Who Designed This Crap? The Great Ipod Scam - Page 3

Well, I'll give you your choice for the H120, imo, the best Iriver player, even better than the H320 because it has optical out instead of the analogue line out. Anyways, the bloatware packed in and that is forced to be used on a device is just a con to me. AAC is not my favourite as opposed to Vorbis and Musepack, of course, one must have their Wavpack.

So you don't care about the industry raping CDs with such limitations, you don't care that music will have its limits? You don't care about the current CC-CD issue and how the industry is sh!tting on people's rights? DRM is a major issue, if companies started releasing rootkits (ala Sony) or CC-CDs, it would be a big issue. Right now, the process of ripping CDs to the computer whether through EAC, Itunes, Audiograbber, CDParanoia, dBPowerAmp, and etc. is being challenged as whether that is violating Fair Use rights by the RIAA. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to be limited when it comes to the buying of products and how I use them.

As with the ease of use arguments, Itunes sucks, I don't know how you find it easy. As a person who has explored many difficult software (aka trying to install ATI drivers on Linux ), I would claim that Itunes is bloatware, it's horrible. Oh, and on the design part of the Nano, I don't know why someone would want a screen so small or a device so thin. It's useless to me, it's too thin, I could snap it in freaking half! 21st Century Design indeed. I would agree with you on that because product life is limited these days (ie. Plasma TVs die, LCD Projection lamps burn out). I have an RCA TV that's 18 years old, I play Xbox on it, it works. My Panasonic LCD Projection TV broke, hmmm...I wonder. 21st Century Design indeed! Oh, and you aren't bleeding edge, you are very behind on the awareness of DRM it seems.

iPAQ = iCRAP!



Oh really? I didn't know that iPAQs were crap, any evidence as to why? Or is that flaming I smell.



Behind on DRM? I DON"T THINK SO!

But then again, I own ALL my digital music content, bought and paid for!

And I buy mostly used CD's. Why? It's cheap!

No ITMS for me, thank you!

I don't consort with traderz, and I don't RIP content. I'll leave the heavy lifting to those guys, seeing as I'm just a leech!

Rootkit? Shmootkit! If it's there, and I can't get it to my (unscratched and never going to snap) nano, I WON"T BUY IT! It's just that simple! Sorry, but there's just nothing out there that's "To die for."

Like I said, one word, REEBOK! You ( and a few precentage points) might care, but the vast, vast majority of people "Don't give a rat's ass!" Sad, but true.

As for the Ipaq comment, I reached 3000th degree Grandmaster Smack Fu status, AT AGE 8! The article that predicated this thread is nothing other than such. As are most of the post's in this thread! What else would one expect from "PeeCee Geek Central?"

And I just caught me a whopper!

Interesting article. I love gadgets and new technology, but iPods have never done it for me. I recently bought a Sony Ericsson w800i mobile Walkman phone, which has a quite serviceable MP3 player inside. Now that the novelty has worn off, I just use it as a phone...

For me, I don't like the fact that walking around with headphones listening to tinny sounding music is considered the way to go (and I hate earbud headphones). Or even the fact that so many people believe it necessary to listen to music in every available spare moment that they have, in every possible location... I realsie that this goes back to the days of the cassette Walkman, but it's getting worse. I would rather have my music at best possible qulaity, less often.

As for iTunes and iPods... well it's great marketing, but I personally can't get excited about paying for such low resolution audio files. I will always buy CDs = call me old fashioned. I also bought a Sony SACD player a few years ago, and I love listening to SACDs - pity that the format never took off. But the money is with the portable formats, the iPod and its clones have just contributed to the demise of high quality audio in the marketplace.

