new toy

[cellio]

I've entered the 21st century: I now have an iPod (nano), a birthday present from Dani. This was totally unexpected; I haven't had portable music since way back when I had a Walkman (TM). But I'd been lamenting the hassle of moving CDs between the home and the car (the one you want is always in the wrong place), and this solves that. Dani also got me an interface between the iPod and the car stereo; it broadcasts via FM, raising questions (not answered in the documentation) about signal distance. Can I end up in conflict with the guy behind me at the traffic light? Time may tell, nor not. (Neither Dani nor I is really an earbud kind of person.)

The itty bitty iPod comes with an itty bitty manual. Fortunately (I suppose), also a short one. (I read it with a magnifying glass.)

The UI seems a little jumpy, and I do hope there's a global switch so that turning it on requires intentional action. As it is, just brushing the face sometimes turns it on, which can't be good for battery life.

I haven't used iTunes before, and parts of the interface are (deliberately?) counter-intuitive for Windows, but I think I've got the gist of it. So far I'm just working at the album level; I haven't created playlists. I assume that eventually I'll have too much music in iTunes for the iPod and I'll need to select what to put on the iPod, but I've only scanned about half a dozen CDs so far so that's not an issue yet.

Cool toy!

Comments

some tips

[anukul.livejournal.com]

FM transmitters can be really frustrating (everyone says a direct jack and even a cassette adapter are better) but the following things have made my limited usage acceptable:

- 87.9 (if your radio and transmitter go that low) is great in Pittsburgh and ok in much of DC/NYC. I usually give up searching for any other good stations within a couple of minutes. I didn't have much luck with griffin technologies lists of good stations by region (google for it).

- Have the volume on the iPod around 80-85% during transmission; if it is too low the signal won't be quite strong or balanced enough and if too loud the music will clip & distort early because of the quantity of noise. This only matters if your FM transmitter is affected by the headphone out volume vs. a line level output which might be available via the dock connecter at the bottom of the nano.

- The transmission quality varies with power applied to the FM transmitter. If the transmitter has its own weak batteries or flaky power connection, it may have poor power performance that leads to inconsistent or whiny sound.

Re: some tips

[cellio]

Thanks for the tips. The volume suggestion in particular made a difference for me; I had maxed the volume on the iPod, figuring that would maximize signal strength, but 80% or so (and compensating with the radio volume) seems to be doing better.

I'll give 87.9 a shot. Currently I'm using 90.1.