Rating: 
Summary: A great music streaming device
Review: The Sterling, VA review below incorrectly says there are no wireless streaming devices for AAC. The Roku SoundBridge with WiFi adapter is one such device, and it looks great: http://www.rokulabs.com/products/soundbridge/
Rating:
Summary: The most deceptive review yet.
Review: There are SOOOO many outright lies in the review by the "electronics fan" from Sterling, Virginia, I don't know where to begin. How about from the top.1. He or she (let's call him or her "Sterling", okay?) calls it a "Mac only product". Ugh. Not only has been made for PCs for almost two years, the vast majority of iPods are sold to PC users. That's an indefensible lie on Sterling's part. 2. "The buttons on the front are touchy...I keep on turning it on accidently." The touch-sensitive buttons are by definition "touchy". That's why they're called "touch sensitive" -- and also why THERE'S A LOCK SWITCH ON TOP. Sterling's ommission of the elegant lock switch is pretty damning evidence for the hypothesis that Sterling has never even used an iPod, much less owned one. 3. "a fully charged battery barely lasts 2 hours of listening time..." Well, I'd think you'd find a good majority of iPod users out there agreeing with the product's specification of 8 hours of listening time, or slightly less if the hard drive is used heavily (by skipping ahead alot, for example). Another deceptive lie. (Hmm, do you work for Microsoft, Sterling?) 4. "There is no setting to disable the front panel controls." Um, see #2 above. Lie, lie, lie. 5. "ACC format...what's that all about? Nothing on the PC side of the world (hey folks, 98% of the computing public are PC oriented.) uses ACC format (except for some obscure apps like the horrendous Music Match and the equally bad iTunes)." Um, it's called "AAC", not "ACC". I'll tell you what AAC is about. Advanced Audio Coding is part of the international standard known as MPEG-4 and you'll be seeing a lot more about it. Nokia, Europe's largest cell phone maker, uses AAC. The RealPlayer music store uses AAC. And iTunes, the most popular download software on the planet by far (70% market share) uses AAC. A deceptive lie to call it "obscure". Again, more evidence that you're just astroturfing for Microsoft. 6. "If iPod users want to make their music that they download from iTunes available to their home stereo using a wireless network connection, what device would they use?" There are all kinds of companies, other than the ones you mentioned, that do this -- Philips, TEN, TiVO -- do a google search on AAC streaming. Of course, iTunes has built in Rendezvous (an open standard) streaming, so expect to see a LOT more on this front soon. Not to mention bluetooth and RF solutions, which are simpler. 7. "I have an 85GB MP3 Music library." Great. The iPod support that. 8. "custom software assures that I always have fresh music based off of what I already listened to" You don't need "custom software" with iPod -- iTunes "smart playlists" feature accomplishes this for normal people that aren't programmers like you apparently are. 9. "These are things you cannot do with Acc format music folks!" Nothing your byzantine setup you describe excludes AAC as far as I can see. Of course, the songs you buy from iTunes are protected somewhat and can't be shared freely with just anyone. But your complex setup can't be accomplished with Microsoft's protected download files from iTunes's competitors, either. 10."iTunes for Windows. Man...can any single application suck as bad as this? First, it's nothing more than a thinly veiled medium for pushing Apple's other products (Jobs has even admitted that he is using the iPod the iTunes to "suck" windows users into the Mac world)." You contradict yourself here. You say it sucks, and then you say it's an attempt by Apple to make great software to convince Windows users into buying Apple's products (which it is). Considering how popular it is, and the rave reviews it's gotten from the PC press, forgive us if we don't take just your word for it. 11. " The first problem with iTunes is that you don't have consistant menues for your second mouse button and the third mouse button doesn't exist..." Um, last I checked most PCs had two mouse buttons, not three. And I think iTunes interface is incredibly consistent, surely moreso than WinAmp. 12. "Second problem is that this interface is nothing more than a re-badged browser! And it doesn't use any of your existing internet settings like your favorites menu, nor your automatic form fillers, or any of the browser help objects you may have installed (like Google toolbar with an auto fill form app) And let me tell you...you have to fill in a lot of fields to download a song!" This is just flat-out wrong. iTunes is an MP3 player with a built-in store, automatic background downloads, multi-threaded operations. It's ONLY one to use "one-click" technology -- so once you set it up, you NEVER have to fill out ANY fields. You click "buy song" and three seconds later you have the full song on your computer, forever. Instant gratification. It's also ridiculous to falsely label it a browser and then complain it's not a browser (with your "favorites" menu, security icons, or what have you)! 