You hear so many good and bad things about Apple's iPod nowadays that its hard to decide on when to get one let alone whether to get one at all. The biggest problem I've found with the iPod is the obvious planned obsolescence that was considered in design and implementation of the device. But before I go into that, here is the biggest problem with the iPod.
It seems we now have to worry that the battery-imbedded, steel backed music playing device can be considered a deadly weapon. I have to say that maybe this guy deserved it. I mean, my friend literally spent hundreds and hundreds of hours downloading, ripping, and importing songs so he could fill his 40GB iPod with all the music that he likes. This is now the most important thing in his life. It is permanently attached to him just in case something happens. It cannot be left anywhere. In fact, I was specifically told not to leave it in the car because if the car is stolen, at least there is insurance on the car. If the iPod gets stolen, he's royally screwed. I can't blame him. It was a lot of work he put into it. And because of one of these instances of planned obsolescence, it cannot be backed up in any way. (not entirely true but i'll go into that in a moment).
Currently, there is no built in or Apple-provided way to back up songs on the iPod. A shareware program had to be written by a genius hacker and obvious philanthropist in order to do this. To put out a product like this where most people can store their whole music collection, spend countless hours doing it, and not provide a way to back it up screams more of Microsoft than of Apple. Although I know the two aren't very far apart. But this is an obvious flaw that was clearly planned to help with the promotion and use of the iTunes store and sell future versions of the iPod.
Other instances of obsolescence are a rudimentary 'explorer' program that is the interface for navigating the various functions of the iPod. I will call this the OS from now on for ease of typing and understanding. You clearly don't want to make a big OS on this device because you want as much space for music as possible. But, it couldn't have been to hard to be too much of a burden to add some functions that would help with the ease of use of this product. My biggest gripe as of now is the 'shuffle' feature of the iPod's OS. This function lets you shuffle play your entire catalogue of songs loaded onto the iPod. This is great if you feel like having a group of random songs played continuously.
But, what about the times when you don't want to listen to the entire catalogue? You cannot shuffle any other portion of your lists in the iPod including single albums, artists, or playlists. What if I wanted to listen to Radiohead or Pearl Jam exclusively, but shuffle all the songs by that artist because there are tons? Well, your SOL (Sh*t Out of Luck) on that one. You have to listen to each album is track order. What is the answer to this? Create a playlist. Ok, all well and good. But you can't shuffle the playlist songs either!!! And to put them in any kind of order you have to plan it out while the iPod is plugged into your computer. So changing a playlist on-the-fly is out. So you create a playlist and spend hours adjusting the order and whatnot until it is something that you like.
So, there is a handy program that lets you get around the music locked into your iPod. Its called Anapod Explorer. This program allows you to backup the content of your iPod to an external drive. I got a 250GB external drive since I was going to be storing two 40GB iPods and the contents of my computer harddrive so I needed some space. I don't own an iPod myself, but we're going to be storing two of my friends 40GB jobbers on there. In just a few minutes (nothing takes a few minutes with the iPod!!!), the entire contents of both devices is safely stored on my external drive. Now he doesn't have to worry about hundreds of hours of work being wasted if something happens.
My question: why do we need an third party software vendor to provide such a simple and much needed service for iPod users? I guess there's a few good answers to that question.
All in all, the iPod winds up taking a large amount of money and a large amount of time out of the lives of its owners and its hard to wonder if it is worth it. It is very high maintenance so if it was a girlfriend, we'd be broken up eventually. And why settle on one when new and betters surely will be coming out in the next few years. Possibly one not made by Apple who has obviously gone out of their way to make an substandard product the gloat of adolescence everywhere.
But if someone does own one, respect it. It will bring out the worst in them if harm comes to it.
Side Note: Reported manufacturing cost of iPod shuffle is $24.95....selling cost $99.95. You just have to love corporate America!
UPDATE: April 3 - I looks like there is actually a way to shuffle playlists, albums, and songs. Its just not the easy way like you would think. You have to actually go into the settings and change the shuffle setting to 'Albums', 'Songs', or 'None'. It works but damn its annoying.
