tell me about mp3 players

[donblood]

COBY DISCPERSON

[Greg Nog]

That dude has a great lifehacking/SQL blog

[diesel_powered]

Although I think we're really just debating features here, I would like to mention that the Classics are indeed engineered to overcome the issues with having mechanical hard drives in portable devices. It's not like you're hanging a bare Seagate on your belt or something.

[sassymcassface]

I've heard nothing but bad things about Zune's software. Hmm.

They changed the software and at first it was really shitty. It's super picky about how your music is tagged, which is a huge pain in the ass if you have oddly tagged audiobooks or compilation CDs, but seriously. Full cup of hot coffee, no problems. I also like the fact that it has radio, so I can listen to the news. And the lack of a scroll wheel, because those are horrible things.

[elpollodiablo]

Yeah I think it's utterly retarded how Apple refuses to add an FM tuner out of like pure obstinance. When I was training at the Apple store they were still giving that bullshit line about form factor and space requirements, but if any little shitty $30 mp3 player can do it, I'm pretty sure they could figure it out.

[coldforge]

Who gives a fuck about FM tuners? I can think of a zillion good reasons not to include an FM tuner that don't have to do with space, but most of them boil down to 'FM Radio sucks and is frustrating, and I don't want to infect my iPod with frustrating suckage'.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Hah, I would love to hear someone from Apple try to actually use that argument. "We're not putting an FM tuner on our mp3 player because we're snobs!"

[elpollodiablo]

What the fuck are you talking about? That's the belligerent, willfully ignorant bullshit I was talking about. "We don't think much of this extra functionality so we're not going to include it even though it doesn't detract from the overall use of the device in the slightest and in fact adds a little something that you don't have to fuck with if you don't want to"

xpost, yes Andrew exactly

[coldforge]

No, I'm serious. iPods are cool because they work so well. FM Radio is an obsolete format, with a confusing, outdated interface and serious quality control problems. If mp3s were as kludgy as FM radio, and had to be navigated in such a silly way, they'd never have made an iPod in the first place. AVOIDING the mentality of 'we're gonna add this thing that might be a little iffy but you don't have to fuck with it if you don't want to' is exactly what made the iPod so successful. If Apple had decided to devote resources to FM Radio, not only would there be something on the iPod that didn't work that well and was kind of frustrating, but the rest of the thing would have suffered because they'd have devoted developer and design resources to it in the first place.

[donblood]

cf knows the meaning of "opportunity cost"

can you get this?

http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/10/apple-ipod-radio-remote-adds-fm-to-ipods/

(sorry no link, board reply is busto)

[diesel_powered]

Yeah, that's basically what I've read on the matter. Apple would rather not put it in than devote effort to something that may or may not work in the end. And lets' be honest here, there's no way a tuner that small could be as effective as the rest of the iPod.

[coldforge]

Incidentally, I think 'It's so totally stupid that this company doesn't put a feature I would like in their mp3 player' is more willfully ignorant than 'Even though you would like that feature, it would be more of a detraction than a benefit in the context of the whole device.'

[jebreject]

Uhhh I am so indecisive. Basically I just have to decide whether the space is really that important to me or not. I'm pretty sold on all the nifty shininess of the touch though. I really don't want to shill out the extra monthly dough for a smart phone, 'cause right now I'm not even close to being able to afford it, so the Touch would give me a lot of that functionality that I'm looking for. I don't know, like I said, I'm still pretty undecided--it's hard to say no to 125 gigs.

[diesel_powered]

Do the classics have higher-end audio hardware? FWIW, I remember reading somewhere that the Classic had better audio.

[davy]

No, I'm serious. iPods are cool because they work so well. ... AVOIDING the mentality of 'we're gonna add this thing that might be a little iffy but you don't have to fuck with it if you don't want to' is exactly what made the iPod so successful.

Gotta agree with cf here, though I should note that I haven't listened to FM radio with any regularity since I was a wee tot.

[coldforge]

YEAH BOY

[alistarr*]

i too agree that the ipod shouldn't have fm radio for all the above reasons, but i wouldn't have bought my mp3 player if it didn't have fm radio. certain people are picky about certain things that won't happen in the market leader's product and for those people, the world outside of the market leader is a good place to think about investigating.

and hey, radio isn't awful. digital radio is far better organised, yes, but the general concept is sound (if you'll pardon the pun). not knowing much about classical music or jazz, for example, the radio provides things to me which i wouldn't otherwise have been confident about exploring.

anyway, jeb, for goodness' sake get the one that sounds good. i have had a crappy sounding mp3 player. it was not a good time for me.

[jebreject]

By the by, I checked out some of the Sony and Toshiba mp3 players (or at least the ones they sell on Amazon) and none of them seemed too appealing. The prices were good on the Sony Walkman, but they didn't offer more than I think 8 gigs, and the Toshiba that offered 30 was 300 fuck dollars.

[elpollodiablo]

That's $412 in 2009 money

[alistarr*]

weird, sony do a 16GB here, as of september. not sure why they'd not have it in the US.

Sony NWZ-S639FB 16GB Drag & Drop MP4 Video Player with FM Tuner, Black

[alistarr*]

man, i really want one of those now.

[Aglaya]

Ok, I didn't find it in search, and I don't feel like slogging through all these posts.  someone posted a good program for getting songs from an ipod onto a computer.  It was free.  I had it on an old computer, and don't recall what it was, but it worked.  Anybody?

[jess]

Senuti (it's iTunes backwards) works great, at least on a Mac, not sure if there's a Windows version.

[Aglaya]

There's not a Windows version, but looking for it led me to something that works, so thanks!

[elpollodiablo]

I find it pretty amusing that iTunes thinks I'd be willing to pay twice for the same song just so I can have a 30 second ringtone version of it