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20030429 Tuesday April 29, 2003

iPod: Glad I waited New iPod Thanks to Kurt, I decided to wait on my purchase of an iPod. And boy am I glad I did - I was going to get a 5 giger for $299 and now I can get a 15 giger for $299! Sweeeet! Now I just have to figure out how I can use the shared drive on my XP machine as a music repository for iTunes. Importing songs across my network takes waaayyy too long. Posted in Mac OS X at Apr 29 2003, 07:38:17 AM MDT 6 Comments

Comments:

I can help you get this setup. Bascially you just need to have XP share via Windows File Sharing (aka Samba) the directory with your mp3s and then import that shared directory into iTunes. The downside is that you won't be able to play your mp3s on your TiBook when you aren't connected to your XP machine and the import may be slow.

Posted by Kurt on April 29, 2003 at 08:07 AM MDT #

I've been surprised by the replies that you have gotten on the iPOD. As a somewhat unhappy owner of an Windows iPOD, I would suggest getting and using it with Mac OS X. It does look like this is what you plan to do. I was under the impression the latest version of OS X worked/played better with Windows shared drives. The problem with the Windows version isn't the iPOD, but the crappy, buggy MusicMatch software that doesn't work. Whatever you do NEVER install the iPOD plug for MusicMatch. Ever version has crashed my computer. The version on installation CD caused some many problems, I had to Ghost my machine. I use XPlay software find it to be the best solution right now, but this is not perfect. Ephpod (not sure that is correct spelling) is nice free software program, but I had a lot of crashes on my PC. Windows users are also second-class citizens with respect to updates, patches and new features. Thus, Windows users will not have ACC support, access to Apple music service to late this year or early next year. I really can't blame Apple too much for this, because make sense for marketing and technical point of view. I sure it much easier to support OS X, since they have control of everything compaired to Windows where they have control off next to nothing. I think the addition of USB 2.0 was more an admission of how piss-poor 1394 is supported on Windows platform. Several people have complained that 1394 port will not work with iPOD. If you do go with an Windows iPOD buy an Adptec 1394 card, these work the best with the iPOD. It is also the common recommend solution to problems from Apple. Personally, I wish Apple would release iTunes for Windows or release an API, so that someone could write a good program for us Windows iPOD users.

Posted by Jeff Duska on April 29, 2003 at 08:10 AM MDT #

I just reread my post it sound a bit harsh. I wanted point out that iPod itself is awesome. It just the software included with iPod doesn't my expectations from Apple. They would have must better served by bundling XPlay from Mediafour instead. I think for the money any iPod owner drops on on an iPod, the software should top notch.

Posted by Jeff Duska on April 29, 2003 at 08:17 AM MDT #

There is no doubt in my mind at an iPod is jut not the same on a PC then on a Mac. Apple makes it this way purposely. iTunes on OS X is definatly the best way to go for the iPod and storeing your tunes. Then I would recommend connectiong to your OS X box from WinXP to play your MP3s on Windose.

Posted by Kurt on April 29, 2003 at 03:52 PM MDT #

Matt, Did you mean to say 10Gb for 299$ or did u actually end up buying 15GB for 299? -Arjun

Posted by Arjun on April 29, 2003 at 03:58 PM MDT #

Arjun - looks like I was wrong - I thought the new iPod was going to be $299 for 15 GB. However, it turns out - there is only a 10 GB for $299. Oh well, that's plenty of music for me!

Posted by Matt Raible on April 29, 2003 at 07:39 PM MDT #

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