iPod Shuffle?

[Binoculars]

Wandered into the Apple website to check out the Mac Mini and saw the iPod Shuffle. 512Mb for $149. Now that's worth thinking about for someone who couldn't possibly justify the bigger capacity iPod prices. Anyone got one? Comments?

Also interested in hearing from owners of opposition brands of the same capacity that may be even cheaper. Price is the driving factor here and 512Mb is plenty of capacity for me.

[Background Noise]

There are quite a few mp3 players available now with SD card slots - that's the way I'm going I think. They can be about £40 - even in UK! - and 512mb cards are £20 ish. One I've seen even has a built in decoder/ripper so you can rip music direct from the source.

[Binoculars]

I'm going to answer my own question here, because I went out and bought one straight up, not realising just how new the technology is. Good news and bad news.

Bad news 1. I didn't read the specs that said it requires Windows 2000 or higher. That explains why it kept failing to install on my trusty 98SE desktop. OK, over to the lappies.

Bad news 2. Three attempts to install on Lappy 1 with varying degrees of success before everything crashed. Fourth attempt appeared to install everything (iPod and iTunes) to the point where things would work. Plug the hardware in the back, attempt to load music from the library to the iPod, and boom! Major crash! Specifically, and I quote


.........................................................
A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps.

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced startup options, and then select safe mode.

Technical information:

# **STOP: 0x00000050 (0Xffffffe8,0x00000001, 0x804E1419, 0x00000000)

Beginning dump of physical memory.
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance.
..........................................................

Further reboots got the same results.

OK, one lappy left, with a nice clean install of XP and little clutter. Success. Program installed OK, managed to import music and transfer to iPod Shuffle ok. Nice sound quality, though I hate those pissy little earpieces so much I'm going out to buy a cheap pair of wraparound headphones.

Battery life claimed to be 12 hours, we'll see. But it really is the size of a chewing gum packet and weighs the same as a car key. I imagine those with Macs will love it, but Windows users are not yet convinced of the supposed "box to first use in 5 mins" user-friendliness that Apple is famous for. Maybe they rushed this one out a bit early. See here (http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]@.68a37f6c) for discussion on the Apple site that would tend to confirm that.

[Evo]

It has been more than I year since I used an iPod with a PC, but my experience with a 10gig 2nd-gen iPod was similar, crashes and unreliability on an old laptop with firewire built in, but - it turned out - the wrong sort of firewire. It did work alright on my fairly new (at the time) T30 Thinkpad, but it still wasn't smooth. ISTR that was before iTunes was available on the PC, because the bundled software was horrible.

It's a shame, because on the Mac they really do "just work" - my mother, who considers a fridge to be a technical challenge, was able to get one working with an iMac in 15 minutes, 5 of which was trying to work out how to eject the iPod once iTunes was done ripping the CD. Given the flakiness on the PC i'm surprised at times that so many people buy them.

[Binoculars]

Several days later;

The whole experience of iPod Shuffle to Windows has been less than satisfying, but I will say here that having installed the iTunes software, it's difficult to describe just how superior it is to Windows Media Player in terms of user friendliness.

So much so that I am, with some reluctance, going to instal XP on my desktop for no other reason than being able to use iTunes. And I hate XP!

Farewell beloved 98SE, it's been wonderful!

[goates]

If it helps, you can turn off most of the options in XP (especially the gaudy theme) and get it working the same as Windows 2000. I guess it depends on what you do with your computer, but I have had a far better time with Windows 2000/XP systems than the 95/98/ME ones.

goates

[joe2812]

I hate iTunes.... :*