iPod User Here

[MikeM]

Hello,

My name is Mike and I have an iPod.

I'm also a Mod over at iPodlounge.

I was invited here by a an iHP enthusiast's post:

"You guys should read other forums. You will see my opinions are not terribly original or unique. Of course you won't...you are too sensitive and bruise easily, nor can you really defend the Ipod in an Iriver forum very well."

I'm not here to specifically defend the iPod or anything else. I'm just not the type to cower to a post like that.

I've spent an hour or so reading posts here. A great site you have! And many strongly opinionated folks, like we have.

Let me introduce myself:

I have a second Gen 10gb iPod, purchased about 1.5 years ago. I'm also mainly a mac user.

I've never used or even seen an iRiver HD player in person- there's no one I know that has one and none of the stores around me carry it. I'm not at all against it or against trying it. In fact, I'm one of the people in Best Buy trying everything. If someone wants to lend me their's I'd be more than happy to tinker.

We've had a handful or so of iHP users visit the lounge and stir it up a bit. Let me just say that we [those running/moderating] welcome other opinions. We have never suspended/banned anyone for having a negative opinion of the iPod. [I read a post here where someone said he was- I checked and his account is open, he just stopped posting.]

We do take issue with folks insulting our members and purposely starting wars though. We currently have one member [author of the quote above] who will not stop insulting other members both indirectly and directly. After visiting here for a while, I see that he is not representative of the majority of you, much as I expected.

I would like to add that while a handful of members at iPodlounge do many of the same things, they too are not representative of the majority. Being a popular device with teens, we do have our share of immature posts, unfortunately.

The prevailing opinion that I've read here is that iPod users are all 'sheep' following the iPod flock. Well, to a point I agree. Anything that's popular is generally that way- music, movies, etc. If the iHP was as popular [sales-wise] as the iPod, there would be just as many buying because it was cool.

Arguing that one of the reasons you bought a specific device is that it isn't the 'cool' thing is the same as buying it because of that. You are basing your decision partly on 'coolness', whichever way you pick. The group of geeks in high school can feel just as elitist for not being a popular jock as the elitist popular jocks.

I'm not saying there aren't reasons to choose the iHP [I would personally never buy a 3G iPod because of that battery life!], but many posts I've read here seemed to tack that on the "I'm cool because I'm not trying to be cool" in the end. Its the same as an iPod owner adding "And because its cool." to the end of their own list of reasons.

Anyway, that's my opinion and point of view from the dark side.

[Big D]

Hi Mike,

Everyone is welcome here.

There is a lot of variety in the current HDD mp3 market so I guess it is down to what you can't do without.

If you need to use a LCD remote then it is pretty much the iHP
If you need intelligent playlists and the organiser/game features then it's the iPod
If you want a good player with ethernet connection then it has to be the Karma

If none of the above are essential then you have to decide on what you think is best for you. It really does become a difficult choice.

Every player has a serious drawback however:

3G iPod - battery
Karma - reliability and poor warranty
iHP - no playlists on-the-fly

A player that had all three of those and you wouldn't see me for dust!

[divad6719]

Hi MikeM,

Let me add my welcome, I'm sure everybody here would feel the same way in that diversity makes up the world we live in. If everybody liked the same things then forums like this one and your own wouldn't even exist.

I've been a member here nearly from the beginning and I can say that it's one of the most civilised and open minded forums I've come across.
I also recently (about 3 or 4 weeks ago) bought an iPod after being an iRiver user for quite a while (and I can honestly say IMHO that, after owning both units, neither is perfect but both are very good players.)
Maybe everybody else here thought that they would be rid of me at last but I'm still here, mainly because I enjoy it so much and if I can still help out now and again then thats a bonus for me.

I've been following that thread you mention (although I've never posted on your forum yet, but I am registered) and I find it a shame that someone uses other forums and their members opinions to try and justify their own babble. Of course you'll find negative comments about the iPod here if you look but what do you expect, it's an iHP forum
For someone to use that fact to try and ram their opinion down other peoples throats on your own forum, I think is quite out of order.

Why two (or more) differing player owners can't have a civilized conversation about the pro's and con's of their respective machines without desending into a "mine is better than your's" rant is beyond me.

I think you'll find most here will be respectful and inquisitive, if treated in the same manner.