I have a g4 and I hate the thing, so I was gleeful when I first saw this article buy you guys are hating the ipod for all the wrong reasons. The drm and the scratches come on. First of the drm is itunes not the ipod, I only have one drm file and thats the lossless album I ripped. the lack of cases, well yeah annoying but really not a deal breaker, besides every included case I've ever had for anything has sucked compared to an after market one. here are some genuine gripes:
a) no really good way of making a playlist on the fly, on the go really sucks and you can only make one of them without resyncing
b) no en queue during a shuffle don't know what I'm talking about check out winamp
c) itunes does not work with the way that I listen to music (though that is a non issue because the community got it to work with winamp)
d) there is a millisecond gap between songs (this only really becomes an issue if you're listening to live stuff, prog albums, or classical music that has been separated into movements) but there is a work around for that too rip the entire cd as one track
e) and it's the big one the file system is asinine
f) limited format support eg no ogg, flac, wma(but why would you) so on and so forth

but, things aren't all bad on the ipod front, as I'm learning
1) for one the player shows up on all computers sans machines running 98 as an external hard drive, something that could have saved my friend dell dj
2) the scroll wheel is way faster than any button interfact
3) when the headphones are disconnected the player stops, (which could potentially save the player if it falls again might have saved my friend dell dj)

now my dream player would have
1) tremendous space
2) reasonable battery life
3) on the fly playlists
4) en queue during shuffle (I miss this soooo much)
5) native operating system support(so I can use on linux, windows, or mac even) and I can do diagnostics
6) gapless playback
7) fast navigation
8) some standard freaking connectors so I don't have to worry about losing a piece of wire

it'd be helpful if you defined it. I use winamp, and I haven't a clue what you're talking about.

A bad kluge. Just because I want gapless doesn't mean I'm willing to give up the ability to skip to a specific track.

Flac is only an issue in as much as you'd have to convert to applelossless if you wanted lossless files. The reality is that preamp/amp probalby isn't clean enough to warrant lossless encoding and the storage space certainly isn't enough to store my music...maybe if they make 100gb DAPs. As for WMA, I'd argue it's an issue because you might want to buy something from buymusic.com that iTunes doesn't sell. I don't know about now, but there was a time when you could buy Radiohead material on buymusic (virtually every album) while iTunes had no more than a few songs.

It wouldn't affect me, but if I did buy music files, I"d like the option to buy from every store that's out there.

I prefer the Karma's interface, and I think i can scroll through a list of music faster than on an iPod, but I don't get into interface wars. I like windows others like Macs....in the end, if the Mac had all the software/games and the iPod did gapless while the Karma did not, I'd have an iPod.

not much of an issue. The HD on a DAP is rarely spinning. Even with your feature, when it hit the ground, the drive would still be spinning if it was before the plugs came unplugged.

Sounds like a rio karma (except for the HD space...only 20gb) and possibly en queue

No it doesn't, and it's sad that an owner would actually be so misinformed as to think that it does. The only way it plays darkside of the moon without gaps is if you make it 2 tracks: side one and side 2. Search the Ipod/itunes site, it's there in black and white. Easier still, go to ipodlounge and search for gapless playback. It's a very commonly requested feature for at least 2 or 3 years and it has not been implemented.

Oh what the hell, I'll do the work for you

Join CD Tracks—Converts all selected contiguous tracks into one track file. This is especially useful to eliminate pauses between live concert tracks and classical music that contains interludes.

Yes it is M_S. Yes it is.

Playing music without "gaps", would that not be "gapless"?

M_S

So this guy doesn't like the iPod. That's fine, but his many of his arguments are completely lacking in logic or are simply wrong.

First, he claims that you can only burn a iTunes song to CD once. That is just flat out wrong. He's either stupid or intentionally being deceptive. As most people know, a playlist with songs from the iTunes music store can be burned 7 times. Alter the playlist slightly (i.e. add or subtract a song) and get 7 more burns. Songs furthermore can be burned to an unlimited number of backup discs.

Second, he purposely obfuscates the difference between songs ripped from your own CDs and songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Songs from your own CDs do not have any DRM attached and are completely unrestricted (including number of burns). One does not need to use the iTMS at all. Hate DRM? Get your music from other sources. You are not forced to use DRM just because you use an iPod. Too many people already confuse AAC format with AAC + Fairplay DRM. This article just adds FUD.

Third, he talks about the lack of restrictions his Creative player. Of course, there are no "restrictions" because he switches to talking about non-DRM music. An equivalent comparison would be to talk about music purchased from Napster or the like. Once in that world, you have all the same restrictions of the iTMS, often more. He is comparing DRM'd music to non-DRM'd music and making it sound like this is the difference between the iPod and the Creative players.

