iPod users in please

[SeventhSon]

Will Rhapsody work with iPod? iPods are not compatible with the Rhapsody To Go subscription service. You may, however, use the iPod to play tracks purchased on Rhapsody. Or view the MP3 players compatible with Rhapsody To Go.

Yea, to sync the music available through the Rhapsody subscription service you need one of their special MP3 players. But this isn't much different than the situation you have with iTunes/iTunes purchased music as you can only play it on an iPod.

[emperor_black]

Will Rhapsody work with iPod? iPods are not compatible with the Rhapsody To Go subscription service. You may, however, use the iPod to play tracks purchased on Rhapsody. Or view the MP3 players compatible with Rhapsody To Go.

[SeventhSon]

This whole notion of ripping/storing/hoarding music is for the stone ages IMO. I'd rather have someone else do it for me. I'm a big fan of Rhapsody (so far). I've heard Napster has the same concept. You basically have a couple of millions of songs at your disposal that you can listen to for a monthly subscription fee.

New Guitar World arrive in the mail with tabs, songs or bands you haven't heard? Cue them up!

Want to reminisce and listen to someone like April Wine? Just cue them up!

Someone post on the JCF about a cool band and you want to listen to them? Just cue them up!

Don't feel like creating a playlist? Listen to someone elses!

You can sync any of this music to a MP3 player or stream it through your home audio system (albeit through special devices). The downside is that they don't have everything (especally metal) which is annoying. But the concept is the future IMO.

[OzoMan]

If I rememeber right you can add mp3s by simply dragging them if you change the firmware of the iPod. I've heard that Rockbox is a great alternative ( http://www.rockbox.org ).

I'm still using the iTunes though since I find it easy to use and fluent.

[YetAnotherOne]

I just avoid iTunes like the plague. As far as the hardware goes, it's better IMHO than anything else out there.

Pretty much sums it up for me. I checked out the available HW and for my money the new 80GB iPods are the best thing going.

As far as software goes, has anyone tried Mediafour's XPlay? Seems like it might be approximately what I'm looking for.

I'll probably try Media Monkey first since I've been using it to index my collection for a while now. It's solid and will probably work but it's not exactly a quick lightweight solution.

Oh and Pete - since I'm only a couple of hours north of you at the moment we'll have to get together and, ahem, "compare" collections one of these weekends. I'll see your 300 and raise you a few GB to boot.

[shobet]

Oh, and Windows Media Player is a far superior software than iTunes these days. If you don't have it already, check out version 11.

I don't have a Windows machine so I can't comment on iTunes on it. I've never had a problem with iTunes on my Mac. The iPod has the best user interface by far of any MP3 player I've tried. Plus I even back up to mine.

So if you don't like it, sell it and buy something you do.

What's Winamp like these days, anyone here use it with the Milkdrop visualizer? Great to get off your face to...

[emperor_black]

oh, I have one more useful information... Don't want to Edit the previous post...
Anyone annoyed, like I am, that all songs on the ipod or any mp3 player dont play at the same volume? I found it very annoying. Like I said, most of my songs are metal and I play them at very high volumes while working out at the gym. it was so annoying when opeth will play at a low volume, then I turn up the volume and inflames will start playing and nearly deafen me I found this cool software called MP3gain. its free and it can add/reduce volume on mp3 without altering the quality.
I connected my Ipod, opened mp3gain, selected ipod_control from windows explorer and let mp3gain loose. It has adjusted the volume on all the songs and its such a relief. What was surprising is that the software did not crash even once on my super-slow office laptop and it adjusted vol on all 2300+ songs in one shot. Now all songs play at the same volume and my work-out at the gym goes on much smoother.
I know, there is a "Sound check" option in Ipod that is supposed to do the same thing, but that sucks ballocks IMO! There is also an option in itunes where you can say "Play all songs at the same volume" but IMO that works only when you are playing songs on itunes and does not affect the iPod. Anyway, thought I'll let you know.

[emperor_black]

I'll tell you one other quirky behavior of the ipod+itunes. Ipod has this weird algorithm built in that it plays your "most-played" songs again. Every 10th or 20th song will be one you've heard previously. Even though I have 2300+ songs, I'm listening to the same 100 or so. Since I restored the Ipod to the factory settings last week, I am listening to songs I havent heard in a year since I bought the ipod. How annoying is that?? Most of my songs are heavy metal. However, I had one album by Queen on my Ipod. Every 5th song, it used to play Queen. I got so pissed that I deleted that album from my ipod.
You can reset the play-count in iTunes. then it will play "new" songs...but only for a while and then it goes back to playing its "usual" songs. Its so annoying! Did I say that already??

[Spivonious]

iTunes is a waste of space. iPod is pure marketing. The only reason it's so successful is because Apple has so many accessory-makers under exclusive contracts to only make iPod accessories. There are far better options, and they're cheaper too!

Oh, and Windows Media Player is a far superior software than iTunes these days. If you don't have it already, check out version 11.

[emperor_black]

what are you talking about? the songs remain in iTunes and you can burn to cd's, copy them, do whatever. also, any song you convert from mp3 to iTunes, still remains in mp3 format in the directory you had it in. so it's not like you lost your mp3 (it's not altered or removed by the "terrible iTunes").

people bash iTunes a lot but I never see any legitimate reasons why. just wondering.

Ipod users are forced to use itunes to transfer songs onto their ipods. That's what is annoying about it. My friend and bro each have mp3 players which you can just connect to any windows machine, open Win explorer, drag-n-drop songs and listen to them. You can't do that with an iPod. you gotta have itunes. Unless you do the research like pete suggested to locate a third party software that lets you drag-n-drop songs. But still, you HAVE TO USE some software to transfer songs to your iPod. That is where it sucks. That is because itunes maintains a database which hold songs' information like artwork, eq settings, etc. But for someone who doesn't care for all that, its a pain.

Yeah the songs remain on your comp and if you have the "Automatically sync itunes and ipod" checked, they will be in sync. But what if you accidentally connected your ipod into your friend's machine? BAM! you lose all your f**kin songs. It happened to me once and since then like many have already suggested, I manually manage what goes on and off my Ipod.

And just last week I opened up a thread about how the ipod stopped working and I had to revive it. It happened because I accepted the update that itunes prompted me when my ipod was still connected. the damn thing did not even bother to tell me "I am going to unload the ipod driver. please disconnect ipod until the update is over". If we didnt need to use the itunes, we would not be faced with this misery. And what's with that iTuneshelper.exe service eating up memory on the comp? With version 7.3, itunes has become more slow than ever!

[iced_earth]

I've turned off auto-syncing and just drag from my hard drive to ITunes.

[xsentrick]

I don't have a problem with itunes. I use it all the time. I've converted many mp3's and never had an issue. I think if you just take the time to learn it you'll see it is not that difficult.

[Twisteramps]

You don't have to use iTunes... there are some 3rd party software programs that allow you to drag and drop what you want onto the iPod. I have just under 300gb of mp3s, and I rotate mine out on my 80 gig. Had it since last October, worked great. I just avoid iTunes like the plague. As far as the hardware goes, it's better IMHO than anything else out there.

Pete

[Bengal65]

What's an iPod?

[GodOfRhythm]

I avoid Ipods just for that reason. I detest Itunes and the whole uploading & transferral system.