Thank for for making music piracy a lot more useful easier.

Thanks for all the fish.

Fanbois something something overpriced something something Archos something something Creative something something Zune something something iTunes sucks etc.

/amidoinitrite?

I confess I don't get the whole apple thing. but I love my nano. It could be the perfect product - very close. make me be able to put a bookmark in an audiobook and I'll call it that. Also, I don't understand the file structure. Why the hell does a podcast get it's own top level folder but audiobooks are a subfolder of 'music' which they obviously are not? Please change that.

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

rekoil: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Thank you Cmdr Taco.

ZAZ: . It was labeled with symbols at four points so it was obviously a standard up/down/left/right controller.

And were those symbols the standard up/down/left/right ones?

Happy Birthday Consumer Product!

I've been updating the iOS on my ipt for going on 15 hours now so I'm getting a kick...

/64GB=59.95GB
//@35GB music
/Words w/Friends is the best
.played 'ANAL' last night
_..giggity

I'm not a big apple fanboy however I'm not going to lie, the Ipod touch is a good product for what I need.

/Used to buy creative mp3 players

JohnBigBootay: I confess I don't get the whole apple thing. but I love my nano...

So you actually do get it...

FTFA: Since a lot of MP3 players at the time required a little technical skill or at least getting accustomed to an unfamiliar process, this made the iPod more appealing to people who weren't comfortable doing much beyond web browsing and word processing on their computers.

Drag n drop is a "technical skill" or "unfamiliar process"? Get bent Wired! You history retconning bastards! I didn't buy an iPod back then precisely because I love drag n drop and couldn't be halfassed with the POS "software" called iTunes.

bravian: Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

rocky_howard: bravian: Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

I never had to blow into an iPod to make it work.

Kar98: rocky_howard: bravian: Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

I never had to blow into an iPod to make it work.


Pawn takes the King: rocky_howard:

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

If you replace the 72 pin.

But you can. Which is better than just shrugging its death.

And it's not true, my NES still works and I didn't replace the 72 pins...


Ok, you want to go the smart ass way. Let's talk SuperNES. 20 years and still works like a charm.

ZAZ:

I almost gave up trying to figure out this "intuitive" device which I had never used before. It was labeled with symbols at four points so it was obviously a standard up/down/left/right controller. Perhaps I looked like baby-meets-paper-magazine.

Same here. "Intuitive" my ass. I had to read the instructions to get it to work, something I rarely have to do with anything.

rocky_howard: FTFA: Since a lot of MP3 players at the time required a little technical skill or at least getting accustomed to an unfamiliar process, this made the iPod more appealing to people who weren't comfortable doing much beyond web browsing and word processing on their computers.

Drag n drop is a "technical skill" or "unfamiliar process"? Get bent Wired! You history retconning bastards! I didn't buy an iPod back then precisely because I love drag n drop and couldn't be halfassed with the POS "software" called iTunes.

Same here. I love, and it's far simpler, to drag and drop. Especially if you are at a friends house and just want to load some stuff onto their PC or from theirs onto your MP3.

FTA: "It was only going to be the size of a deck of cards, which was good, and it could store about 1000 songs, which was a lot more than existing players."
Lying bastards. The first iPod was bulkier than any deck of cards I have ever used. And there were other pocket sized MP3 players already on the market with four times the capacity, 20Gb instead of 5Gb.

rocky_howard: Kar98: rocky_howard: bravian: Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

I never had to blow into an iPod to make it work.


Pawn takes the King: rocky_howard:

Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

If you replace the 72 pin.

But you can. Which is better than just shrugging its death.

And it's not true, my NES still works and I didn't replace the 72 pins...


Ok, you want to go the smart ass way. Let's talk SuperNES. 20 years and still works like a charm.

Of course those old systems never broke. They were just some integrated circuits on a mainboard with a power supply attached. There wasn't really anything to break, so long as you didn't have any capacitors go bad. It's kind of silly to compare those to something with a hard drive and a lithium ion battery, two things that are are going to degrade and break over time. Of course, it really isn't rocket surgery to crack open an old iPod and replace those parts and make it pretty much good as new.

ZAZ: ceejayoz

Left and right on the iPod ring of control have left and right arrows.