As for many the posts on this forum, I have one word: Astroturf. A lot of it is pretty obvious.

I was about to say that. When a company like Apple designs a product like the iPod which many people love, some people have to just start hating them because of their success. The iPod and ITMS have made Apple billions of dollars profit, which allows them to continue developing OSX and designing cool products.

It isn't success when they cheat using DRM. Whether you believe it or not, DRM is an anti-competitive, market lock-in tool which is little, if anything, to do with piracy. Think about it: what happens when your Ipod dies? Or gets dropped and breaks? Or gets misplaced? Or gets stolen? Your choices are: overpay for another Ipod, lose your thousand dollar music collection, or lose a lot of time and audio quality while transcoding your songs into another format so that they will play on an audio player that is twice as good and half the price.

If you'd went and bought a proper audio player in the first place that doesn't handcuff you, you would just be able to buy any other audio player without losing time, audio quality or additional unnecessary money in such a situation.

I agree with you, the ipaq is a different type of player, heck its a different device completely, considering what it's normally used for.

My intention was to point out what else it can be other than just play music, besides saving me the need to buy a separate music player, and carry even more gadgets around in my pockets (I always get a guilty smile on my face when I see some guy trying to stuff his ipod in one pocket and cell phone in another...), besides keeping my wallet and keys on me.

Yes 1GB is rather small. I would be more happy using an 8GB CF card for storage, but even the latest devices use the newer microSD cards that have miserable storage.

Overall I have to say I'm happy with my choice, even if it doesn't store 60GB or if others don't like it that well. It is definitely not a crap device, as one other poster mentioned.

Oh, did I forget to mention that I have this thing mounted in my vehicle and use it as a GPS solution while driving??? Sweet!

Oh, boo hoo, cry me a river!

If you bought a Mac it would definitely last longer (each of mine have lasted 6+ years/each, thank you very much), but then again it isn't BIY, which is what you DOS fanbois love to do, since you have nothing better to do?

And why does anyone in their right mind EVER buy large amounts of online DRM'ed music anyway? Oh that's right, you need to fuss with you're DOS box 247!

Online DRM'ed music sux dude, or haven't you heard? Limited copies and low bitrates does not sound like a winning strategy to me? Ever listen to low bitrate music on a high end stereo? It sux dude!

But then again you are a savvy hackerz dude, aren't you? I thought you guyz had hacked Fairplay, thus lifting the 5 copy limit? I suggest you ask your hacker dudez how to do it, I'm sure they will help, seeing as they also have nothing better to do?



Calm the F down dude. I rebuilt my rig often because it's mostly used for gaming, which is why I don't have an Mac. I do no hacking, no interest, I haven't bought very much music from itunes, maybe 30 songs. All digital music sucks as far as sound quality, it doesn't matter what the bit rate, even cd's sound worse than good old LP's. Don't bother responding Mac fan boy, I'm done with this forum, BTW, does your overpriced, slow Mac match your curtains ?

Apple should get sued for creating a monopoly on digital music. By charging $0.99 for each song and making sure the song can only be played on their hardware and not the competitions they get people locked in. This means that when the next generation non Apple devices with OLED screens come out people will not buy it because it is incompatible with Apple's DRM and all the music they payed for would be worthless. To top it off, Apple locks people into the super lame iTunes software by making the music incompatible with other apps.

Not that this is unexpected as Apple has a history off getting people locked in. Just like they did by making people buy computer hardware from them instead of making their OS open to other hardware. Considering how many people waste their money on iTunes; the amount of free advertising Apple has gotten from the mass media is sickening.

Thats not a monopoly... thats brilliant marketing. Apple engineered its first ipods w/o this fair play (if im not mistaken) and got ppl hooked. Then they said hey, lets make some more money, and launched itunes. Hate them all you want, I do, but you can't say they suck because they made a monpoly.

Apple has plenty of competition, ppl are just ignorant and lazy, and choose to go to itunes instead of somewhere else.