Anyway, welcome and don't be a stranger

[elwood]

Originally Posted by divad6719

Why two (or more) differing player owners can't have a civilized conversation about the pro's and con's of their respective machines without desending into a "mine is better than your's" rant is beyond me.

Same here. Seems like very few other pieces of kit generate such mutual insult-flinging. I reckon a lot of it is a continuation of the Mac/PC wars by other means. Good job its not more widespread or I would have all those damned Zanussi owners criticising me for my Hotpoint washing machine...

Actually the Hotpoint is a damned fine machine... if only it had a lyric database function.

[sweetspot]

Hello Mike, and welcome to Mistic

Glad you decided to drop in and do some survey work

Let me first address some of the comments you made or quoted. I don't know who that clown is that made the 'you guys should read other forums' remark, but you have to realize, there are imbeciles everywhere. It's unavoidable man, I mean, I doubt very seriously that specific DAP's lure specific personality types...we've all got some 'winners' ya know ?

With that said, there is something which has been painstakingly obvious about certain 'types' of people, which if you observe the behavior, you'll see that it manifests its self out of progressive growth. You're probably wondering what the hell I'm talking about I'll try and make it short. The iPod was the first really commercially successful DAP on the market (though there were DAP's out before it obviously), and it's target demographic has always been towards the 'sophistotypes' or the chic, or even the hip or yuppie types.

It's always had a strong user base, who tended to be Mac users that as you know of course, are always scrutinized by the 'other side'. Naturally, with the inception of other DAP's which focused on competition for the iPod, the already defensive users, became almost cultish in their herald for the iPod, with hardly an open mind about anything which was up and coming. I have many friends who own iPods, and Macs for that matter (Graphic Designers wouldn't cha' know), so I really do know this for a fact...I saw this behavior first hand way before I owned a DAP, and it was appalling behavior to say the least. I never understood it at all.

How does this relate to what I'm talking about ? Well easy, this behavior has been sort of learned by those as you have observed who think it's cool not to be cool...these same clowns who praise themselves for not following the followers, have now assumed the same role as those they constantly besmirch ! It's really funny that they don't see it too..I laugh my ass off at these things. I mean, it's really like a religion for some people man...very frightening indeed !

I can't speak for everyone on this board, there are way too many, but I know for a fact that the 'regulars' are not those who we're talking about. Yeah, there's the occasional proud sentiment which makes its self apparent when defending a purchase, but for the most part, what I've found that we here at Mistic have in common, is that we openly welcome new technology no matter the brand name, as long as it shows promise.

Hell, this is the first place you'd ever want to come to if you were looking for a totally unbiased opinion about either Iriver or its products. Believe me, there's plenty of Iriver bashing within these threads ! The other thing most of us share in common is what made us buy the iHP over the other DAP's...and we also share the same sadness for the things we wish the IHP's had, but we're also not so full of pride that we wouldn't come forward and say it. I've hardly ever seen an iPod user saying that they would rather have 14 or 16 hours of battery life...Or admit any other shortcoming.

It always winds up being some sort of turned around answer that looks like denial. That I just don't understand. I mean, how will the player you love ever get better if the users don't demand that something be done about the issues ? Shite man, I'll tell ya this much, if the IHP was seeing the same battery life, there's no way Iriver would get away with it. Aaaneeeway....depend ing on where you live, I'm guessing that you can make friends with one of the users here and set up a time to hang out so that you can check out the IHP or visa versa.

If you live in NYC, I'm that person btw !

I think I was babbling a bit up there, and I'm really hungry (haven't eaten today) so I must be a bit wishy washy with what i'm saying. In any case, we are ALL glad to have you here (and those who have anything smart to say about that will be shot on site) and welcome any and all comments. Please feel free to invite some MATURE iPodlounge people here if they care to DISCUSS anything.

Perhaps this is a good chance for iPodders and IHPr's to get better acquainted and perhaps even meet to check out each others gear. I wasn't going to say anything yet, but I've been talking with one of the Mods over at www.riovolution.com (Edvard Grieg) and we were planning on doing something similar. Sort of like a cross/forum discussion for all users, especially those who are interested in checking out the gear. I haven't spoken with him in a while because I'm in the middle of something personal, and haven't had time, but it WILL happen.

