Rotten Apple

So, the last mp3 player I had was a Creative MuVo Micro, with a whopping 1 GB of memory (a lot for when I got it). I think I had it for about 6 years, and over that time, I had to update the firmware a couple of times (about 2 minutes with a USB cable). No, I couldn't watch movies on it, but it worked, and worked, and worked.

Contrast that with my iPod Classic: I just took it in to the shop today. It crashed and I couldn't do anything on my PC to make it better: couldn't restore it through iTunes, couldn't reformat the disk... nothing. Last time this happened, the guy plugged it in to one of the Macs in the Apple shop and it reformatted okay. This time, no go.

So, I've had it for 8 months, it's gone down twice, and this time it's beyond repair. Back to Apple, and theory is that they will send me a new one. That's okay until we get to January '09, when my warranty runs out.

So, I love the memory. The battery life is quite good. I've enjoyed watching Survivor in the plan on my way to Munich and home again each week. It's cool to be able to have a few of my favorite pictures with me wherever I go, too. And now that I've figured out things like using Apple lossless to encode the music and doing some gain reduction on my mp3's to keep them from distorting when I use the iPod eq to bump the bass up, the sound is pretty good as well.

But if the thing only works for 6 months at a time, it's a pretty high price to pay for what I got. Here's hoping I just got a lemon the first time and the next one is a little better...

iPod - My First Impressions

So there are some things that have started to stand out to me after a few weeks now with my iPod (6G, 160 gb classic):

Blind, one-handed operation is easier than I thought it would be. I didn't really know how the clickwheel worked, and it's nice to see that I don't have to take it out of my pocket to change songs or volume. Good.

Apple is pretty screwed-up with their updates. The responsiveness of the controls (especially for the cover flow feature) was bad with the initial firmware, good with the first update I did, and is already worse again with the latest update. Do they not test this stuff before they publish it?

Solitaire is a problem. I used to never leave home without a book. Now I sometimes do. I'm not sure I like that.

The sound is pretty decent - I'm using Apple Lossless codec, so it should be CD quality (or very near), and it does sound good with my recording headphones. It doesn't blow me away, though... maybe I'll do a side-by-side to compare the iPod with my PC as the source through my digital mixer.


Now, I realise that this post is a little, uh, short on creativity. And I'm sorry, but I'm really tired. I'm about to go to bed, but wanted to give you at least something new to look at. Oh, and maybe I'll put a picture in for my profile again. It's been a while...

Abandoning My Principles

All of them.

I got an iPod.



And I figured you would find out, eventually, anyways, so I may as well just come clean with it.




Fire away.

Infiltrated

I've been infiltrated.

I don't know if Apple specifically planned it that way, but a covert agent has been working on me, trying to get me to buy an iPod.

And it almost worked.

I got to thinking - 160 GB would be pretty cool - I could put all my music on it at a pretty high bit-rate. And even some movies. And the new ones have a battery life that a lot of people are pegging at 40+ hours on a charge for music. And there are programs other than iTunes that you can use now to manage the music you play... meaning you can actually move it around however you want, without Apple telling you which computers you're allowed to use to listen to it.

And then I started to read.

It turns out that Apple has changed a few things with the new ones (called iPod Classic, or sixth generation/6G). They have a new algorithm that they're using for the digital/analog conversion. And the hardware has changed, too - the DAC is coming from another manufacturer. And in the hi-fi community, people are not happy.

Turns out the sound is, to a critical listener, nowhere near as good as it was for previous incarnations - less natural, less punchy and vibrant, with harmonic overtones missing. Which is all I need to know for now, until either a firmware fix or a version with better hardware (or both) is released.

Whew.

Close call.

Better Or Worse?

I mentioned before that while about 6% of the general population uses macs, about 30% of those periodically seated on TYC do.

Since then, the proportion has jumped to over 40%. So now I find myself in a dilemma.

Buying one is out of the question, since all my software is PC-based. But it does seem that I am going to be forced to deal with some kind of congruence between people who like to read what I've written (or see what I've shot) and people who like to use macs. Many of them seem to be the same people.

You can see that this is fraught with danger for me. Any anti-mac joke I make now is just going to come back and bite me. Even the one-button mouse is, I'm sure, in on it, somehow. I don't know if this is some kind of cosmic conspiracy to make me quit using wma files (they just sound better at lower bitrates! I can't argue with that!) or a joke that Macworld is going to be publishing in an upcoming issue.

I guess the good news is that, if they are, at least I won't see it. I still have that going for me.

For now.

You're Mac'ing Me Nervous

Yes, the title does make me feel like I've spent too much time in the Loony Spoons cookbook. But that's not the point right now. Not even close.

Did you know that the total market share of Mac's OS X operating system is about 6%? But 30% of people who visit TYC are running it. And since I am gifted with numbers, I'm going to break that right down for you.

It means a lot of people here are using Macs.

Now I have some good friends who use Macs. I have even more who have iPods. They say they're pretty.

I can't really blame them - they are nice to look at. But they remind me of an old saying: "Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion."

I think maybe it started when I used my first Mac (they called it a "Macintosh" then) to play games with my friend Andre. About five years before my dad had picked up a little Timex computer that had a whopping 2K of memory. It used a black and white TV to display, but it worked pretty well for Frogger. A year or two after that I had a friend with a Commodore 64. It was even better - color, little songs. Then I went to Andre's place and it was like going back in time. The screen was just slightly larger than a watch. That was kind of fitting, actually, since we spent years of our life waiting for it to load.

Then I used a Mac in a fine arts class in University. It wasn't an easy transition:

Me: "Why does this mouse only have one button?"
Mac person: "Apple invented the mouse, you know - Microsoft stole the idea."
Me: "That's great. But why is there only one button?"
Mac person: "You only need one. You can make it do whatever you want... you just hold down the apple key when you click."
Me: "Uh, yeah, but that's kind of why I use a mouse - so I don't have to worry about the keyboard at the same time."
Mac person: "We invented it, you know."
Me: "Yeah, you and Steve. We've just been there. There's no scroll wheel, either?!?"
Mac Person: "You don't need that. You just hold down the button and then drag the mouse."
Me [holding and dragging]: "Like this? Why isn't this working? You know, my mouse has five buttons and a wheel. I don't mean to turn this into a pissing contest - I'm just saying."
Mac Person: "You just have to hold it a little longer."
Me: "Now?"
Mac person: "Not quite."
Me: "Now?"
Mac person: "Almost there..."
Me: "Where's that stupid apple key..."

It went downhill pretty quickly from there.

So, Mac People: I have a feeling that we're never going to see eye to eye on this. You can tell me about how Macs never break down; I can ask you about which of the three Mac-compatible programs you enjoy the most. But I'm glad you're reading, and I appreciate you coming back.

Oh, and I'll try to remember to keep adding pictures.

;-)