Don't make a mountain out of a molehill. When you hit five computers, you can go to the iTunes music store and click on "Account." You will be given an option to deauthorize all computers. Then, just reauthorize the ones you are actually using. Five computers is not a "lifetime" limit but a limit on the number of current machines authorized.

Also, you can simply go to iTunes and choose the "deauthorize computer" option before you do your upgrade to stop your count from growing.

Damn AAC codec. I had a really bad experiance with that, fucking sony. And I mean it, I hate them. Anyone remember the Network Walkman back in the hay day that used the memory stick? God that was freaking pathetic. You had to send it in to get it permanently altered to work with windows 2000 instead of win 98/ME. Bastards.

I call bullshit, If I were in the popular crowd I would ask you to beat me senseless. Buncha ignorant mindless drones lol.

Fairplay was introduced when the iTunes Music Store opened. That was in April of 2003.

The iPod sales didn't really take off until there was support for the PC (because most people do not own a mac).

The first version of the iTunes to support windows was October of 2003. So for the vast majority of owners fairplay was always there. And for EVERY owner that uses Itunes Music Store, fairplay has always been there.

Go to ipod lounge and ask if the iPod supports gapless playback. Every knowledgable owner will tell you, "No."

If you have a 2 hour concert and want gapless playback on the iPod, you'd have to make it one track (and I've heard, but have not confirmed, that the player cannot play a file that large without gaps).

If I then want to skip to song 13, I can't. Why can't I? Because it's one track. Why did you make it one track? Because the iPod doesn't support gapless playback.

I want the ability to listen to the concert without gaps. I also want the ability to skip to any particular song.....just like a CD.

Your iPod can't do it.

it'd be helpful if you defined it. I use winamp, and I haven't a clue what you're talking about.


Nilepez, you really need to learn Winamp. It's got one thing the Karma has and that is crossfading. That is a method of mixing one song into the next like you hear on the radio. That way there is no "silence" between your mix.

I prefer the Karma's interface, and I think i can scroll through a list of music faster than on an iPod, but I don't get into interface wars. I like windows others like Macs....in the end, if the Mac had all the software/games and the iPod did gapless while the Karma did not, I'd have an iPod.


The Karma DOES do gapless, and cross fading. You were sold out and missed the boat on this one.

Sounds like a rio karma (except for the HD space...only 20gb) and possibly en queue

20gig is a lot still today. Unless you are a type A personallity that will load 90% of the player with stuff you never listen to just to say "it's in there".

Once I find a player that has the gapless music and crossfading, I'll replace my Karma. Until then I still own the best player yet made IMHO.

it'd be helpful if you defined it. I use winamp, and I haven't a clue what you're talking about.


Nilepez, you really need to learn Winamp. It's got one thing the Karma has and that is crossfading. That is a method of mixing one song into the next like you hear on the radio. That way there is no "silence" between your mix.


What's your point? I never use crossfading on the Karma.

The Karma DOES do gapless, and cross fading. You were sold out and missed the boat on this one.


I didn't say it didn't....read it again. I said IF.....

Sorry, but you're arguing with the wrong person. I own a karma and like it.

Are you this dense in real life? Gapless playback means playing 2 seperate tracks back without a gap. That's what the feature is.

Once you join 5 tracks together into a single track, IT IS A SINGLE TRACK. Of course it can play it back without a gap.

And FYI, iPodlounge is probably the biggest and most informed crowd of iPod users on the web. Perhaps you should spend some time there and learn about the iPod before you write about it.

Now I need a post to explain "density" to you? This is getting out of hand. Let's end this before I have to spoon feed you your entire childhood education in an attempt to get you to understand words in the way they were meant and not the way you think they should mean.

I see others here countering your posts and calling you on things that you mis-state. Maybe you know what you are talking about, maybe you don't, but you certainly cannot form a sentence that clearly points out to to others what those thoughts are.

As I said before, you do a disservice to others by posting tripe that is either erroneous or misleading in it's sentence structure. Please stop before someone really gets hurt.

M_S

Are you this dense in real life? Gapless playback means playing 2 seperate tracks back without a gap. That's what the feature is.

Once you join 5 tracks together into a single track, IT IS A SINGLE TRACK. Of course it can play it back without a gap.