I'm sure it will work out, because if you think about it, if the plan is explained thoroughly, those who were planning on being asses about it, won't even bother replying, as it would be senseless for them to do so. And besides that, those who think that they can get away with being a-holes about it, can just find themselves banned for sure. I'm very serious about that. (Sad that such things have to be thought of eh? But the young ones do need some discipline from time to time.)

In any case, let me know what you think. You have the means to communicate this to your people if you think it a good idea.

Regards,
Doug

P.S. Zanussi's rule ! (Yah..like I've ever used one before....)

[FlameGrilled]

Nice to see some crossover chat from the iPod side, Div dont count really as we could rely on some sanity during the transistion to the dark side :P

Well, speaking from the literal darkside (i was a heavy duty iMP-250 user, had a flirty work-related affair with an iFP-390T, was giving tech support on iHP's when iHP's were kinda scarce), i'm kinda proof we accept all sorts here as long as they can take a joke and act with enough sanity to not intentionally set out to offend or deny someone the right to be different.

But just in case *holds out his virtual cat' paw in friendship*, i tend to keep the virtual inter-forum tac-nukes and dungball launchers armed... usually to keep out iRiver International bigots and audio facists at bay. In case you hadn't figured it out - the ex-iRiver Int members here are mostly refugees who wanted to enjoy life :P

Anyway, i skipped the iHP after a long term use of a CL Nomad JB1 (my former non-pro digital recorder) simply because of known recording issues. Likewise, there aint no other HDD unit (except the CL JB3) that is a full replacement for the older nomad - and that' my reasons for going nowhere where modern hDD units are concerned.

My overall hassle vs the iPod was almot entirely that it was, and still is, way overpriced for what is simply a player. Battery issues, for me, are something i fix if needed as i dont have time to sit down and ass around declaring war over.

If the iPod had come out in the right price range - i.e. it needed to match or beat the benchmark RRP for a JB2 when the 2 first came out - above that price, any player-only device is plain OTT on the price mark.

Outside of prices, i guess my only gripe is not the player itself - but Apple and it's lack of foresight.

A huge bit of marketing was devoted to selling the Pod on the basis of the then-forthcoming iTunes store (the only commerical, legit AAC music download site), but the usual BS and lack of corporate backbone to go cut a real deal with the imprints/labels (of which a lot are american-owned) ensured that the EU/UK users were denied one compelling reason to want to spend OTT money on an AAC deck.

Now, having industry involvement and former support role in the Uk retail side of portable Dap's, you could say that i was wrong to be highly sus about Apple getting the iTunes store running in a borderless fashion (and at the time, that was my concern vs the promotion of the Pod) - but as many people discovered... i was bang on target about the usual frontier segregation coming into play.

I got no hassles, usually, with the US/Canadian peeps - but seeing everything that should be good about the EMD market always being US/Candian market biased and seeing UK/EU users get treated like second-class sewer dirt does literally wind me up.. and causes the fickle paw to hover dangerously close to the launch button...

Anyway, welcome.. nice to see another bit of iPod insight.. it all adds to the flavours and colours..

Meanwhile, i got some nukes to polish... and also be most traitorous and go listen to my Sony D-NE1 :P

Just for ref, in case it means anything (due to infamy), you just shook paws with the once-prolific Just_An_UnCool_Cat (iRiver International and MP3PLAYERS.CO.UK shame).

FG

[MikeM]

Thanks for welcomes and replies so far!

I can certainly agree 100% with that every site out there has those few 'special' members.

I think the idea of cross-player site is excellent! I'll bring it up with others at iPodlounge- I'm sure there will be a lot of interest. We all seem to really like these little music boxes- why not get together!? [A "What does the ultimate player have?" thread could really be fun.]

And for people like me, the possibility of meeting folks in real life with these other devices would be great too! Just playing with some of these things in the store doesn't really spell out the whole picture of real life use.

Keep me posted please on any progress. I can certainly be a contact with the "Pod people". Also, feel free to contact Dennis Lloyd [ipodlounger], the lounge owner about this. He may be able to help get it set-up.

