Sunday, January 21, 2007
Yeah, That's Right, I Bought an iPod...for My Wife
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 03:00 PM
The Dunn household underwent a radical paradigm shift over the holidays that Digital Media Thoughts readers will probably be interested in given my historical stance: the very first Apple product was introduced into our world. It's something I've managed to avoid for, well, my whole life: going back to age 10 even my Apple IIe was a clone (a Laser 128). There are reasons why I've avoided Apple products in my adult life, but they're not worth going into here.
For Christmas 2005 I purchased my wife a Dell DJ Ditty for using while she was working out at the gym (she's highly dedicated, going five times a week, the polar opposite of me). The Ditty, in a pink silicon case attached to a pink armband, made for a great workout partner for Ashley. She had no real complaints about it, although I personally found the interface and controls to be less than optimal.
First Contact
At any rate, in November 2006 we found ourselves in a Best Buy in Hawaii, and Ashley saw the new iPod Shuffle for the first time. The Ditty was about the same size as the old iPod Shuffle, but this new Shuffle was radically smaller - and Ashley instantly fell in love with it. Like most people (and women in particular) she responds to technology in a visual level, while I wonder what bit rate of video files it can play. I knew instantly that I was going to be buying her one for Christmas, but first I wanted to make sure iTunes would play nicely with my infrastructure at home. Remember my questions about using iTunes back in December? They weren't so "innocent" - I was looking for a solution to a problem I knew I was going to have. As you can tell from that thread, I never really found a good solution (but I did get a tan from all the flames).
First Thoughts
So what do I think of the Shuffle? I'm quite impressed by it. From a purely hardware point of view, Apple managed to keep only the bare minimum on the player, and 1 GB is enough storage to keep my wife happy with the variety of music (once I figured out how to transcode the music down to a smaller file size - my 256 kbps MP3s are big). For the purpose that Ashley uses it for, it really doesn't need a screen. The battery life is great - Ashley only recharges is once a week or so. She did comment, however, that it was frustrating not knowing how much battery life the Shuffle has left because there's no screen. Apparently it has died on her a couple of times while she's been working out. The Shuffle sounds good, looks good, and is incredibly easy to use.
iTunes continues to be the problem however - there's no way to easily get music into it once I've added it to my NAS drive because it won't monitor folders for new content. I'm hopeful that once I get a new NAS product, iTunes will be able to access the library directly off it, and this problem will vanish. I still find iTunes unintuitive, sluggish, and generally ugly. I do like the ability to view the album art visually however, and it picks up the embedded art in my MP3 files, so that's a plus.
And there you have it: I bought an Apple product. Is this the first of many? Doubtful, but one never knows what the future will hold...
[As a side note, Christmas 2005 was when my family bought my father an iPod Nano, and this year we all chipped in again to purchase my younger sister an iPod Nano. My parents asked about the Zune, but I knew it wasn't the solution my sister was looking for, so I recommended a 4 GB iPod Nano. See? I'm not blinded by bias, even if I don't like the products myself.]
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. It felt...strange...buying an iPod.
For Christmas 2005 I purchased my wife a Dell DJ Ditty for using while she was working out at the gym (she's highly dedicated, going five times a week, the polar opposite of me). The Ditty, in a pink silicon case attached to a pink armband, made for a great workout partner for Ashley. She had no real complaints about it, although I personally found the interface and controls to be less than optimal.
First Contact
At any rate, in November 2006 we found ourselves in a Best Buy in Hawaii, and Ashley saw the new iPod Shuffle for the first time. The Ditty was about the same size as the old iPod Shuffle, but this new Shuffle was radically smaller - and Ashley instantly fell in love with it. Like most people (and women in particular) she responds to technology in a visual level, while I wonder what bit rate of video files it can play. I knew instantly that I was going to be buying her one for Christmas, but first I wanted to make sure iTunes would play nicely with my infrastructure at home. Remember my questions about using iTunes back in December? They weren't so "innocent" - I was looking for a solution to a problem I knew I was going to have. As you can tell from that thread, I never really found a good solution (but I did get a tan from all the flames).
First Thoughts
So what do I think of the Shuffle? I'm quite impressed by it. From a purely hardware point of view, Apple managed to keep only the bare minimum on the player, and 1 GB is enough storage to keep my wife happy with the variety of music (once I figured out how to transcode the music down to a smaller file size - my 256 kbps MP3s are big). For the purpose that Ashley uses it for, it really doesn't need a screen. The battery life is great - Ashley only recharges is once a week or so. She did comment, however, that it was frustrating not knowing how much battery life the Shuffle has left because there's no screen. Apparently it has died on her a couple of times while she's been working out. The Shuffle sounds good, looks good, and is incredibly easy to use.
iTunes continues to be the problem however - there's no way to easily get music into it once I've added it to my NAS drive because it won't monitor folders for new content. I'm hopeful that once I get a new NAS product, iTunes will be able to access the library directly off it, and this problem will vanish. I still find iTunes unintuitive, sluggish, and generally ugly. I do like the ability to view the album art visually however, and it picks up the embedded art in my MP3 files, so that's a plus.
And there you have it: I bought an Apple product. Is this the first of many? Doubtful, but one never knows what the future will hold...
[As a side note, Christmas 2005 was when my family bought my father an iPod Nano, and this year we all chipped in again to purchase my younger sister an iPod Nano. My parents asked about the Zune, but I knew it wasn't the solution my sister was looking for, so I recommended a 4 GB iPod Nano. See? I'm not blinded by bias, even if I don't like the products myself.]
Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. It felt...strange...buying an iPod.