And exactly how many years prior had Walkmans and CD players used those exact same REW and FF symbols? It should have been pretty obvious to anyone who had used a portable music device before what those buttons did.

Mad_Radhu: ZAZ: ceejayoz

Left and right on the iPod ring of control have left and right arrows.

And exactly how many years prior had Walkmans and CD players used those exact same REW and FF symbols? It should have been pretty obvious to anyone who had used a portable music device before what those buttons did.

Those were obvious. But unless you knew that there was also a touch sensitive aspect that did stuff when you brushed them with your finger you were stuck with only FF and REW.
Same with the current Mac mouse that can scroll if you move your finger on it. Without any indication that this function exists how is that intuitive? Do you try rubbing your fingers on your phone case or fridge just in case it does something?

ZAZ: I almost gave up trying to figure out this "intuitive" device which I had never used before. It was labeled with symbols at four points so it was obviously a standard up/down/left/right controller. Perhaps I looked like baby-meets-paper-magazine.

If it makes you feel any better, I didn't intuitively understand the "click wheel" when I got my iPod mini in 2005ish either.

I slid my finger up, and the volume went up, so I thought okay, then slid my finger down and the volume went up, WAY up, WTF?

Well, yeah, since I was on the other side of the circle. But I actually had to glance at the manual to realize the "aha" moment.

JohnBigBootay: I confess I don't get the whole apple thing. but I love my nano. It could be the perfect product - very close. make me be able to put a bookmark in an audiobook and I'll call it that. Also, I don't understand the file structure. Why the hell does a podcast get it's own top level folder but audiobooks are a subfolder of 'music' which they obviously are not? Please change that.

I dearly love my nano too - an old first version one, can't do video, and it's the black long thin form.

It's the perfect size, really, easy to grab while it's in my pocket, with a hard plastic case that covers everything but the wheel it's trivially easy to manipulate the wheel by pure feel. I drag and drop things onto it (never sync it), so I always have the news, and the thing has been long lasting - I put it through a full hot cycle with soap in the washing machine (by accident!) and it was 100% fine after drying out for a day and recharging.

I have an iPhone now, but for listening to news/music I still use the nano - I don't want to have to look at my "walkman" in my pocket to manipulate the thing. Same reason I keep the old trashed out plastic case on it.

DemoKnite: So you actually do get it...

Well, if they made them like they did 3 or so generations ago... sure. You betcha. Cameras or video or touch screens on something that small? No. Don't get that.

I would like to thank all you early adapters. Thank you for paying lots of money for less functionality and lots of problems. If it weren't for you, we would never have one of the most perfect devices in the the world: the iPod Touch.

Of course, the original iPod had the fast-forward/rewind/pause/menu buttons as actual, separate buttons from the scroll wheel. Which actually made sense, so of course they got rid of it.

Flint Ironstag: Lying bastards. The first iPod was bulkier than any deck of cards I have ever used. And there were other pocket sized MP3 players already on the market with four times the capacity, 20Gb instead of 5Gb.

I'll give you bigger than a deck of cards, but the few HD based MP3 players on the market when iPod came out were significantly better, and while I could fit an original iPod in my front pants pocket, I couldn't fit an archos, of any size, in anything short of Cargo Pants.

Malacon: Flint Ironstag: Lying bastards. The first iPod was bulkier than any deck of cards I have ever used. And there were other pocket sized MP3 players already on the market with four times the capacity, 20Gb instead of 5Gb.

I'll give you bigger than a deck of cards, but the few HD based MP3 players on the market when iPod came out were significantly better, and while I could fit an original iPod in my front pants pocket, I couldn't fit an archos, of any size, in anything short of Cargo Pants.

It was smaller than the others, but that's not what Jobs, and this article, claimed. They said "1000 songs was a lot more than existing players" or "You can carry your entire collection for the first time" which is false.

Apple could claim "We've made it quite a bit smaller but it only carries a quarter of the music"

rekoil: No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

That quote was dead-on...the first iPod was lame as hell.

Only a delusional revisionist-history fanboy would ignore the improvements it took for the iPod to legitimately become the best MP3 player out there.

rocky_howard: Nintendos still work and they're 25 years old...

nintendos aren't battery-operated.