[FlameGrilled]

Well, even though i aint officially at StuffLive later this year (not for work purposes anyway), i'd definately make some time to sort out a bit of a meet-up amongst the various HDD user owners and come along to 'make it work'.. or bang-heads if need be :P

I'm working towards a real practical DA & DAP site at the moment, one intended to avoid the usual audiophile v audio-facist 'audiophile wannabees' war that usually ends up putting people off the whole DAP idea - so, clearly it would have to be a true-crossover.

Hell, who knows.. there may be life in the 'cat' after all..

[w1cket01]

I think a generic DA, DAP website would be very good unifying all these specific websites. But that's just one guy's opinion.

[FlameGrilled]

Well, what i had in mind was to leave all the hyper device specific stuff (the real 'you gotta own one to know one' stuff) to these specific sites, have people from the specific sites sit in as specialists to do their part if they choose, but primarily make nexus that links the good specialist sites up.

On the DA front, similar ethic.

[PorkRind]

MikeM, If you're interested in getting a first-hand look at an iHP, I'm not that far away . . . I live in Brunswick. Unfortunately, I'm not around except Friday through Sunday most weeks, as I travel for business quite a bit (my primary reason for owning a DAP).

Send me a PM if you want to check it out. Oddly, I've wanted to take a first-hand look at an iPod (this from the guy that named his iHP "The AntiPod").

[sweetspot]

Sounds tasty Mike ! Matter of fact, when I have some real time for this stuff, I will try and set things up...well actually, no need for me to do it all, the plan is simple really. If you're a member of Head-fi.org, you already know how these sorts of meets go. Seperate threads made up for different geographical locations around the globe ..that's what I'm talkin' about !

The only real challeng here, is getting a common meeting ground for all concerned. It could get a bit tedious having to go to say 2 different forums just to confirm your presence at a meet. Perhaps all of the mods can get together in an instant message conference room to discuss it. That seems like the most logical thing to do..sort of like a Mob sit down ya know ? All the bosses getting together to discuss the territory..hehe.

We would first need to establish which IM service to use unless we're going to use net meeting or something like that. Please offer some suggestions, and even start by quoting what has been said here already, and passing the info around in order to get things rolling with the other Mods. If you go to riovolution.com, be sure to contact Edvard Grieg (mod) and head things up with him.

Oh...and to the mods here..jump in anytime and do whatch' gotta do. If you so desire.

More later.

S.

P.S. I wasn't thinking. We have chat rooms here at the Mistic Home page, which would be a great place for all the mods and even the different forum members to chat. Mostly the former though for preperations sake.

[MikeM]

PorkRind- I'm DEFINITELY interested! I work in Yarmouth and can be in Brunswick in 10-15 minutes on a friday after 5pm. Or I can certainly come up from Portland on the weekend. Next week I'm off to CT to visit the family but let's work out something for late April. I've got a 2G iPod and could probably borrow a friend's 3G.

I also have some older discmen and several different phones. I am a member at head-fi.org in case you couldn't tell by that!

I'll shoot you a PM about this as well.

sweet spot- A forum is probably best for communication on this. The more active iPodlounge admins/mods use AIM but since we're located from Austria to California, a common time is really tough. Having forums to post in will take longer but will be less of a logistical nightmare.

I'm definitely familiar with the head-fi system although I've never gone to a meet! I was thinking that besides having those meet threads, we could have a open forum for general discussion. Something that's free of 'my player is better because' talk. I've seen lots of posts here and definitely many on the lounge that are just about DAP-related topics: encoding, music, downloading, etc.

Discussions like that can help break down some of the unfortunate stereotypes that have formed.

[FlameGrilled]

I'm all for the breaking down of the stereotypes.

I know i use them in my descriptions of people during my more controverisial topics, but that's mostly to point out how the s/t' are misused.

After all, an audiophile is simply no more than a very enthusiastic audio equip and listening fan - who goes the extra distance to build their purrfect system (note, that means their contented self version, not what is considered 'hot' by the people with more money than sense0. Sadly, a lot of self-professed audiophiles are simply bandwagon jumpers.

The same can be said for the self-professed DJ's of the forum/chatroom world - it's damn easy to detect the few that geniunely are - as they also know that real DJ's aint 'mixers' - where 'bedroom mixers, did the odd set at me mate's 21st birthday gig' are a result of pure wannabes.

My s/t's of 'audio facists' and 'audio bigots' should speak for themselves - but if not, here's the rundown :-

Audio Bigots - the people who obsessively tell the world what's best, because it's what they choose to use... and they'll discredit anyone who thinks they are less than unbiased in how they pass 'preference' as being 'the right way to do'.

