Slave2daGroove said:

iTunes makes song transfers from your Mac/PC to your iPod even EASIER than drag-and-drop. How about just "click"? One click, and iTunes syncs the music on your Mac/PC to your iPod. Takes a while the first time (especially if you have a huge song library), but once the songs are on your iPod, any time you add new music in iTunes, just plug in your iPod and click "update songs on iPod" and iTunes does the rest.

You can keep your MP3s in the organizational structure you have. To get them into iTunes, you can drag folders of music into iTunes. iTunes will sort them by song, album, artist, compilation, genre, or whatever.

And yes, you can use the iPod as an external hard drive and copy anything on it that'll fit.
[This message was edited Wed Mar 10 15:11:27 2004 by Doozer]

yamomma said:

Well, they started off in education sales only, but now anyone can by one. If you need a G4, a Superdrive and a 17" monitor and can only afford less than $1000, the eMac is the Mac for you. You could certainly do a lot worse for $999, anyway.

Slave2daGroove said:

Download iTunes and try it out.

http://www.apple.com/itunes/

It's a lot more convenient than trying to organize on your hard disk. You can browse by artist, by album, by album per artist, see all your songs. In iTunes, you type part of the name and it filters out only files with that in it. YOu can have smart playlists, you can have manual play lists, you can rate your songs, etc., etc.. You can set up a smart playlist for only "Prince" and every time you load in a new CD, if it's Prince, it goes in that smart play list. You can set up a playlist of only songs you've rated 5 stars. And every time you rate a song, it goes in that play list. YOu can do one of songs you haven't listened to yet, etc, etc. Just try it out and you'll be amazed compared to organizing files by hand on your hard disk.

And when you plug an iPod in, all of this syncs up automatically. The iPod has the same playlists, the same browsing, etc. And the space on the iPod that isn't used by your music is available for disk storage. Use it for backups, use it to transport files, etc.

iTunes is by far the best "jukebox" application out there.

You can't really understand until you USE it (so download it, it's free). The ability to put songs into custom playlists, assign them into different groups or genres, or simply to leave AS IS and have access to your entire music library. Nothing like it.

The User Interface in iTunes is SOOOO simple and clean, it makes Musicmatch look amateurish. Plus, the exchange between the iPod and iTunes is flawless.

I would highly recommend iTunes to everyone - the Mac users AND the PC users. Plus, with iTunes, you can encode in AAC Format (which is closer to CD quality at smaller sizes).

My only complaints about the iPod I've already said -- too expensive and prone to scratches. That's it.

alandail said:

I have used this disk feature to store digital photos and non-music files. I knew I was getting a new computer, and my OLD computer didn't have a CD-burner, so I transferred all my files onto the iPod. Then, when I got the new computer, transferred them off the iPod and archived them onto CD.

My suggestions for future iPods: in iTunes, sell music videos formatted specifically for the iPod (the new iPods would have to have color screens). The videos could sell for either 99 cents or up to $1.99. A lot of us would buy them, I think, if the audio portion was the same quality as what they're offering now. The video would only have to be the size of the iPod screen, so downloading would be no problem.

Also, on the iPod, it could be cool to show album artwork as well on the screen (in full color).

Then, in iTunes, make it so the little "artwork" window played the video.

I know, I know . . it's a lot to ask for, but it could happen.

Moving to General Discussion.

Slave2daGroove said:

If drag and drop is an important feature for you, check out iRiver's iHP models. http://www.iriveramerica...._index.asp

I own the 20GB version. When you copy your files over to the player, it keeps the file structure intact. And you have the option of browsing through your music in file-tree mode, or by activating the Database function and browsing for your music by Artist, Album, Genre or Title.

I just got a Powerbook G4 a few months ago and it's amazing! I can do so much more with it than I thought I would B able to. I do lots of recording and audio production with it and in that arena it kicks a PC's ass 10 ways to Friday. I've been thinking about an iPod because I've got about 10.4 GB of music on my comp here and it takes up a lot of space (I've only got a 40 GB hard drive) Plus being able to just take it with you is nice.

I definitely don't get the slimy vibe from Apple that I do from Microsoft. Apple products seem designed with the consumer in mind rather than just trying to make a quick buck (i.e. all those friggin Windows upgrades!) But at the same time I hope Apple stays the lesser used of the two formats because then I'm sure more of these hacker types will start programming viruses for them.