The scroll wheel is shiat. Worst control I've ever had to use. Including the puck mouse.

yeah, I still don't understand who thought the "scroll wheel" was a good idea. I mean, it's not as though it's really so horribly and terribly inconvenient that it completely breaks the device's usefulness, but....why a wheel? couldn't they have just made a friggin d-pad, you push up or down to scroll up or down. you push right to go forward a menu (from artist list to song list, etc.), and left to go back a menu. would that have been so hard?

Jamdug!: bravian: Jamdug!: My second-gen Ipod doesn't work if not plugged in and can't update anymore. What gives?

Perhaps because its 9 years old?

Consumer electronics shouldn't crap out after 9 years.

Alrighty then. Now the fact you're living in a fantasy world where things don't break aside, go and get two guitar plectrums (plektrums? *shrug*) and order yourself a replacement battery, if it'll take music then the drive should be good.

Open it up, disconect the battery pack (it's got two wires that go to a plug/socket) attach the new pack and seal the device again (i.e. push it back together).

It's a 3/10 on the 'being brave with screwdrivers' scale and much easier than swapping drives on some laptops I've encountered.

Moonvale: yeah, I still don't understand who thought the "scroll wheel" was a good idea. I mean, it's not as though it's really so horribly and terribly inconvenient that it completely breaks the device's usefulness, but....why a wheel? couldn't they have just made a friggin d-pad, you push up or down to scroll up or down. you push right to go forward a menu (from artist list to song list, etc.), and left to go back a menu. would that have been so hard?

A d-pad works fine if you have only a little bit of music, but a d-pad falls apart as a user interface when your music library gets into the thousands of tracks. With that much music, even the list of artists gets too huge to work really well with a d-pad, since you either have to press down a ridiculous number of times to navigate down a list or you have to press and hold to quickly zoom down the list and then have to press up a bunch more times when you inevitably overshoot. Having a scroll wheel allows you to "scrub" through the list at different speeds depending on how fast you move the wheel, just like a shuttle wheel on a video editing station. It's a really elegant solution to a rather hairy user interface problem.

Mad_Radhu:
A d-pad works fine if you have only a little bit of music, but a d-pad falls apart as a user interface when your music library gets into the thousands of tracks. With that much music, even the list of artists gets too huge to work really well with a d-pad, since you either have to press down a ridiculous number of times to navigate down a list or you have to press and hold to quickly zoom down the list and then have to press up a bunch more times when you inevitably overshoot. Having a scroll wheel allows you to "scrub" through the list at different speeds depending on how fast you move the wheel, just like a shuttle wheel on a video editing station. It's a really elegant solution to a rather hairy user interface problem.

It works well. Once you know it exists. But it is in no way intuitive that that function was there. You see four buttons, ordinary press to click, buttons. Who would have guessed they were also touch sensitive buttons you could scroll by circling with?
Like the scroll function on the current Mac mouse. There is no hint that there is such a control hidden in there.

Flint Ironstag: It works well. Once you know it exists. But it is in no way intuitive that that function was there. You see four buttons, ordinary press to click, buttons. Who would have guessed they were also touch sensitive buttons you could scroll by circling with?
Like the scroll function on the current Mac mouse. There is no hint that there is such a control hidden in there.

If it was really as unintuitive as you say, they wouldn't have sold hundreds of millions of the things. I've NEVER run into anyone outside of male models and crotchey old coots that couldn't pick up and iPod and figure out how it works after playing around with it for a minute.

ZAZ: Mad_Radhu

I still haven't figured out how to reliably do the fast scroll thing where it jumps a letter at a time. Maybe my pressure isn't constant enough.

Yeah, you have to spin it fairly fast while keeping your finger in contact with the wheel. That trick, I will admit, is not immediately obvious the way the basic UI is.

Mad_Radhu: Yeah, you have to spin it fairly fast while keeping your finger in contact with the wheel. That trick, I will admit, is not immediately obvious the way the basic UI is.

Hell, my first iPod was the first gen nano and it took me ages, MONTH to realize that there WAS a scroll wheel. Not a physical one, a ring shaped surface to be touched. Sure, I used the buttons on the ring to press, but somehow I was convinced the center of the ring was the touch-sensitive surface: