Video iPod: Take Your Movies and Clips with You
July 12th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Video iPods allow you to watch movies, music videos, and even your favorite television shows on a small color screen. While not good for long car trips, the video iPod is great for trips on the bus or subway where you don’t have to watch the road closely and you might not have anything to keep yourself occupied. People have been using headphones to give them a greater sense of personal space while in the middle of public transit for a while now.
If you’ve got a child in the car, loading up some television shows and a movie onto your video iPod can take some of the boredom out of a long car trip for them, and all without having to pack a small library of DVDs. Even if videos aren’t your thing, listening to some music or a pod cast, which is like a downloadable radio show, on your iPod in the car can make the commute less dull.
Video iPod and Youtube
Now there are so many more interesting videos on the web, you don’t have to rely on Apple or Microsoft for good quality videos. Now you can get video for your video ipod from all over the internet.
You’re Stuck between Classes
If you’re in college, sometimes you get stuck with a break in your classes that doesn’t give you enough time to hit the dorm or drive home, and that can leave you with not enough to do. Using a video iPod, you can kick back and relax in the hallways of your university. And even if you’re not stuck between classes, a video iPod is a great purchase for a college student. Because it’s so compact, a video iPod can go everywhere a college student goes, and the low price of downloading movies and music on iTunes can provide a student with entertainment on a small budget.
No iPod? No Problem!
One of the great things about the iTunes music store is that you don’t need a video iPod to enjoy the videos you purchase through apple, just a computer at home. The iTunes program itself is a player for the music and videos downloaded. Keep in mind, of course, that just because a video looks crisp on a small screen doesn’t mean that it’ll look great when watched in full screen mode on your computer. However, it’s a great option if there’s a show you like that’s sold through iTunes and you don’t have that cable station. Whether you’ve purchased one of their new video iPods or just downloading videos to use with iTunes, Apple’s goal is to provide inexpensive music and video entertainment to you.
iTunes: The Only iPod Store
July 3rd, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Apple has made purchasing music online simple and streamlined with iTunes, the online store for your iPod music needs. Using iTunes as your iPod music store is both cheap and convenient, and it allows you to create totally customized albums. You can mix rap, rock, classical, country, or world music on different playlists for iTune or your iPod. By purchasing individual tracks, you can take your favorite songs from less than completely stellar albums and essentially create your own electronic mix tape. Because each song costs only $0.99, it is quite competitive with the price of CDs. Occasionally, there are even exclusive songs, albums, or box sets available like a special downloadable U2 set in the past.
The Store with More
If there is one minor negative, it is that the songs are all in Apples proprietary AAC format. That means you can only play the songs on your iPod or on your computer. If you ever switch to another MP3 player from a different company, they become useless. However, the odds are good that once you have an iPod you probably won’t be interested in switching to anything else. Even though iTunes was initially created as an online store to service iPod customers’ music needs, the video iPod has created an additional market for downloadable content. The iTunes store now provides iPod users with easy access to many of the latest television programs and movies. Individual episodes are available for a few dollars each. However, the costs may vary depending on the show.
You can catch up on the latest episode of Desperate Housewives or Lost. Season passes to some shows are also available as well. It is a good option for anyone who might be out of the country for a while if they have computer access and their iPod because it is much easier for someone to download a show than deal with shipping DVDs overseas. A season pass might even be a nice present.
Technorati Tags: ipod, itunes, purchasing music
Related Tags: ipod, digital music, ipods, purchasing music, youtube
Form and Function Combined in iPods
June 5th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed
Over the last five years or so since their first sale, Apple iPods have become one of the most recognized and popular music players since the Sony Walkman. What makes iPods so popular is partly the good timing in their release, right around the time where services such as Napster, which allowed music pirating, were being shut down. The concept of legal music downloading was ready to be brought to the forefront of the music scene, and Apple was there with iTunes and its iPods to meet the demand. But there was more than just good timing involved in the popularity of iPods. These music players have a solid, attractive design and are comfortable to use.
Music in Your Palm
Apple seemed to realize that in order to make truly portable music catch on, it needed to be able to fit in your pocket. Due to the necessary size for holding compact discs, Walkmans can’t fit that niche. But because digital music players are only limited by the size of the hard drive inside, Apple was able to use a small hard drive to make a player that was about the same size as a deck of cards. Other music players today may match iPods in storage space or even be able to play more file types, but even some of those don’t have the small size of the iPod. Apple further developed this concept with their iPod nano and shuffle, which both use flash memory instead of a hard drive, making iPods even more convenient and compact.
Easy to Use
In addition to small design, Apple chose a simple, attractive display for their iPods, with what’s called a click wheel to create a simple interface. There are actually five buttons on iPods, but the click wheel hides four of those; pressing in the right direction, such as with the direction buttons on a video game controller, will press the appropriate button. The fifth button is at the center of the wheel and is used mostly to confirm selections. The design is easy to use, since adjusting volume consists of running your thumb along circumference of the click wheel, similar to turning the dial on a stereo.
The interface between iPods and your computer is also handled easily, since music purchased for iPods is sold in the iTunes music store, which not only manages purchases, downloads, and acts as a music player on your computer, but will automatically detect if your iPod is connected and transfer your music library to it. By ensuring that the process of transferring music off your computer is easy to do, Apple has kept from driving people away with complicated procedures. It’s this combination of simple, easy to use design and portability that makes iPods such a desirable item today.
Technorati Tags: digital music, ipods, itunes
Related Tags: ipod, digital music, ipods, purchasing music, youtube
