iPod questions

[kerpow]

I've been meaning to get a new mp3 player for some time to replace my Rio Sport (128mb). It served its purpose but it was not rechargeable and needed badly written software and a specialist cable to communicate.

Having used a flash based mp3 for some time you might therefore be a little surprised that I'm thinking of getting an iPod Shuffle. My reasoning though is firstly, cost. The Mini is £180, 20gb is £220. Not completelly out of my price range but would make a big dent in my bank account. I would miss the extra storage but I think the extra features of the Shuffle may tip the balance. I figure that 1gb would be enough for a weeks worth of travelling to and from work (45 mins each way). I think I read that I can plug it into any computer in the world to recharge it and transfer music. Can anyone confirm that? Obviously I will use iTunes on my own PC at home and Mac at work to transfer playlists and the like, but can I drop a few mp3's from a friends computer onto it (who might not have iTunes).

Also, can it be used essentially like a usb thumbdrive to transfer non music files between computers?

 

[26139]

Yeah...

You need iTunes to transfer music, and yes, you can use it as a normal usb flash drive.

 

[Veldek]

I would miss the extra storage but I think the extra features of the Shuffle may tip the balance.

What features does the Shuffle have that the iPod mini doesn’t?

 

[emw]

There have been several extensive user reviews on the Shuffle posted here, so you might want to look those up as well.

As for comparing it to the iPod mini or iPod 4g, I don't think the Shuffle has any real features the other two don't - aside from flash-disk portability. The other iPods can also shuffle music, act as a hard drive, etc. - they are just larger and more expensive.

The Shuffle is good for short-term music cartage - but you may find yourself changing out your music fairly often. Usage reports have been good, and the price is fairly reasonable, especially compared to many other USB devices.

If your friend doesn't have iTunes, you can drop music onto the device, but only in hard drive mode. I don't think it will play anything that isn't transferred via iTunes 4.7.1.

 

[DougJrS]

I think that music must come form iTunes to be "playable" on any iPod. So to get your friends MP3's to play on your iPod you would need to use iTunes. You could store them on the Shuffle as files then drop them into your iTunes and transfer them back to the iPod.

Since you mentioned multiple syncing (work and home pc) be aware that you cannot transfer songs from the iPod to iTunes. You can only transfer iTunes to iPod not the other way. What I do is buy all my music on my home Mac and copy it to my work PC (which is authorized to play the music).

Doug

 

[kerpow]

What features does the Shuffle have that the iPod mini doesn’t?

The ability to recharge in any computers USB slot or is that not true?

Not needing any cables is a pretty good selling point as well.

I suppose needing iTunes on every PC shouldn't be too much of a problem. I mean I could store the setup.exe for iTunes on the Shuffle itself so even if a friend doesn't even have an Internet connection (or had slow dial-up) I could easily run it from USB, another benefit of the Shuffle over other iPods.