Any joggers with iPods out there?

[Abstract]

Any joggers with iPods? I've decided to crack and forget what I asked 2 weeks ago regarding why I wouldn't buy an iPod in its current form. With the update, it's not in the previous form anymore. :) Now that the battery has been reported to actually be 12+ hours, and all the nit-picky problems of the 3G models about are gone, I want to buy an iPod if it can be used while jogging. The problems I heard of when doing any physical activity with an iPod is one of the BIG reasons I why I said I wouldn't get one.

Anyway, I have read at the Apple board that they have made the situation much better for joggers, but I'm not sure if that's true. I don't want to buy a player that I can't do anything but walk with. :o

And if you jog, how do you jog with it? Where do you carry it? On your waist, or maybe the upper arm? What case do you use? What happens when the cache runs out? Does the HDD crash?

[varmit]

Any joggers with iPods? I've decided to crack and forget what I asked 2 weeks ago regarding why I wouldn't buy an iPod in its current form. With the update, it's not in the previous form anymore. :) Now that the battery has been reported to actually be 12+ hours, and all the nit-picky problems of the 3G models about are gone, I want to buy an iPod if it can be used while jogging. The problems I heard of when doing any physical activity with an iPod is one of the BIG reasons I why I said I wouldn't get one.

Anyway, I have read at the Apple board that they have made the situation much better for joggers, but I'm not sure if that's true. I don't want to buy a player that I can't do anything but walk with. :o

And if you jog, how do you jog with it? Where do you carry it? On your waist, or maybe the upper arm? What case do you use? What happens when the cache runs out? Does the HDD crash?

Get a mini iPod, and wear it either on your waist or use an arm band. I'm not sure if the new 4th generation iPods are skip protected like the mini's are.

I think it skips like a CD player, just stops till it can read again.

[w00tmaster]

I jog with my 3G iPod just fine. I put it in it's little case and just hold it(they aren't all that big, it's not a problem) I have had no problems with the hard drive or cache at all. They aren't nearly as fragile as you seem to think they are. They were designed to be rugged and they are. If size is a concern with you, you can always go with the iPod mini, those strap on your arm very nicely.

[ColoJohnBoy]

I run every day (Not jog, RUN) for about 45 minutes with my iPod mini on my waist, simply using the provided belt clip, and I haven't experienced a single skip - excellent quality the entire time. Come to think of it, the only problem I've experienced with it comes from my running too vigorously and yanking the headphone jack out. Even the bloody earbuds stay in place the entire time. What I'm trying (Albeit in a rather circuitous fashion) is that you've nothing to worry about. :p

[Cordless_Drill]

I jog with my 3G 15GB. I've had some skip problems. I bought an eVo2 skin with the clip on the back. It holds the ipod in place, but the up-and-down running generally means my iPod locks up after 30 minutes or so.

If you stop, it usually finds its place and starts back up. It's not a big deal. I need a break every now and then...

With that said, I'd rather have a mini. No doubt.

[aricher]

I jog with my 3G every day - never a problem - I usually just hold it in my hand. I've been snowboarding with it as well - never a problem - even during serious wipeouts.

[Jovian9]

I have jogged, rode my bike, and played basketball with the 2G and 3G iPods.......all on my upper arm (with a Marware Sportsuit Convertible Case and Armband). I have rarely had any skipping/hesitation. The 2G was more reliable though......but I think this has to do with the fact that I started using Apples Lossless Encoding after I got the 3G iPod. I've noticed that the larger the files, the more likely you will get skipping/hesitation while jogging.......especially with the lossless encoding or 300+bit AAC encoding (songs encoded with that high of quality are the only ones that have ever skipped). Nothing that I have encoded under 300AAC has ever skipped/hesitated on me while doing the above exercises.

[smurfsgonewild]

The 4g has like 25 mins of skip protection. I haven't jogged with it any but I shook mine around a pretty good bit while it was playing and I didn't have any problem at all with it skipping. Hope this helps.

[Abstract]

I jog with my 3G 15GB. I've had some skip problems. I bought an eVo2 skin with the clip on the back. It holds the ipod in place, but the up-and-down running generally means my iPod locks up after 30 minutes or so.

