R.I.P. iPod! Should I get a Touch?

FWIW, music on the iTunes Music Store has been DRM-free for quite sometime now.

 

I am surprised that Apple support indicated a need for more hardware, that doesn't sound right. You should be able to go into "System Preferences", select "Sharing", then click on "Internet Sharing" and configure (I'm using the latest Snow Leopard, things were a little different in earlier versions).

I seldom have issues with button presses (or any other touch action) registering. If it happens system-wide (especially in the same spot in all apps), I'd have it looked at, if it is specific to one app then it may be just a matter of learning the 'hot spot.'

 

If the OP defines quality as a shiny Apple logo then sure, the Sandisk won't have that. If the OP wants sound quality then the Sandisk is an excellent choice (as well as being a decent value). I have a 4GB Sansa Clip and it really is a great little music machine. This comes from someone with a very low tolerance for poor sound reproduction!

**EDIT**
I have the old version (2 years old) but for go-anywhere player this gets my vote:
http://www.sandisk.com/products/san...ayers/sandisk-sansa-clipplus-mp3-player-.aspx

 

"Chess with Friends" (free) is great for playing against other people on the internet, "Deep Green" (not free) is a very strong, good looking chess program with a long pedigree (I believe the original version was written for Apple II). I've heard of Fritz before, may have to check it out. For solitaire, I recommend checking out "SolFree" by Solebon (free). It's good enough for me that I've never looked for another. If you like tower defense type games, check out TapDefense (free). "Amazing Sudoku Lite" by Dava (free) makes decent use of the available screen space.

I haven't played much w/photo albums on the iPod itself, I actually just sync "last 20 events." Album creation and management is handled in iPhoto on the Mac. Use the photo tab in iTunes (when the iPod is connected) to manage which albums are synced. Same with playlists - best I can tell playlists are always listed alphabetically on the iPod.

 

daniel,

DO NOT GIVE UP ON YOUR OLD I POD!!

i have 4, and each one has "failed" on me. one was the most important as it was my 80?? GB pod that had about 500 albums, all painfully burned to my Mac, put on ipod then ERASED because they took up so much room.

now, the reset process is one, i am very familiar with, so i did it, it did not work, but i also knew that it sometimes takes several tries, so i did it a FEW DOZEN TIMES over the period of a week or so. nothing.

i was very depressed, shelved it. got another which was immediately commandeered to put kiddie music on. this was last year. now, occasionally, i plug it in, charge it, then do a few reset cycles... well, about 2 months ago...

IT CAME BACK TO LIFE!!!

so all i can say is, if there is stuff on it you cannot easily reproduce, keep it. mess with it when you have a few minutes.

now i also have an i pod 4 GB mini. its 2 years older than the above i pod. it "fails" about once a week, but usually on takes 1-3 reset cycles to get it going. it has a battery life shorter than breath cycle of a good deep water diver so needs to be plugged in most of the time. this is the one i listen to daily in what ever car i am driving in.

 

ummm same thing happened to me, but only because i had moved my songs. the new install did not recognize the new location so did not import the catalog. now, this was about 3-4 years ago, but i just followed directions on apple support page to find the location (easy for me since mine was like 75 GB in size!!)

there is also a program u have to buy, but pretty cheap, like $15-20... or so, that will scan your laptop and find it for you. i also have that and it works.

now, the reason why i moved the directory, was after i got the extra i pod, i had also started a relationship and now had 3 pods which basically ran me out of disk space, so i took the biggest one's directory and moved it to a portable drive.

 

daniel, dont discount wi-fi... i can tell you with 100% certainty (without violating job NDA) that wi-fi will be playing a much much larger role in nearly everyone's lives.

your sister's mobile broadband service is currently overpriced (my opinion) and has limited data transfer allowances that will all change dramatically in the next year.

 

I believe there is also freeware out there that you can use to move music from an iPod to a PC if you have lost the iTunes library due to a hard drive crash or other matter. Take a look at this article:

Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide | iLounge Article

 

When within wifi range and with Skype your touch can also be used as a phone which is kinda cool.

Does anyone use Skype + ipod touch as their main phone? - Mac Forums

 

Thanks Dave, What is the name of this program?

 

Good point, but only since 2007 if you wanted to pay $1.29 per song, less than a year for the rest. If you have a huge library collected over several years, (I have well over 1000) it will be an issue. Not insurmountable, but an issue none the less.

 

i have never spent a single cent at the itunes store

 

I'm telling Steve on you. :madgrin:

 

That was my initial intention, as I prefer my music on bright, shiny discs. However at some point iTMS started offering exclusives and hard-to-finds that I found hard to resist. I still did not buy much until they started offering DRM-free. I think I still have a couple hundred DRM'd tracks, but most of those are freebie 'song of the week' tracks. I've also bought some videos to compare to DVD experience, and of course iPod touch apps (I will pay $$ for apps that I deem worthy, as they are very reasonably priced in comparison to other platforms, and there are some good ones out there).

 

well one of these days i will buy something, but i am not much into newer music, i have about 6734 songs more or less. (actually that is count on the musipod. but videopod also has a few dozen along with talkiepod but havent really counted them and they are all free songs from itunes)

now, i do take advantage of the free songs they issue weekly. have a bunch of them...one of the last ones was a song from Twilight...one of the few i liked. (my SO likes them and keeps downloading them)

now, my SO has purchased some, but had purchased a bunch before we got together and i am sure she has probably gotten some since then, but she has her own little i pod and i havent a clue as to what is on it