iPod & iTunes Review

It's been about a month and I'm still ripping music to the 20 gig iPod. I am impressed with its sound quality and ease of operation. Typical of Apple, it is a gorgeous piece of tech and truly, I can say very sexy! LOL It is stylish, sleek and eye catching - a real head turner.

The thing I'm less impressed with is the inability to delete items from the iPod on the fly. It would be nice to listen to a podcast and delete it when finished, much as I do on my Creative Muvo C100. I don't understand having to connect the iPod to the computer to delete entries. For the lack of this feature, I listen to podcasts on the Muvo while at work. I finish one, delete it and the change is immediately reflected, alerting me to how much space I have left for new podcasts.

Another bummer, I do not care for iTunes and the way it has its tentacles in everything. I used iPodder to download podcasts to the Muvo. Once the iPod and iTunes arrived, the fight for dominance raged unabated, until iTunes successfully copied the Podcast download information from iPodder into iTunes. I now have duplicates galore! Thanks, Apple.

I still like iPodder, prefer it over iTunes proprietary list of which podcasts are hip or in. For example, podcasters outside the U.S. may have trouble being listed because their credit card information isn't accepted by Apple. I like freedom of choice for those who don't know me.

I also don't want to port AAC files to my Muvo and certainly have no intention of re-ripping Apple's AAC files to MP3 for the Muvo. I've disabled iTunes again, so hopefully it will cease insisting on downloading podcasts. I am the user and should be in control - Apple take note!

Let there be no doubt that the Muvo is still receiving heavy use. It hasn't been retired. It's not being neglected. It accompanies me to work daily. I haven't taken to bringing the iPod yet, I'm worried about theft. The agency I work for isn't located in the most desirable section of L.A. and the white earbuds attract lots of attention!