If you stop, it usually finds its place and starts back up. It's not a big deal. I need a break every now and then...

With that said, I'd rather have a mini. No doubt.

I'd rather have a mini as well, but the battery life and small capacity is a bit of a problem. I'd wait for a 6GB iPod mini, but I don't see the point of ever waiting for something to catch up to ME. ;)

I've read that the secret to having skip-free action is to wear it on your upper arm, but its hard to get such an accessory for an iPod here in Australia. Wearing it on your waist isn't good because of the up-and-down bouncing you do when you run.

And simply due to basic physics, carrying it in your hand is the worst place to carry it because it suffers from the most "motion" along your arm (just like how the end of a baseball bat moves faster than the rest of the baseball bat when swung). The upper arm moves less, while the shoulder moves the least, but a shoulder strap doesn't exist and would be annoying anyway. :)

Thanks guys. I just wanted to hear from a few joggers out there who have had success.

[jsw]

And simply due to basic physics, carrying it in your hand is the worst place to carry it because it suffers from the most "motion" along your arm (just like how the end of a baseball bat moves faster than the rest of the baseball bat when swung). The upper arm moves less, while the shoulder moves the least, but a shoulder strap doesn't exist and would be annoying anyway. :)

Actually, though, the g-forces are pretty minor in the hands due to the fact that the impact of running has been absorbed by the arms themselves pretty well. So, even if the hands move more, they don't experience as much rapid acceleration.

[toughboy]

I jog with my 3G every day - never a problem - I usually just hold it in my hand. I've been snowboarding with it as well - never a problem - even during serious wipeouts.

Same here.. I use my iPod on jogging and snowboarding and its just perfect.. I put it in its own little black bag which comes with the package and either hold it when I run or place it somewhere close to my body where it wont shake-move alot..

I'd never go mini just for jogging.. 50 bucks for 5 times capacity is insanely great if you dont care the size...

[superbovine]

man that makes me the lazy ass.

[Abstract]

Actually, though, the g-forces are pretty minor in the hands due to the fact that the impact of running has been absorbed by the arms themselves pretty well. So, even if the hands move more, they don't experience as much rapid acceleration.

Well the iPod will move moreso in your hand, and will move faster. So when your arms are moving back and forth, it WILL feel a greater amount of "g-force" or whatever. Its just a matter of inertia forcing the innards to move, especially when you swing your arm forward, but then swing your arm backwards almost immediately.


I have rarely had any skipping/hesitation. The 2G was more reliable though......but I think this has to do with the fact that I started using Apples Lossless Encoding after I got the 3G iPod. I've noticed that the larger the files, the more likely you will get skipping/hesitation while jogging.......
(snip!)
.... Nothing that I have encoded under 300AAC has ever skipped/hesitated on me while doing the above exercises.

Yeah, that sounds right, which is one reason I'm concerned, because my mp3's are either encoded at 192 kbps, or 320 kbps. I have some 128 kbps mp3s, but now I encode my mp3s to be better quality because I don't use my HDD space for much.
And yes, the 4G has 25 minutes of skip protection, but only if ALL the mp3s are encoded at 128 kbps quality. You'll get less protection at higher bit rates because the cache is used up faster, and less songs can fit on the cache if the files are bigger. This is why Apple Lossless isn't a good idea for iPods.
:(

Anyway, thanks guys. Its good to know that some of you actually hold it in your hand while jogging with no problems. I'll get an arm band for mine, and it should be supa-fine! :)

[ewinemiller]

My wife and I both run with our 3G 30 gig. We hold it, it's too heavy to clip to elastic waisted shorts. When we first got it, we'd notice it hang when it's buffer ran out. As we figured out what was happening we made an effort to keep it steadier as we ran and haven't had a problem since. I wouldn't hesistate to recommend one to a runner.

[applebum]

Well the iPod will move moreso in your hand, and will move faster. So when your arms are moving back and forth, it WILL feel a greater amount of "g-force" or whatever. Its just a matter of inertia forcing the innards to move, especially when you swing your arm forward, but then swing your arm backwards almost immediately.


