Adevout follower of Apple products, I was awaiting the arrival of the new Apple iPod at my door as many would wait for the arrival of a new car, a baby, or maybe even spring. But I was worried. What if it wasn’t any good?
Once I got my sweaty hands on it, my fears were allayed. The elegance of design and quality that Apple is known for was apparent. The translucent white front of the device is encased in clear plastic that is similar to the new iBook, while the back is a shiny silver metal. Both scratch easily and pick up fingerprints, which I quickly discovered seconds out of the box.
In a nutshell, the iPod is the lightest MP3 player to store up to 1,000 songs. It can also double as a portable 5G hard drive. You can mount it on the desktop as an external hard drive and even boot your system with it.
The 6.5 oz device also has a lithium-polymer battery that lasts 10 hours on one charge, though I got more out of it. What’s more, it has a high-resolution display which is about the size of four small postage stamps.
For convenience, the display features a white LCD backlight. It’s also worth mentioning that the iPod has a graphical user interface that is one of the easiest to use. Of course, that’s expected. Apple is an expert in this arena.
Underneath the screen is a thumb-powered scroll-wheel. Very quickly and easily, you can scroll through play lists, artists or songs. There are also settings for song shuffle, song repeat, volume, language and timers.
The iPod charges its battery every time it is hooked up to a Mac using its FireWire cable. Data transfers across the same cable at up to 400MB per second, so a CD’s worth of music can be transferred in five to 10 seconds. The device can play MP3 files, as well as music encoded in the AIFF or WAV formats.
The iPod is also upgradeable. In the future, an update from the Apple website will allow you to upgrade the device to play new music file formats. MediaFour is creating a product that will allow Windows PC users to use the iPod.
In a market that is saturated with digital audio players, is Apple too late with the iPod?
Ivan Reel, Apple Canada’s product manager, doesn’t think so. “If you do a comparison (with the) competition, you see a big difference in the quality level,” he said. “A lot of time and effort was put into developing the iPod, as opposed to whipping together an MP3 player just to get it on the market.”
By creating cool products that can only be used with a Mac, Apple hopes to direct people into buying more of its computers and raise awareness about the Apple brand.
As ingenious as the iPod is, it’s not perfect. The earbuds are too big and fell out of my ears easily. They are also a bit painful to wear.
It doesn’t come with a carrying case, and its $599 price tag might be daunting for some.
But one has to look at its quality versus other products. The iPod has more skip protection memory than most MP3 players have in playable memory.
However, the launch of the iPod has not been without problems. Last November, a bug was found in the Apple iTunes 2 music software, which was only available for download from Apple’s website.
Those using the Mac OS X operating system found that it wiped out data in machines using multiple hard drives or those that had hard drive partitions.
However, the buggy software was available for less than a day, so it impacted a limited number of users. A fixed version was also made available immediately.
The iPod will appeal to music-savvy Apple users as well as anyone who wants a portable hard drive. It’s so easy to use that even children will love it. Also, it definitely appeals to fashionistas, thanks to its sleek white and chrome look, and small size.
I love the fact that I can pack it into my small purse and take it with me.
And the real reason for its appeal? I love the attention I got when I pulled it out.
