Sunday, July 03, 2005

Digital Music

Editor's (or Idiot's) Note: I found this posting in the drafts list. This was originally written in July of 2005 and my second post. I thought I had published this and thought I got comments on it. With the release of the Zune, it is an interesting view point on my first month with an iPod and the evolution of digital music.

Idiot's Note, part two. Obviously, I had published this already. There is one comment. I've got no idea what happened.

For Father's Day, I got a 60GB iPod Photo. It is pretty cool. It was quite a step up from my RCA 128 MB MP3 player. I am really impressed by the user interface on the iPod. I guess you have to have a good interface when you have that many songs.

In the evolution of digital music, I started in the "who would want to listen to music on their computer" camp. That was when my computer and stereo were in the same room (college days). Then, my computer was at my work and I needed to listen to music, so I'd rip a CD or two.

Then I became a commuter.

Having music on my hour and forty-five minute drive was important. I'd drive out of range of the stations that I'd start on and through areas with no broadcast radio at all.

So more and more of my music ended up on my computer.

I got the flash memory based MP3 player and it was pretty cool. I could take what ever music I wanted with me. But I had to keep changing it, because after a day or two of my commute (it had gotten shorter), I'd be repeating the music.

Now, I have a digital music player that tells me I have 7.2 days of music!

But I have also gone through many software MP3 players. I started out as a real fan (no pun intended) of RealPlayer, but my work blocked access to their CD lookup database. I then moved to the Windows Media player because the CD lookup wasn't blocked. Other than that, the two were pretty similar.

But since I got my iPod, I've since moved to iTunes. I don't get it, the iPod has a great UI but I just can't get the UI in iTunes. It isn't as intuitive to look for individual songs. The UI just isn't as great. How can they make such a great piece of hardware but a not so great software to go with it? It isn't bad, just not as great as the iPod.

I love my iPod - there is so much thought and innovation in it. Even in the packaging. I was really impressed by the box. The box!

I am king dork when a box impresses me.

I have been a non-fan of Apple computers. The iPod might be the device that turns me. I don't know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Whatup Beau!

high-capacity MP3 player is on my recent purchase list as well. I ended up going with the 80gb Neuros II (www.neurosaudio.com) for a number of cool features (FM broadcast for easy listening over car stereo or my home intercom, line in so I can start ripping my vinyl, very high capacity). it's open source, which I figure would appeal to your geek side. Problem is, I've had myriad hardware problems with it...in fact, I'm on the phone with support right now. If I ever do get it working though, it should be good.

Roger