12. "And whats with spending a buck for a song?" 99 cents too much for a song? The 30 million plus satisfied customers would disagree. Also, if you buy an album, it's only $9.99, no tax or anything, so often it's much, much less than 99 cents per song. If you don't want to pay 99 cents for the instant gratification of getting music you want legally (and supporting the artists -- much more so than through CDs), you can continue to steal MP3s, as you apparently have. The iPod will play stolen music just fine! 13. "And a low resolution song at that? Sure, ACC format recorded at 128 is like MP3 at 132 or something like that...sure...but it's still compressed audio. And it's compresed audio at 10 times compression...Folks, look up the term "lossy compression" you will find out that music that is compressed is done by REMOVING sound! Yes, that's right! the sound you want to hear is removed from the music to make the file smaller. The smaller the file, the more sound is taken out of the music! CDs have (get this) CD quality sound...makes sense, right? The music you download from iTunes has one tenth of the music that CDs have." Wow, what a long-winded harangue on compressed music. This from someone with 85 gigabytes of compressed MP3s!!!! Hypocritical. 14. "And since you're not getting the liner notes, or the video that is sometimes included on the CD, you should pay less than one tenth of what a CD costs!" No, you're paying almost half. Or, if you buy just the three songs you probably want on the CD, less than $3. But iTunes does include limited liner notes and many high-res QuickTime videos, for free! 15. "Plus, when you consider that there is the distribution, bricks and morter (physical stores) and employees that need to be paid, you can see that at the costs that a CD is, (about $17 now) a downloaded MP3 should be less than 17 cents!" I don't know where you learned your math, but Apple's not making any money on your purchase, as you said before... and you're saving considerable amounts. 16. "Come on people...it's your money...vote with your wallets!" They are... and you're losing. :-) 17. "In all, I gave this device 2 stars becuase it does look cool...but unfortunatly, it's not the device for windows users!" And which one is, considering your strange criticisms? Yes, it does look cool. NO OTHER DEVICE is as small or as powerful. The cheaper knockoffs are all BIGGER AND HEAVIER.
Rating:
Summary: perfect
Review: Simply fantastic - beautifully designed, great sound quality, iTunes is excellent too. Can't imagine life without it.
Rating: 
Summary: Can't live without it
Review: I've had my 10 GB I-Pod since Thanksgiving, and definately don't regret buying it. It is amazing how many songs you can fit on something so small; I love having my whole music collection wherever I go. It is pretty easy to use, and the software installed w/o any problems. Since I have a Windows PC, the wire that came w/ it (firewire) did not connect to my computer, although some PC's may have the required connection. I simply had to purchase an extra connection cable for USB from Circuit City (an extra $20). The software for converting CD's to mp3 files works well, and it takes about 5 minutes per CD (on my computer).
Overall, I love my I-Pod. The back is a little scratched up from everyday use, but otherwise it has stayed in good shape. I definately recommend the purchase of this product. I have the 10 GB version and still have PLENTY of room after loading on my favorite CD's. A must have for any music lover...
Rating:
Summary: The player that set the bar.
Review: over and over again I keep hearing in tech circles when the "ipod killer" will come out, that is, when dell or gateway or rio will come out with a player that can compete with the ipod. my own ipod is a great player, granted I am using a Mac the Mac OS and the ipod were designed to work with each other.
the ipod is small enough to fit in your pocket, carries all your music and organizes it. people wonder why buy apple since there are other players that have more memory or cost less. i ask why buy a jaguar or a mercedes when there are other cars that have the same horsepower but cost less? apple takes ideas like music players and puts top-quality design into them, being able to find 1 of 900 songs in a few seconds is great. I took it out the box, hooked it up and had my whole collection uploaded in less than three minutes. it is made of a tough(but hardly scratch resistant) plastic and stainless steel, other players are made out of toy plastic. other players may have lots of features, like voice recording and FM radio (something that would be nice) but there is no other player that has a cleaner and simpler interface than the ipod and voice recorders and other accesories are easy to buy if you need them.
plus apple listens to people, any complaints people have are listened to and their products keep getting better. as for some of the features that other players have, apple lets third parites take care of it. there are thousands of accesories out there, from microphones to card readers and hundreds of designer cases, how many of those do you get with the Dell jukebox? I have a freeware program called pod2go that puts news, weather and notes onto my ipod, where is the community of people writing freeware for the Rio nitrus?
Apple encourges ideas in people, you are not just buying a player you are buying a platform that is surprisingly open and constantly being improved.
sure the ipod is not perfect, but it raised the bar for the rest of the industry and challaged everyone to put out better quaity products.
Rating: 
Summary: y get the ipod
Review: it is too expensive y get it when the dell is $224 for 15gb. It is 1 of the best there has to be. It is easy to use when u read the booklet. I totally recomend it. Just go on to dell.com.
