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Apple 40 GB iPod M9268LL/A

List price:	~~$399.00~~
Our price:	that is 100% off!
Manufacturer:	Apple Computer

Average user rating: Average user rating: 4

Nice Little Player

Brought this 40gb ipod for my daughter and she loves it. Use was easy to learn and software pretty easy to use. Looking back on it now...40gb is overkill. She will never fill it up! Downside are the earphones that come with it. Works much better with the Apple optional earphone...but then it's another $40.00. After you purchase one of these ipod's are when the cost really start to go up. From downloads to all the accessory that you can buy will set you back hundreds of dollars on top of the original cost of the ipod. I still like it enough to have purchase a Mini ipod for the wife for mother's day from my daughter. She likes this so she does not have to share now. For someone that will not have thousands of tunes...a mini is just fine!

Does not work with long MP3s

I returned my iPod after 3 weeks.

I bought my iPod for one reason: to listen to while I run. This is definitely not the product for that. You will have lots of people tell you that the iPod has a 25 minute skip protection, and yes, that is true. However, my workouts are composed of a single MP3 that includes not just music, but verbal cues on how fast I should be running at certain points in my run. This means I have MP3s that are 45 minutes to 2 hours long. Invariably, the iPod would lock up 24 minutes and 59 seconds into my run.

You may argue that this is a special case, but I would counter that due to the ridiculous limitation of not implementing cross-fading, anyone wanting to listen to a "complete" album will want to record the album in its entirety as a single MP3, thus creating an MP3 that goes beyond the 25 minute cache. If you happen to be doing anything more strenuous than sitting at a desk while listening to that album, your iPod will freeze up like a Minnesota pond in December.

I bought a flash based MP3 player with better sound and, unbelievably, an even less intuitive interface than the iPod. And yes, the iPod interface is extremely unintuitive. I gave my iPod to three people who had never used one before and asked them to play a specific song. After 5 minutes, not one of them was able to find the tune.

DON'T PANIC unless you work for Sony!

I first bought Sony's Diskman and thought, "This is so coool." I then bought Sony's Mini Diskman and thought, "This, too, is cool."

Then, my wife took a trip to the states. I hoped she'd get me a 20 GB iPod, though I was afraid I'd be letdown, my hopes built so high due to media publicity and such. Well...

The iPod 40 GB is so much greater even than I had hoped! Aside from one badly-needed accessory and one tweak, this product is just about perfect. In other words, the iPod is as terrific for music as is iBook for convenient computing on the road, or as is the Mini-Mac (or iMac) for home computing or as is the G5 Mac for business computing.

To give you a short sketch of my music for the road here in Egypt - I copied some 50 cd's onto two mp3 cd's (with mini-disk it took several more disks and sound quality was less acceptable) and felt that would be sufficient. It is a lot, obviously, but while driving it is impractical to change from one song to another since it is not practical to read labels displayed while driving.

Further, as a subscriber to Audible.com I have an immense audiobook library. To listen to these with the Sony players I have had to settle for track recording and could use only the diskman. My cd burner died after the first 55% of my library conversion to cd that had already amassed more than 400 compact disks. Not a very efficient system and not especially user friendly, but then, I knew nothing of iPod and so was content with getting what I had gotten.

Now, though, I have the miracle product I have dreamed of having since a teen in the sixties! Read on to learn the rest of my dream that I am convinced only Apple will try to make into reality.

With my 40 GB iPod Photo, though, I have at present some 26 days worth of songs and audiobooks

What is the badly needed accesory? A power adaptor for the automobile cigarette lighter. I am regularly on the road here in Egypt for periods exceeding three hours each direction on the same day. Aside from BBC and iPod I have no source for entertainment or information as I gave away both obsolete Sony players once I got most of my music and audiobooks loaded onto the iPod. Remember, more than 400 cd's had been used for the first 55% of my library that was, I judge, about 22 days worth of audio.

Well, how much of the iPod was needed to store 80% of my library? Only 9 GB. Yep, if I choose to listen to everything in my e-library (including texts converted into mp3) I am using only 9 GB for some 30 days of continuous listening. Assuming I return stateside and drive 12 hours a day (using a car power adaptor when it comes) I could drive for 60 days without listening to the same item twice!

Apple, if you're reading this, please, please, develop a car adaptor!

The tweak needed?

Include in the iPod operating system a file convertor incorporating text-to-speech using AT&T Natural Voice. About the only reason I now use my Windows PC now is for converting my writings into speech so I can listen to them either for entertainment or for proofing.

Apple, are you listening?

If so, you probably now have a glint of my dream since childhood. I have been devouring information for its own sake as well as for applying my knowledge at work. I, however, am not a fast reader so I have wished I could listen to books but the available books in audio format are too limited for my hunger. To get the books I want I have to do the work myself but then have to little time to listen unless on the road. Conversion presently takes too long.

Apple, however, can complete the Douglas Adams work and provide an iPod that really does read aloud the text files within it - as opposed to playing somebody else's audio production.

Long live Douglas Adams. Long live Apple.