Sorry, I don't know much physics. All I know is that when I jog with it (3G 30gig) in my hand it doesn't skip. When I wear it around my waist (I have a belt made just for that) it skips. I don't swing my hands very much when running, so the iPod stays pretty still. I have read this same thing many times over at iPodlounge.com.

[SPSady]

I have the same problem while jogging. My older 10GB IPod locks up after around 15-20+ minutes while jogging. I did get a replacement 10 GB IPod at the time (about 1 year ago) and it did the same thing! I reset, but then the playing time was much less (1-2 songs). This is very frustrating while jogging especially if you are in a rhythm-no pun intended.
Apparently, this is a common problem- when one searches the internet and these types of discussions, one often reads about this problem.
OK, so I gave the IPod another chance. I purchased a new 20GB IPod less than one month ago--and the same thing happened!! I called Apple and was told that they only guarantee 25 minutes of continuous play. 25 minutes of song are written to cache and then you have to reset!!! They could not tell me how the IPod chooses which songs to put into cache. Well, after 2 more attempts at jogging with the Ipod, I still had the same problem. Resetting did not re-establish another continuous 25 minutes, but again only 1-2 songs played before freezing. Moreover, it did not really play for 25 minutes, but more like 15-20 minutes. So I returned the Ipod for a full refund!
Any solutions? Can anyone enlighten me regarding directing songs into cache. When I jog I I attach the Ipod via a belt clip to my waist. It's not really bouncing that much. It seems to work fine when I walk or not move at all.
Any other MP3+ players which don't lock up while jogging.
Thank you.

[Manzana]

ok, so what does everyone jogging with the iPod do regarding the sweat? Is it bad to hold it in your hand with sweat dripping down on it?

[~Shard~]

I have a pretty intense running workout that I do all the time (jogs, sprints, inclines, intervals, everything) so I'm just pounding the treadmill/ground when I'm out running, and I can honestly say I've never had one skip on my 3G iPod. If someone has made their 3G iPod skip by running, I'd like to know how because I've done everything I possibly can and have never experienced that once! ;) :cool:

[gwuMACaddict]

i'm training for the marine corps marathon this fall. i run everything from cross country to stair sets and wind sprints, my iPod has never once skipped ever. my long runs are around 20 miles, no skipping. ever. i've even dropped the darn thing- no skip. i've used an original 5gig, 2nd gen 10gig, and a 3rd gen 15gig- never any trouble.

as for the sweating, bought a neoprene case that was at the apple store in VA. works like a charm.

[Abstract]

@SPSady: So passe. I already bought my iPod, ran the City To Surf run in Sydney.....14km.....no skipping. ;)

It depends on how you run. I ended up buying it because I don't swing my arms much when I run, so its not a big deal.

And about the cache: your iPod moves 25MB of music from the hard drive (HD) into cache memory (not 25 minutes) and plays the music from cache memory. It happens to be 25 minutes antiskip if your songs are encoded at 128kbps AAC or Mp3 format.

Your anti-skip will barely work if your song files are large. Its not possible to skip the player when the songs are playing off the cache. It only skips when it's loading songs from the HD and you happen to shake it at the wrong time. So the larger your song files are, the more often your iPod has to fetch songs from the HD, which is when shakes and vibrations will make your HD freeze up or skip.

If your iPod has 25MB of cache memory, and you have six 128 kbps song files loaded onto your iPod, then it won't skip at all during those 6 songs. If your files are encoded at twice the size, 256 kbps, then your iPod will load only 3 songs instead of 6 into cache memory,and so your iPod will fetch songs from your HD twice as often.

The battery life is also less if you encode your files at larger sizes. Eg: Since a 192 kbps mp3/AAC is around 50% larger than a 128 kbps mp3/AAC file, it'll fill up the cache with less songs, and will fetch songs from the HDD 50% more often. Since the HDD is uses most of your battery life, you'll get less battery life if you use large files.

[aptmunich]

Get a mini iPod, and wear it either on your waist or use an arm band. I'm not sure if the new 4th generation iPods are skip protected like the mini's are.

I think it skips like a CD player, just stops till it can read again.


jeez, talk about talking out of your arse... ;)

all ipods have a small memory cache, where songs are pre-loaded from the harddrive. This means the harddrive doesn't spin all the time and battery life is thus saved.

That is why the 4th gen ipod runs longer than the 3rd gen despite having the same battery: They increased the cache size.

Basically more songs can now be stored in the cache, and the harddrive will only spin up after the music in the cache has been used up.

THE ORDER in which the cache is filled is simply the order of your songs...so if you select a playlist, it will select the next 'cachefull' of that playlist.

If you select an album, it will add the next songs from that. If you're on random play, it will randomly pre-select the next songs and store them in the cache...

Most users I've heard from achieve best results when holding the ipod in their hands, despite the G-forces present ;)

This is because it isn't the swing that causes the harddrive to skip, but the jarring that occurs when your feet hit the ground. I suppose that as your hands are connected by a few joints to your torso, most of the shock is absorbed before it reaches them...

I'd suggest making a playlist for your jogs, avoid lossless files and high bitrate mp3's/aac's (larger files = more cache used per song = less jogtime) and don't change playlists/songs whilst jogging...

If you feel the harddrive spinning up, stop or at least try to run gently to avoid skipping/damaging the drive...

Best way though is to get a armband for it (www.marware.com / www.apple.com for the mini)


Hope this helps


aptmunich

p.s. I don't jog that much, despite all my advice, but I do read a lot of posts on ipodlounge.com ;)

[Jovian9]

I have jogged, rode my bike, and played basketball with the 2G and 3G iPods.......all on my upper arm (with a Marware Sportsuit Convertible Case and Armband). I have rarely had any skipping/hesitation. The 2G was more reliable though......but I think this has to do with the fact that I started using Apples Lossless Encoding after I got the 3G iPod. I've noticed that the larger the files, the more likely you will get skipping/hesitation while jogging.......especially with the lossless encoding or 300+bit AAC encoding (songs encoded with that high of quality are the only ones that have ever skipped). Nothing that I have encoded under 300AAC has ever skipped/hesitated on me while doing the above exercises.

My wife and I now have a 40GB 4G and a mini and I have done the above activities with those without problems or skipping. If you get a mini, get the armband. If you get a regular iPod.....look into the Marware Sportsuit Convertible cases with armbands.

[Abstract]

jeez, talk about talking out of your arse... ;)

all ipods have a small memory cache, where songs are pre-loaded from the harddrive. This means the harddrive doesn't spin all the time and battery life is thus saved.

That is why the 4th gen ipod runs longer than the 3rd gen despite having the same battery: They increased the cache size.



Actually, they increased the size of the battery. Head honcho of design at Apple said so. Some early reports of all this improvement due to better battery management is false, although it contributes to the longer battery life. The cache size is the same as before --- 25 minutes. I believe the 1st gen iPods had a 7 minute cache, but the 4G and 3G have the same cache size.

[Lacke]

But is the iPod safe against sweat? I mean, when I am out running I tend to sweat a lot. So will the iPod take any damage from the sweat?

[Abstract]

Just soak it in water, and it'll be fine. :p

Okay okay, just wipe it down with a cloth or something afterwards. When I get home from a jog, I just wipe it on a towel or shirt or something. ;) Its fine. Its not like its going to turn ugly if there's sweat on it. I don't normally cover it with a case though because with my hand already adding heat to it, do I really want to put a case over it to insulate it more?

Heat isn't good for the Li-Ion battery or any device of this sort.

[~Shard~]

But is the iPod safe against sweat? I mean, when I am out running I tend to sweat a lot. So will the iPod take any damage from the sweat?

A nice case (neoprene works great) will definitely solve that problem. But even without the case, I don't know if sweat would really do much to it...

[Bruce Lee, PhD]

Well the iPod will move moreso in your hand, and will move faster. So when your arms are moving back and forth, it WILL feel a greater amount of "g-force" or whatever. Its just a matter of inertia forcing the innards to move, especially when you swing your arm forward, but then swing your arm backwards almost immediately.

I'm pretty sure jsw is right on this one. It's not the amount of motion, it's the amount of force the thing experiences. The forces you put on the ipod when you reverse the direction your arm travels, or the forces imposed on the ipod when your arm rotates, are pretty small compared to the forces imposed on your knees and hips (and thus on a hip-mounted ipod) when the ground pushes back on your foot. You are right that the static g-force experienced by the ipod will be largest when held in your hand, but this is still a relatively small force compared to the sudden change of direction when your foot hits the ground.

If your arm really experienced a lot of force, runners would be complaining about shoulder and elbow problems instead of knee problems. :-)

[Lacke]

Just soak it in water, and it'll be fine. :p

Okay okay, just wipe it down with a cloth or something afterwards. When I get home from a jog, I just wipe it on a towel or shirt or something. ;) Its fine. Its not like its going to turn ugly if there's sweat on it. I don't normally cover it with a case though because with my hand already adding heat to it, do I really want to put a case over it to insulate it more?

Heat isn't good for the Li-Ion battery or any device of this sort.

Ok, I'll give it a try next time I go out for a run. Never dared before, I don't want to do any harm to my iPod. :)

[sun25]

I have a 3g 15 gig, which has never skiped on me from jogging to sprinting. :)

[howard]

I have a no moving parts (3rdgen?) ipod and when i go jogging sometimes it b0rks out on me. (i have to say i really love the word bork which i've heard some of you use) anyway it just freezes up. Sometimes its fine and sometimes it does this. If i leave it alone for awhile and restart it it will be better. Sometimes i have to do the hold down menu and play thing to get it working again.

anyone else have this problem and anyone know of any fixes??

also i wear it on the belt clip on my right side, so it does bounce around quite a bit but its really the only place to put it unless i hold it in my hand the whole time, which i might try even thought thats kinda annoying

[applekid]

I jogged with my 3G 15 GB iPod once.

To address your concerns, here I go:

- I jogged for about an hour that day. I had the iPod clipped to my waist for most of the jog. Then, since I felt uncomfortable, I clipped it to the pull-string on my shorts after tying it close to myself. Then it came loose enough for the iPod belt clip to be hanging on barely to my shorts. A few more steps and my iPod with its case snapped of and hit the concrete (headphone jack-first!). Crack! I pick up my iPod to only see a few scratches near the Hold button, I press play since my music paused and I hear some static. Then, I give it a restart and all is well. Now, this happened about four months ago, and I have not checked my iPod for any hard drive damages and it's running great.

- Just to show how rugged an iPod is, I've dropped my iPod on hard concrete and a friend's wooden deck more than five times now since I got my iPod. Not a single hardware problem to report. Rugged, ey?

- I would recommend either wearing a belt of some sort with your pants when jogging. I'd also recommend trying to find some sort of elastic band you could put on your arm. Better yet, buy an iPod mini case, and take the elastic arm band. If I'm not mistaken, the belt clip that comes with the iPod mini clips to the elastic arm band, so clipping on an iPod shouldn't be a problem. I'm not sure about that. BUT, I have seen some regular iPod cases with wristbands. Everythingipod.com has a lot of accessories.

- I often see people holding their iPods while jogging. As long as you're no butter fingers, carry your iPod in its case while jogging.

- If you still feel uncomfortable about an iPod for jogging, remember there's an assortment of flash-based players out there. The iPod mini for starters, and I've seen a ton of those tiny flash-based MP3 players (size of a lighter, I guess) going well under $200 with about a 512 MB or a gig at Best Buy just yesterday when I went to buy a Cruzer Micro. And of course, come MWSF, there may be some sort of small-capacity flash-based MP3 player by Apple.

- I think heat lowers the batter capacity momentarily until you bring it to a lower temperature (like room temp). I remember leaving my iPod in my car during the summer, came back, and the battery was dead. I went inside, left it in my room, took a shower, came back, and my iPod still had enough juice to play a few more tunes. And for other devices, I had similar things happen (like digital cameras, video cameras, etc.) where the battery would say its low, leave it alone, and it'll have enough of a charge, but those were with non Li-Ion batteries, mostly.

