Today, iPod the Fifth arrived. They are packed much more compactly now than in earlier days. I suspect Apple is cutting costs in anticipation of having to compete with Microsoft’s Zune player, though, as always, it remains to be seen how successful that product will be. Everyone remembers the spectacular failure of the ‘rokr’ iTunes phone.
As regards iPod the Fifth, I hope it lasts as long as the previous four put together did.
In other news, the heating in our flat has suddenly been turned on. It hit my like a tropical blast as soon as I opened my door. I probably will no longer be sleeping in the woolen toque that Sarah P gave me.
PS. For some reason, iTunes 7.0.1 lacks the option to “only update checked songs” to the iPod. Since I was using that feature to keep a collection of songs small enough for the 20GB version updated, it will now not update at all, because the overall library is too big. I have come up with a crude hack (creating a smart playlist that includes all checked songs and having the iPod only update that), but doing so causes the device to only list that playlist, with none of my other smart or normal listings visible. Trying to add them all (even though they are the same songs as the ‘checked only’ list, causes a ‘not enough space’ error. Any ideas?
How many of hours of life did each iPod get, before failing?
check it out: Wadham College at high rez
Here’s an idea: unload the trendy ‘pod on eBay and get an iRiver. :) Actually I wish I had an iRiver as I had to go through 2 Creative Zens before I got a good one.
Is it too late to uninstall 7.0.1 and just use an earlier version of iTunes? Personally, I have a policy of not updating unless someone encourages me that the next version really is an improvement.
Sylvia,
I am pretty invested in the iPod line. Most of my music is in AAC format, and I need iTunes to talk to the Shuffle – that is, the reliable iPod.
Sarah,
The word in the forums seems to be that there is no safe going back from iTunes 7.0. I was stupid to install it, since Apple has added crippling features to iTunes in the past. You just cannot trust software that isn’t open source (though most open source software is clunky and ugly).
Crack open Apple’s iPod, for instance, and the two most expensive bits are the hard drive (from Toshiba, at around $70) and screen (by Toshiba-Matsushita, at $20).