IPod

loonygooner

As I have now taken the plunge and ordered a new 20Gb Colour I-Pod I was hoping I may have some guidance on what accessories may help me get full use of it.
I have downloaded the I-Tunes site as I believe that this makes everything easier but do I have to buy their tracks to download to the I-Pod and what formats can I use.
ANY guidance, helpful hints and advice will be greatly appreciated as I mainly bought it to look cool in my 12 year old sons eyes, expensive business these days!!!

Many thanks
Cool Daddy

rogerramjet

You don't need to download from the itune site. I put tracks onto mine in mp3 format, I've not used itune software to convert but I'm sure it will do all the conversion for you. It maybe worthwhile buying a dock (cheapest I've seen is actually from apple for £25.00) if it didn't come with one.

There are a lot of different speakers out there which the ipod just sits into which are pretty good as it means you can use the ipod as a hi-fi (and the unit usually charges at the same time)

I'm sure others will post a lot more ideas for you

BNU_2

loonygooner wrote:

As I have now taken the plunge and ordered a new 20Gb Colour I-Pod I was hoping I may have some guidance on what accessories may help me get full use of it.
I have downloaded the I-Tunes site as I believe that this makes everything easier but do I have to buy their tracks to download to the I-Pod and what formats can I use.
ANY guidance, helpful hints and advice will be greatly appreciated as I mainly bought it to look cool in my 12 year old sons eyes, expensive business these days!!!

Many thanks
Cool Daddy

You will also get iTunes on the installation disk, it also allows you to load in your own CDs and to download free Podcasts (Radio Shows usually) but I have so far found it pretty straight forward.

I am looking for a reasonably priced case/skin for mine (iPod Photo 20GB) at the mo but the choice seems to be either the 'straightlaced' £24.99 leather one from Apple (- nice but not cool if you are trying to impress your son loonygooner) or cheapo ebay ones for about £8 from Hong Kong where the circle cutout does not match up with the control panel on the iPod! Has anyone found a good place to buy these?

Also is it worth buying a docking station for these? You get a USB2 cord with it. Thanks


PS Compatible Docking Stations on eBay for £16 + delivery - but any good?

soolin

I'm not techie at all so I apologise if this doesn't make sense!

All my sons bought Ipods and I allowed them to install the software on my PC and I've had major problems ever since. The software did something very odd to my WIndows media player, it no longer recognises discs or tracks and I can no longer burn anything on to a CD.

I uninstalled the lot, including media player and reinstalled just the MP but still nothing works, I also lost about 10% of my memory. The children assumed I'd done something wrong so installed it on their own PC and the same thing has happened.

I've been desperately trying to find 'a bod' to come and MOT both PCs to see what has happened ever since but finding someone that will work on PCs at my house is proving very difficult.

Soo

JimArnold

what version of media player are you running ?
The latest is version 10 and its a free download from microsoft

wolfman

I'm not a fan of iTunes. It's bloated, resource hungry, and a pain to organise a large music collection. Plus you can only put tracks onto the iPod with it, not the other way. If you do want an alternative for putting music onto your iPod, look up EphPod, or there's a plugin for Winamp. I personally never used iTunes during the years I had an iPod, and even with my Shuffle I still don't use it.

Also, consider getting some form of case (maybe an iSkin). You'll find the finish on the iPod, especially the back scratches easily.

A decent set of headphones is preferably too. The standard ones aren't too bad, but you'll appreciate a better pair.

soolin

JimArnold wrote:

what version of media player are you running ?
The latest is version 10 and its a free download from microsoft

I'm running version 10 and as far as I can see it was a clean download. By that I mean I uninstalled the original media player and all the ipod stuff, did a virus scan and defragmented the PC. I then rebooted and reinstalled MP and it still has a problem.

Soo

BNU_2

wolfman wrote:

I'm not a fan of iTunes. It's bloated, resource hungry, and a pain to organise a large music collection. Plus you can only put tracks onto the iPod with it, not the other way. If you do want an alternative for putting music onto your iPod, look up EphPod, or there's a plugin for Winamp. I personally never used iTunes during the years I had an iPod, and even with my Shuffle I still don't use it.

Also, consider getting some form of case (maybe an iSkin). You'll find the finish on the iPod, especially the back scratches easily.

A decent set of headphones is preferably too. The standard ones aren't too bad, but you'll appreciate a better pair.

Are any of these other programs compatibly with Podcasting though?

Can you recommend a decent supplier for the skins & headphones please?

wolfman

Podcasting isn't an Apple creation (or at least not from what I've read), it's just the name causes confusion between iPods and Podcasting.

Podcasting is, for example, a radio show that is in mp3 format, so is no different from putting a normal music file on your iPod. There's loads of different Podcasting software. I've not looked into it hugely, but there's iPodder, or Winamp has a plugin, or with such sites as the BBC you can just go and download the show yourself via the wbsite (although keeping it in an app is nicer).

For headphones the Shure E2c and E3c are very good but will set you back quite a bit (£40+). Somewhere like https://www.richersounds.co.uk or John Lewis is a good place to pickup some decent headphones for £15-20.

Not sure about an iSkin, go to https://www.ilounge.com (iPod Lounge) as they do reviews of the different skins etc... The iSkin is ok (rubber tight fight sort of skin) but means you can't use the dock without taking it off. Read up on the reviews and see what suits you.

rogerramjet

BNU wrote:

Also is it worth buying a docking station for these? You get a USB2 cord with it. Thanks


PS Compatible Docking Stations on eBay for £16 + delivery - but any good?

Mine came with the dock included (plus leather case and carrying bag:)), what I like about the dock is it has a line out port on it so you can run any (small jack plug) speakers from it/connect to an amp. also the sync cable connects to it

I suppose if my ipod hadn't come with it I wouldn't have known how useful it is

BNU_2

rogerramjet wrote:

Mine came with the dock included (plus leather case and carrying bag:)), what I like about the dock is it has a line out port on it so you can run any (small jack plug) speakers from it/connect to an amp. also the sync cable connects to it

I suppose if my ipod hadn't come with it I wouldn't have known how useful it is

Blimey! Where did you get yours from to get all that lot thrown in?