Am I Too Uncool For An iPod?
Over the holidays, I finally became a Pod person. I’ve now got more than 750 tracks loaded, and am loving rediscovering music I’d forgotten I even owned (Hey! another Howling Wolf CD!) Makes my daily power walk a lot more fun (although I have to resist the urge to dance down the street.)
However, getting started with the iPod was irritating. I’ve gotten spoiled by the Apple Mac style - drag and drop, easy and intuitive user interface. I assumed the iPod would be just as simple to get up and running. Uh. No. I’m normally not one for reading documentation but just one tiny piece of paper with “How you load music” would have been very helpful. Then I synced again and wiped out all the music I’d just loaded. Grumble.
And, if I click on “iPod help” - really, I don’t want to be sent to Apple’s web site and then have to click on a video. I just want to ask a simple (simple-minded?) question.
So, is it Apple? Or am I just too uncool? Hmmm….
(I’m expecting delivery of my Macbook today, so we’ll see how that goes…)
P.S. I’ve always thought the Apple commercials were just a tad too smug. I like the schleppy PC guy, even though I much prefer the Apple product. The Apple guy reminds me of the oh-so-young, oh-so-cool guys with whom I’ve frequently had to deal when buying any kind of technology…that is, when I can even get their attention long enough to ask a question (or give them money). “Like, you’re a woman and old enough to be my Mother…what could you possibly understand, know or need?”
P.P.S. I remember my childhood transistor radio very fondly. It seemed magical to me! Sure, the sound was tinny, you could only listen to radio (if you could get the signal) and it was clunky…but, boy, was it easy to use.
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January 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Nah, it’s not just you Mary.
Bought my wife a previous gen nano 2 or 3 years ago. She loves it, but just couldn’t work out how to load music on to it.
I eventually succumbed myself and got one of the regular ipods for video as well as music. Great little devices.
But getting music on ‘em? Arrrgghhhh!
But wait! There’s worse! Try and load *video* on to ‘em.
Gawd it’s horrific!
Have a few home movies of our little boy I wanted on there. Just. Too. Hard. First had to convert them to format X; Then import to i-cant-tunes; then convert again, and HOPEFULLY they wind up on the ipod itself.
I gave up in disgust.
We both have Comp Sci degrees and it’s still too hard for us. Perhaps it’s like child proof devices - that only stop adults? In that itunes is impossible for tech savvy people?
Ok, I admit I’m a linux/unix nerd and all; But I do find it really funny that using the open source, linux based tool “gtkpod” I can trivially and easily get movies and music onto our respective ipods.
I couldn’t get itunes off our laptops fast enough after that. And boy did THAT save several gigabytes of space that itunes had gobbled for some reason.
Video is still not super easy, I have to type a fairly cryptic command line to convert them to the right format, and then copy up. But it’s a once only convert and a heck of a lot faster than it was in windows.
None of this hard sell nonsense that itunes tries to inflict on you any more too. Just a simple tool for copying stuff onto and off an ipod. Perfect!
There may be other third party itunes replacements out there???
Cheers!
- Steve
January 4th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Thanks, Steve!
I feel soooo much better.
Hmmm…child-proof caps - you may have something there.
From a marketing perspective (and you know how I soapbox that everything you do is marketing) - Apple’s target market seems to be the very young (all those oh-so-thin gyrating bodies in the commercials) - so maybe they did this on purpose, heh?
January 4th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
One of the very well kept hidden secrets of the iPOD is that it is NOT easy to set-up. The number of frustrated people that send me notes every Christmas/Valentine’s day is staggering. I had such a hard time that I went well past frustration to a place where I absolutely had to conquer the little piece of…
I love it now but I am not looking forward to the next one.
January 5th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Jeff,
I hear ya. I finally got the hang of it, but I’m rethinking my lust for an iPhone.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:50 am
If you need help down the line there’s a great troubleshooter over at helium, it covers everyting for all iPod models (including touch and shuffle): http://www.helium.com/items/921479-heres-trick-freak-friends