Ipod or MP3?

I have a variety of these devices in my house(due to myself and children). I have had really good luck with both Ipod brand players and philips mp3 players (gogear Vibe 4gb). Loading the songs on the philips players seems to be a little bit easier for me though I admit I haven't spent much time messing with Itunes.

Interesting story about how durable Ipods are, my little brother dropped his Ipod(no clue what model) in my driveway and didn't notice that it was missing. Two days later I found that Ipod after it had been run over at least once and it still worked! He did have problems with the screen functioning for a short time after that but he was able to sort it out by playing with the settings a bit.

I used to have an ipod. I couldn't say that it is just a brand because my old ipod is very durable and still trendy. Now, I have Philipps MP3, same quality, although not that trendy.

Edited by boopme, 29 December 2009 - 10:30 AM.

Funny that nobody pointed out that an iPod is an MP3 player.....

Well, you are right about that, groovicus. But speaking as the lone Creative MP3 listener in a family of Ipod listeners, there is a bit of a distinction, in terms of usage at least. The Ipod and Itunes are tightly intertwined and Itunes is really happiest with AAC encoded files. If you're not going to use Itunes then the argument for the Ipod is a lot harder to make; and if you are planning to use Itunes, then a non-Ipod player is going to be more tedious to manage.

But you're right -- Ipods will play MP3s. And most "MP3" players will also play other formats -- although it gets trickier when DRM is factored into the equation.

iTunes removed their DRM protection didn't they?

I'm not an authority on Itunes, but I have some friends and relatives who know I'm "into music" so I get some gift cards. I believe that the $1.29 songs are DRM-free, but I believe the $.99 songs still have DRM. But I believe that even the DRM-free songs still download as AAC files, which means that I still have to manually convert them to MP3.

As an example, I have some songs from Annie Haslam's "It Snows in Heaven too" that I purchased from Itunes some time ago. When I right-click on them Itunes won't convert them from AAC to MP3 -- it displays an error message about not being able to convert protected files. Those songs still show up in Itunes as $.99 songs, so I assume they still have DRM. My Zen Vision:M won't play AAC files, whether DRMed or not, so this is doubly inconvenient. (Note: Even with the older protected AAC files it is legal to burn them to audio CDs -- I think the limit is/was 3 times. It is then legal to rip the CDs to MP3s -- in fact, in the beginning this was the officially approved method for non-Ipod users to use Itunes.)



EDIT: I should also add that no matter where I buy music from, I always burn them to CD. Hard disks fail, viruses can be nasty ... it's just cheap insurance, IMHO.

Edited by Capn Easy, 31 December 2009 - 10:15 PM.

Apple just installed the "light" form of drm. Something similar to a watermark on a letter or the copyright in pictures. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

...On May 29, 2007, Apple began selling songs and music videos free of DRM from participating record labels. These files mostly adhere to the AAC standard and are playable on many non-Apple products but they do include custom iTunes information such as album artwork and a purchase receipt, so as to identify the customer in case the file is leaked out onto peer-to-peer networks. It is possible, however, to remove these custom tags to restore interoperability with players that conform strictly to the AAC specification...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Audio_Coding

Furthermore:
- Seems this runs under "Itunes Plus"?
- Outdated, interesting and slightly off-topic: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/
- Illustrated article on how FairPlay works

hth and happy new year.

PS: I just stumbled over this: http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt ("Itunes on Steroids", "The Cure for IPhone Envy").
-WARNING - I HAVE NOT TESTED THIS SOFTWARE, BUT READING A BIT OF BACKGROUND INFO THIS COULD BE INTERESTING TO TEST.-

There is some commented Intro Video, Screenshots and stuff at the bottom of the home page linked above.

I've been through a string of MP3 players for various reasons. At this point in time, I have 4 of them sitting on/in my desk. I don't recall model names on all of them but they include an RCA 1GB player (designed to look like a Nano) that plays music, videos, records voice and displays pictures, a 1GB Memorex player that is very basic, single-line text display only but includes an FM tuner, a 4 GB Samsung Nano-clone with a very nice color display and touch-sensitive panel, and the one I use daily, a 4 year old Creative Labs Zen Photo 8GB player. The Zen was my daughter's, but we swapped it out when I bought a Nano for her to use at college. The sole reason for the Nano was that one of her classes delivers supplemental lectures via Podcasts on iTunes, and frankly it's a lot simpler to manage those with iTunes on an iPod than to deal with converting and copying to another brand of MP3 player.

We also have a 20GB Zune in the household, which my son has had for over 2 years now, loves it, and wants to move up to a larger model.

Honestly, I've never had a problem with any of them except for battery life. And so long as I can get through an 8 hour day at work, I'm satisfied. I've carried them all in my pocket or in a fanny pack outside while gardening and cutting grass in the summer, and while shovelling 4 feet of snow and ice away from my mother-in-law's home on Lake Ontario. They just keep working, and that's all I ask.

you dont need itunes, you can use this awesome freeware tool to sync, manage and listen to your music: http://www.mediamonkey.com/information/free/

Thank You !!!!!

You are welcome. I have considered Sharepod for synching lately, because mediamonkey dont like me telling it not to autosync my ipod. but thats probably just me. the combination of both works just great though.