[Will Curran]

When my 3g iPod would allow me to put music on it, I would run to practice for cross country. Just get an arm band and your ready to go. I'd run for like an hour and never skipped. Techno is good running music.

[slooksterPSV]

When my 3g iPod would allow me to put music on it, I would run to practice for cross country. Just get an arm band and your ready to go. I'd run for like an hour and never skipped. Techno is good running music.

Isn't it true Will. When you hear Techno, or Trance, it just gives you this sort of energy that just allows you to do a ton of things. I love listening to Trance.
My friend has an iPod and he goes out jogging once in a while. The one thing he told me about it is that I'd better have a velcro pocket so that it doesn't fall out and break or that. Other than that, it runs fine when he's jogging. (Sorry, didn't read first post, but I get thats what you're asking)

[Jovian9]

I have jogged, rode my bike, and played basketball with the 2G and 3G iPods.......all on my upper arm (with a Marware Sportsuit Convertible Case and Armband). I have rarely had any skipping/hesitation. The 2G was more reliable though......but I think this has to do with the fact that I started using Apples Lossless Encoding after I got the 3G iPod. I've noticed that the larger the files, the more likely you will get skipping/hesitation while jogging.......especially with the lossless encoding or 300+bit AAC encoding (songs encoded with that high of quality are the only ones that have ever skipped). Nothing that I have encoded under 300AAC has ever skipped/hesitated on me while doing the above exercises.

I'm updating my exercise experiences with the iPod. I have now used (in addition to the above) a 4G 40GB, an iPod Mini, and a 40GB iPod Photo. I have had zero skipping while doing any sort of exercise on the 3 I just listed. I use the Apple armband for the mini and the armband from XtremeMac for the 4G (which I no longer have) and the iPod Photo.

[Mechcozmo]

I have run with a 1G iPod... I get a workout by trying to run with it! :)

I have dropped it and it runs...
I do keep it in a nice case...
Make sure that you have nice running earbuds. Mine sometimes pull themselves out. :mad:


Otherwise, run like the wind!

[Abstract]

Well since this was my thread, all I can now say is "Use an armband." They work, and I rarely get any skips on my 4G. Even if it skips, I just stop running for 10 seconds, and the music picks up where it left off. No probs. :)

I'm updating my exercise experiences with the iPod. I have now used (in addition to the above) a 4G 40GB, an iPod Mini, and a 40GB iPod Photo. I have had zero skipping while doing any sort of exercise on the 3 I just listed. I use the Apple armband for the mini and the armband from XtremeMac for the 4G (which I no longer have) and the iPod Photo.

The iPod photo gets less skip protection/memory, so be careful if you're thinking about getting it and plan on jogging, as jogging is continuous and needs the better skip protection.

I think the regular 4G is great for jogging, and I actually held it in my hand while jogging for the first 3 months or so of jogging. I rarely ever had a skip. If anything, my armband has caused more skips (a few skips per month). However, not having to hold it in your sweaty palms is a good benefit.

I can't even imagine using a belt clip.

[~Shard~]

Isn't it true Will. When you hear Techno, or Trance, it just gives you this sort of energy that just allows you to do a ton of things. I love listening to Trance.

I agree - music is great exercise for your mind, and physical activity is great exercise for your body, so why not combine the two? As for electronic music, I have every single BBC Radio One Essential Mix ever recorded since 1993 (save about 6 shows), so you can imagine what a good chunk of my iPod is loaded with! One show a week, 52 weeks in a year, 11 years, 2-hour sets minimum each week - that's a lot of music.... :eek: Great for working out though. :cool:

[~Shard~]

Well since this was my thread, all I can now say is "Use an armband." They work, and I rarely get any skips on my 4G. Even if it skips, I just stop running for 10 seconds, and the music picks up where it left off. No probs. :)

Yep, I agree with that - they're very handy. One setup which I've heard is pretty good is the DLO Action Jacket. Never used it, but supposedly both the belt clip and arm band are quite good...

[Lacke]

I bought the Marware 3G SportSuit Convertible and it works great! :D

I usually run for just 35 min but the music has never skipped. I use the armband that comes with the Marware SportSuit and attach it around my right arm. No problems. I am very satisfied. :)