based playlists. The screen is bright and crisp for easy viewing. Though I do not use it much for video, I have ripped a few television shows and movies and they look fantastic.

I literally take my iPod everywhere I go. If Rush is not on the radio, the odds are high that I am listening to my iPod. In the car? An adapter allows my iPod to play nicely through the car stereo. Doing some work on the computer? Listening to music on the iPod. Working around the house? Plug the iPod into my Onkyo receiver and work to my favorite songs blasting through the house.

I was not kidding when I said that my iPod was the best personal electronic device I have ever purchased. Thanks to this amazing piece of technology, I now have all my church music, the entire Beatles catalogue, my favorite movie scores, miscellaneous other albums and tracks and an assortment of podcasts at my fingertips wherever I go.

I went from dismissing it as hype to never leaving home without it. I was wrong.

To Apple: Thank You.

iPod Homepage - iLounge - SmartPlaylists - PodcastAlley

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22nd, 2006 at 1:33 pm and is filed under Commentary, Media, Reviews, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.