I used a second-hand, first-generation iPod for some time, then upgraded to the sleek, think video iPod a little over a year ago.

Although the new one is better in many ways, most notably being far thinner and lighter, I’ve always preferred the old “click” wheel over the newer smooth scrolling wheel.

• Although the new “smooth” wheel makes the click-wheel seem klunky, the physical feedback that the clicks gave me made it far easier to scroll to the correct selection. With the new wheel, I commonly go too far with my scrolling and end up with the wrong selection.
• In the winter, when I was wearing gloves, I was unable to use the smooth wheel; I never had this problem with the original. This might seem to be a minor issue, but for me it was major as I typically use my iPod in the car, and during the winter I commonly wore gloves in the car.

Everyone seems to love the iPod design — am I the only one who has gripes? Post thoughts below.

Mark it down. September 12, 2006. The day that changed everything. The day that brought the TV/Internet convergence era from a theory to a reality.

Amazingly enough, it came as an afterthought to a press release about the new iTunes software. While it is cool and interesting that Apple is now offering more TV shows than ever and feature length movies for download, this is not the groundbreaking news I’m talking about.

No, I’m talking about the announcement of the tentatively-titled ‘iTV’, a novel-sized device that allows users to wirelessly stream iTunes video to their TV sets. Just like the iPod didn’t invent the mp3 or the mp3 player, iTV does not invent this technology — I could rig this up on my LCD TV today quite easily. It will, however, just as the iPod did, bring this technology to the mainstream. (And I’m not even one of those crazy Mac people!)

According to Apple, the videos will also now be offered at near-DVD quality, which pretty much makes this new device and software package an immediate competitor to Cable OnDemand services and DVDs (rentals, sales and online memberships). It pretty much turns the world of TV on its head!

So, a few years from now, when the way we acquire and watch video content is totally different than it was in 2006, remember this day. And remember that you heard it here first.

I’ve been listening to Pandora a lot recently, and am really impressed with the site’s features and interface. If you haven’t used the site, it’s a music player that recommends songs based on other artists and songs that you rate, similar to Yahoo’s Launch. The different thing about Pandora is that, instead of using other people’s ratings to recommend music like Launch does, Pandora uses data from the Music Genome Project to recommend songs that have similar characteristics to those that you rated as good.

While Launch will tell you it is playing Marah because you rated Bruce Springsteen 4 stars out of 5, Pandora will explain a song choice through something like this:

“We’re playing this song because it has basic rock song structures, folk influences, a subtle use of vocal harmony, acoustic rhythm piano and mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation.”

The other day I was listening and Pandora played a few tracks off live albums, which got me thinking about the current paradigm for live album track delienation and how digital music has changed how we listen. When breaking up the tracks on a live music CD, it is custom to put any extraneous talking, non-musical crowd interaction and song introductions at the end of the previous track. This way, if a user skips to a particuar song, they get right to the song, yet the user who listens to the entire CD gets a smooth, complete experience. The digital age, however, brings us iPod’s “Shuffle Songs”, Pandora, Launch and even mix CDs. It’s a strange experience to hear a song, then another minute of talking, interaction or story that is probably not even related to that song before the “mix” moves on to the next track.

The solution, it seems, would be to break out any stories and such into a seperate track, so they aren’t lumped with other unrelated songs. This, of course, opens the door to those short talking tracks to show up on these mixes as well (I’ve actually heard a few “intros” on Launch in the past), which probably isn’t the best experience, unless of course you are Matt Nathanson.

Check this out… a band called “The Red” has released an album on a USB Jump drive. As a promotion proclaims, “The Red is thinking FORWARD”, and one must admit that it is a pretty ingenious way to release an independant album. Perhaps it is just further proof that CDs are SO 20th century.

It would be really great if car stereos were equipped to take USB jump drive inputs. Obviously there would need to be some kind of software in the car that could play the files on the disk, but there’s no question that carrying a bunch of mp3’s on a 1 or 2GB jump drive is much easier than burning said files to multiple CDs. Even data CDs or DVDs don’t offer the convenience that a jump drive can.

Before continuing, read Part 1 and chapter 2 of The iPodessey.

In my various and sundry internet research throughout this process, I recall reading posts by several folks who were able to reformat with a Mac and then bring the device over to a PC successfully. I don’t have a Mac at home, but since I had exhausted all of my options there, my next step was to find a working Mac and give this one more try. Luckily, I have access to such a machine at work, and was able to get some alone time with it. I downloaded the latest iPod software (on my PC, since our Macs have trouble — shockingly — connecting to the network), installed it on the Mac, and hooked up the iPod. It was successful. I was rolling with a few demo songs within 10 minutes. These Apple devices actually do work well with Macs!

When I got home that night, I hooked the iPod back up to the PC and attempted to reformat using the original software I downloaded (the latest version). It worked! No problems at all, just reformatted, disconnected, and I was loading songs via iTunes in no time.

And, since the car piece was already in place, the next morning I was jamming digital music in my car. The process was a bit convoluted, but it sure beat shelling out $300 for a new iPod. Plus, I got what a true geek always wants — a challenging problem to solve that took perseverance, creativity and patience.

Let’s recap what we have learned:

iPods work great with Apple Computers.

There’s a major breakdown of usability when trying to bring a Mac-formatted iPod over to a PC.

An iPod with a busted battery is still extremely useful.

A little computer knowledge combined with a little eBay can pretty much solve anything…

Perhaps eventually I’ll attempt to crack this baby open and install a new battery, but that’ll have to wait a while. For now, I’m just going to enjoy this little victory. (and digital music!)

If you missed it, first read Part 1 of The iPodyssey

I realized that these old iPods didn’t come with USB adapters (either that or it was lost somewhere in my teenage sister’s room, so either way I was screwed). I’d need a firewire PCI card in order to connect this little guy to my PC and actually manage the songs contained within. Luckily, it was not difficult to find such a card, again on eBay, this time for the unbelievable price of $0.99 (plus ONLY $9.99 shipping!). Again — padded envelope, this time perhaps a total cost of $1.50. (For the record, I’ve now spent a grand total of $26.93, however if we don’t count the first adapter inherited by my GF, we’re really only at $19.97.)

After installing the firewire card, I came to the unnerving realization that the firewire cable that connects to the A/C Adapter also connects to the computer, meaning I can’t keep my pod charging while plugged into the computer. Since the battery barely keeps enough charge to play one song, I thought this could be the end. Pressing on, I hooked her up anyway, and was pleasantly surprised to see it seemingly charging while connected to the PC. Crisis averted. (I do plan to replace the battery, but I want to get her up and running first, before spending $25 on a new battery.)

Let’s just get this out of the open: I don’t like Macs. I once was a die hard Mac fanatic, but over the years I’ve watched as Microsoft beat Apple at their own game, creating easier to use operating systems that were actually more reliable. Mac fanatics will battle to the death on this one, but this recent iPod experience only confirmed what I already knew — Apple products are difficult to use and consistently problematic. Figuring out how to format the iPod for Windows was an odyssey in itself, taking a full three days to conquer. Read the rest of this entry »