Audio Facists - These are AB's, who for whatever reason, feel they shouldn't stop at simply hyping their preference as some sort of expert reference - they virtually make a crusade out of enforcing it as 'the right way'.

An unfortunate example of AB's could be pointed to the more outspoken Lame perpetuators. I dont doubt Lame has improvements over the FhG etc encoders, but in their innocent efforts to tell the world about Lame, they've kinda given the impression that using a MP3 encoder of a lesser grade than Lame is complete BS and definately proof of deafness in the lesser user.

Unfortunately, the Lame form of AB aint the majority of users.. just the bandwagon wannbe-experts.

A brilliant, but unfortunate AF example came out of the emergence of Ogg Vorbis. It's notable that before OV became well known as an emerging format, it didn't suffer the AF's becoming the outspoken bully boys who were gonna make the world take OV and adopt it or risk being derised for the clear lack of recognising a superior product/method/way.

Hell, the collective group of OV developers (the core group) were as far departed from being guilty of being either AB or AF as you could get. It was element of the hard-core audio bigots from the audio perfectionists of the net who started off this BS piece of OV bullying that infected the iRiver Int forum (and had a massive part in the rushed-out OV codec added to the players' firmware..). They were only really AB's by the merest slender thread, not intentionally i suspect, but they inadvertently drove a lot of people to 'jump on the bandwagon'... and befoe you knew it - we were getting virtual cracked skulls by the wannabees-turned-AF's who had decided it the future was going to with OV.. and noone else mattered, opinion or choice or whatever tact you care to view the sorry mess from.

Each of us here, sadly, carries battle scars from fighting off the AF's, almost became painkiller addicts from the noise of AB' who tried to discredit anyone who dared talk about WMA, and basically won our purple hearts from trying to stop the AB's and AF's from taking over.

Sadly, from a personal point of view, such unwanted battles turned my prescense that i established within the commnities from infinate patience to sheer despair and a developing hatred for the whole future of compressed audio in DaP terms.

It definately contributed to why i lost all interest in working in the DAP side of the industry - and it's only that a few (a good few, but not tiny amount) of people chose to convince me to stick around, that i'm here writing this reply...

Change is definately cool, voluntary unconditional tolerence and respect (until such concessions are abused) isn't just a cool attitude, it's mandatory for a healthy existence in discussion circles.

FG

[coreman]

Well this was certainly a surprise thread! Speaking for myself, like many others, I checked out the iPod first when considering upgrading from Archos 6000.

The battery life made it a no go from the start because I often fly internationally and need the longest battery possible to get me through the layovers and long legs.

I was also put off by the $100 battery replacement offer from Apple, after a long time of ignoring the problem.

Then I wanted generic mounting, including music file transfers, and didn't want to load special software or drivers.

So I bought H120 after a protacted research phase..like many others here, I recognize it's limitations and therefore I am open to learning the truth about other DAPS.

At some time, I will be buying another one (it won't be iriver) so a cross-functional thread, meeting room or whatever is of interest to me.

I think Divad's thread has been an eye opener for me...he is really making an effort to be unbiased and give "just the facts".

I have posted several times over at Rio...the only problem I see with Rio is the reliability issue and the pathetic (90) day warranty that seems to match their RMA process.

There are a lot of nice features on the Karma although I have to be honest and say, it isn't the best looking player in my opinion and the lack of a proper case is just a major oversight on Rio's part.

I look forward to more intelligent and civilized exchanges about other DAPs.

[sweetspot]

Alright Mikey, (do ya mind me calling you that ? Seems so natural) so as soon as we can all agree on a neutral forum to use, one which doesn't infringe on the terms of usage, the rest is a snap. And yes, a general discussion section is without a doubt complamentary to the rest... I'm guessing that we can use one of the 3 forums. (this one, your lounge, or riovolutions once Edvard ok's it, or gets the ok)

You talk to your people, and by now I'm sure that Jeff has seen this thread, and will step in with some input. Now all we have to do is contact Edvard G over at the rio forums.

This will take a bit of time, but that's fine, I'm sure no one is going anywhere.

