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

[tashabear.livejournal.com]

Can I end up in conflict with the guy behind me at the traffic light?

Probably not, but the real question is whether or not you'll be able to find a clear channel on your FM band for the tuner to use. darkwolfie and I have given up on trying to listen to our iPods using that method in Massachusetts. There is something on every frequency. If we had a tape deck in the truck we'd be laughing; we could just use a cassette adapter. But alas -- we only have a CD player.

As for listening methods, you can use any listening device you like, as long as it fits in the headphone jack. I don't like earbuds, but I like in-ear headphones a lot. I have Shure E2c (http://www.shure.com/PersonalAudio/Products/Earphones/ESeries/us_pa_E2c_content) earphones, and I love them (review (http://gear.ign.com/articles/409/409957p1.html) on IGN). They effectively blocked out the sound from the diesel generator and light sets outside my tent in Kuwait, and such a relief that was, I cannot tell you.

As for listening without headphones at all, there are a lot of speker solutions, many of them portable. I have a set of Altec Lansing inMotion speakers (http://www.amazon.com/Altec-Lansing-inMotion-Portable-System/dp/B00017IX10/sr=8-1/qid=1159222377/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-1237553-4003300?ie=UTF8&s=electronics) that fold flat to about the size of a largish paperback book. The sound is quite good for the size of the speakers, and they run on both AC power and batteries, and will charge your iPod while it's in the dock, which is nice. I leave mine set up in my workroom so I can listen to my iPod while I sew. I also have them plugged into my laptop, because sometimes they sound better than my laptop speakers.

In regards to the hypersensitive clickwheel, there is a hold switch at the top of the iPod -- switch that on when you're not using the clickwheel; it renders the wheel inoperable until switched off. PDF manuals for all sorts of iPod stuff can be found here (http://www.apple.com/support/manuals/ipod/).

I have more music in iTunes than will fit on my nano (only 4gb), so I set the nano to manual update and load it by dragging and dropping. You might also find that you enjoy podcasts -- there are 'casts out there for every interest, and they are free, from the iTunes music store and from other sources.

So yeah, I'm a big fan of iPods, can you tell? If you have issues or questions, I'd be glad to try and help.

[geekosaur]

Basically, being Part 49 (unlicensed) transmitters, those little FM transmitters have a very limited range — and since the body of a car (if it's not all plastic, at least) makes a pretty good Faraday cage, there's essentially no signal outside the car. This also means that they can easily be overwhelmed by real transmitters; there's one patch of 279N that I found to be completely hopeless with the one I used to use (restricted choice of frequencies; some others let you use the whole FM range, which would have helped).

[goljerp]

I do hope there's a global switch so that turning it on requires intentional action.

At least on the Mini and the "regular" iPod, there's an orange switch at the top which switches on/off "lock" mode. When lock mode is on, the iPod doesn't respond to button/scroll wheel presses at all. So if you turn it off, then lock it, it stays off.

[woodwindy.livejournal.com]

Yay, gadgetry! Enjoy... oh, and make sure you don't do what I did: unplug the iPod from the computer without having made sure it was disengaged from iTunes.

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.