And FYI, iPodlounge is probably the biggest and most informed crowd of iPod users on the web. Perhaps you should spend some time there and learn about the iPod before you write about it.

Now I need a post to explain "density" to you? This is getting out of hand. Let's end this before I have to spoon feed you your entire childhood education in an attempt to get you to understand words in the way they were meant and not the way you think they should mean.

I see others here countering your posts and calling you on things that you mis-state. Maybe you know what you are talking about, maybe you don't, but you certainly cannot form a sentence that clearly points out to to others what those thoughts are.

As I said before, you do a disservice to others by posting tripe that is either erroneous or misleading in it's sentence structure. Please stop before someone really gets hurt.

M_S

Nah, I gave you links and you ignore them. I gave you apple centric websites and you claim they're misinformed.

Nobody has countered my statements on gapless, which is what our discussion is about.

I mentioned those links (with clear, correct definitions) in my replies.

I am the one countering your (and many others) statements on "gapless", others have countered your statements on other topics. Do I need to quote them and try to set you straight on that too?

I believe they call this "denial" in the profession.

M_S

I mentioned those links (with clear, correct definitions) in my replies.

I am the one countering your (and many others) statements on "gapless", others have countered your statements on other topics. Do I need to quote them and try to set you straight on that too?

I believe they call this "denial" in the profession.

M_S

No you said that joining tracks is gapless. It is not. What's more, it is not a feature of the iPod, it's a feature of iTunes.

With respect to ipodlounge, you said there was no reason to read a site that misinformed me in the first place. Thus you ignored it, even though it is considered the best iPod site on the web.

What others may or may not have said on other topics is not germane to this discussion on gapless.

Your definition of what a gap is was great, but didn't contradict anything I'd said. Any DAP that can't play a single file without inserting silence into the middle is broken. Not being broken != gapless playback.

I mentioned those links (with clear, correct definitions) in my replies.

I am the one countering your (and many others) statements on "gapless", others have countered your statements on other topics. Do I need to quote them and try to set you straight on that too?

I believe they call this "denial" in the profession.

M_S

No you said that joining tracks is gapless. It is not. What's more, it is not a feature of the iPod, it's a feature of iTunes.

With respect to ipodlounge, you said there was no reason to read a site that misinformed me in the first place. Thus you ignored it, even though it is considered the best iPod site on the web.

What others may or may not have said on other topics is not germane to this discussion on gapless.

Your definition of what a gap is was great, but didn't contradict anything I'd said. Any DAP that can't play a single file without inserting silence into the middle is broken. Not being broken != gapless playback.

Can't you get it through your thick skull that by saying "listening to Dark Side w/o gaps on my iPod is impossible because it does not support "gapless"(under YOUR definition) playback" is misleading?

I said, in my original post, that "gapless" playback, i.e. playing back a group of tracks that seamlessly play w/o interruption (i.e. joined) is a feature of the iTunes AND the iPod? Why yes, I believe I did, and your linked page from Apple confirms this.

It truly is pathetic that you confirm my point with your own post and at the same time deny that any possibility of the feature exists because your narrow minded, FUD supporting, self-serving definition of a word "modifies" what would otherwise be a perfectly correct statement. I am aghast at you propensity to post such misleading garbage because a feature (that YOU provided the link to!) does not fit YOUR definition of the term.

Is it fair that someone with little or no knowledge reads a post that says "no this is not possible", or better that someone read a post stating that they can, but lose the ability to play single tracks unless they rip twice? No, I don't think so. You know what you mean but the vast majority of uninformed readers would not be able to disseminate between the uncoherent crap you type and the truth.

M_S

Unfortunately you are very wrong. iPod's DRM doesn't start or end a iTunes. Try moving any of the songs off your iPod back to your computer... Unless you use a crack, you can't. DRM lingers even away from iTunes.

Many people have bought an iPod thinking it to be a good source of backup for their music, when in reality the iPod is a one-way device. That's why
"The Man" likes the iPod and pays for a lot of it's advertizing. iPod DRM is by far the strongest and most constricting in the MP3 player market.

Amen Barry!! Apple really sold out on thier iPod. If any company went to bat for us, it was Rio. To bad their gone now.