[MikeM]

I personally don't care where it happens. The lounge has high traffic but that could be good and/or bad. I've been in and out all night but will talk to others directly tomorrow.

More about the DAPs:

My biggest reason for choosing an iPod was because that was all there really was. It was september of 2002 and the iPod was starting to catch on. I looked around but I didn't find anything near it. Then my brother got me gift certificate to the Apple store and I went for it.

Since I'm happy with what my iPod does, I haven't seriously looked into other players. I've read a bit about each as they come out but since I have no real need to upgrade, I've just stuck with the iPod.

I can certainly understand people's complaints about it. Its not for everyone- especially folks who like to have the latest. The iPod has definitely fallen behind. But with sales so strong, I can see why Apple may be waiting to release something new. I'm hoping the next iPod is something I think is worth upgrading to or I may just be forced to switch to something else or just keep right on with my 2G iPod a while longer.

I think a lot of the perception that iPod owners are sheep is true but unfair. Most people don't even know these other products exist. You can call them stupid for not doing research but most people don't research much of anything. I'm talking about the average person. Someone who is on the internet maybe a couple of hours a week. My parents for example.

They've heard of the iPod because of marketing. They will never hear of any of the others. You can say its their fault but to them it doesn't really matter. [They don't own any player, I was just using them as an examples] To the average person, it doesn't matter. They see their friend's iPod, realize its better than the cd player their carrying around and go get one. It works for them and they're happy. That's the majority of iPod users that I see. Yeah, another player may have more features or have cost less, but they're happy. And, believe it or not, there are people who choose the iPod over other players on purpose.

If I were to pick what I thought was the overal best player- I would choose the iHP. But I wouldn't recommend it to most people. While I haven't seen it yet, I've learned enough to know that its more advanced and possibly troublesome for a non-tech savvy person- someone who's coming up from the 'put the cd in and press play' club. That's where a lot of the millions of iPod owners are coming from- they are completely new to this stuff. and I think the iPod is a great fit for them. I set my computer-hating girlfrind up with an iPod and she has no trouble with it. I know that one look at visually more complex iHP would scare here away.

I'm supporting some of the criticism of iPod owners with my argument but trying to point out that a lot of it is just unfair.

Also, I think the perception that iPod users blindly bash other players is wrong too. First, the only time other players come up is when someone comes in and starts a discussion on them. I have never seen a thread where someone just takes a shot at an iHP unprovoked. There may some but I don't recall any. I can't say the same for here- I've already seen one or too little pokes at the iPod that kinda came out of nowhere. I'm honestly not judging, just saying that average iPod user isn't thinking about iHPs [see the reason above]. iHP users do spend some time thinking about iPods.

Now, when these threads about other players come up, there are always a few who speak up with the 'iPod Rulez!". Yup. There's going to be that. But there are also people who say: go out and compare for yourself. Check out the iHP and the Karma. Its there in every thread.

Lately we've had a few of the "iHP Rulez" folks come by and leave a bad taste in some people's mouths, mine included. Its partly why I came here- because I wanted to dispell the idea that most iHP users are like this- as was stated by the person I quoted in my first post.

That's why I really like the idea of the cross-device forums. A few bad seeds on each 'side' are ruining it for the rest of us.

[Edvard_Grieg]

<fat albert> Hey hey hey </fat albert>

Coreman, i actually like the look of the Karma, in that it is 'unique' without being overly bulky (cough nomad). Seriously though, one of the forum members has put together a play through case which is quite nice www.mindknob.com the pictures really don't do it justice, I just got mine last week and it is quite nice. We also have confirmation that Case Closed is working on a case as well that should be ready in a month or two.

I would almost propose that we use Mistic here as the central location, not only because Sweet came up with the original idea, but because it has less traffic. My concern with either Riovolution or the iPodlounge is that in either case you have 'that many' more people that could cruise through and start flaming etc. My other thought would be to find some cheap hosting and set up a seperate forum altogether using phpBB, Invision or some other free software, that way it would be completely neutral etc.

Mikey, heh now you'll never be known as anything else Feel free to come over to riovolution.com and join up, since a lot of our posters can be as zealous as some of the ipod loungers I would recommend making your first post as 'neutral' as possible, and if I see the post quick enough I'll try and shield you

I look forward to what develops with this, i'm *usually* online too so you can hit me up there.