Rating:
Summary: very cool
Review: Knowing the 10GB model is being phased out by Apple for the 15GB model I recently purchased one at the relative bargain price being offered by Amazon. I seriously doubt I need even close to 10GB for music - but never say never.
I have a PC so I was a little leary - and I did have one hurdle to cross - my PC was operating on Windows 98 so I had to upgrade to WindowsXP to use the Ipod. The upgrade was painless and the new operating system is a major improvement.
As for the Ipod the directions could be much clearer and for this I take away one star. All in all the ipod works as billed; it sounds great and the design is very functional, and it looks really cool. I really like this unit a lot - but, while (after some experimentation)I can load the music I want I still believe that there must be an easier way that I will eventually discover and the directions really are lacking in this area.
Rating:
Summary: Hello? iPOD
Review: The review of an "electronics fan" from yesterday is incorrect. He/she wrote: "First. The buttons on the front are touchy...I keep on turning it on accidently and draining the battery (and a fully charged battery barely lasts 2 hours of listening time...) There is no setting to disable the front panel controls...hint to Apple...you need this feature!" I have the original iPOD which has an excellent control lock switch, as do ALL newer models. When this switch is in the lock position, an orange panel is visible. Quite elegant-- one more feature reminiscent of scandinvian design. Now if a fully charged battery is lasting only two hours- either the product is defective or quite old. If it is quite old, one would hope the user would have discovered the key lock switch by now. HINT TO REVIEWER; review on something you are familiar with. 4 stars to the 10/15GB 3G iPOD which I have extensively checked out, only because the battery life is indeed slightly short (an extra 20% would be welcome). But, overall, a substantial improvement over the 1G/2G iPods.
Rating: 
Summary: looks pretty but this is a Mac only product
Review: First. The buttons on the front are touchy...I keep on turning it on accidently and draining the battery (and a fully charged battery barely lasts 2 hours of listening time...)
There is no setting to disable the front panel controls...hint to Apple...you need this feature!
Second. ACC format...what's that all about? Nothing on the PC side of the world (hey folks, 98% of the computing public are PC oriented.) uses ACC format (except for some obscure apps like the horrendous Music Match and the equally bad iTunes)
If iPod users want to make their music that they download from iTunes available to their home stereo using a wireless network connection, what device would they use? Linksys, Creative Labs and the HP DMR-EW5000 digital media players all do not support ACC formats...MP3s folks...there's a reason it's called "a standard" The whole world uses it!!!
I have an 85GB MP3 Music library. I carry snapshops around on my Archos device (yeah, it sucks, but it works and is reliable) 20gbs at a time. but my main library is on my server at home. I use Winamp to stream my music to my computer at work, I use a wireless connection to send fresh music automatically to my Windows CE onboard player device in my car (custom software assures that I always have fresh music based off of what I already listened to) and I have a wireless media player for my home stereo that interfaces a menuing system through my TV set (Viewing my digital photos on my 53 inch plasma is awsome) These are things you cannot do with Acc format music folks!
Third iTunes for Windows. Man...can any single application suck as bad as this? First, it's nothing more than a thinly veiled medium for pushing Apple's other products (Jobs has even admitted that he is using the iPod the iTunes to "suck" windows users into the Mac world. The first problem with iTunes is that you don't have consistant menues for your second mouse button and the third mouse button doesn't exist...Hey Apple...you're targetting the enlightened Windows users...we know how to use more than one finger to click a mouse! Second problem is that this interface is nothing more than a re-badged browser! And it doesn't use any of your existing internet settings like your favorites menu, nor your automatic form fillers, or any of the browser help objects you may have installed (like Google toolbar with an auto fill form app) And let me tell you...you have to fill in a lot of fields to download a song!
And where's the security icon that Windows users are accustomed to see in the lower right hand corner of their browser? Apple "says" that the connection that you're sending your credit card information is secure...but how do I know that? I don't see an "https" in the browser, nor do I see the padlock. And call me paranoid, but I surely don't want an application saving my credit card information on my computer locally either...and I certainly don't want someone else to store my credit card information! So, having to fill out that form information for EVERY song is nuts!
And whats with spending a buck for a song? And a low resolution song at that? Sure, ACC format recorded at 128 is like MP3 at 132 or something like that...sure...but it's still compressed audio. And it's compresed audio at 10 times compression...Folks, look up the term "lossy compression" you will find out that music that is compressed is done by REMOVING sound! Yes, that's right! the sound you want to hear is removed from the music to make the file smaller. The smaller the file, the more sound is taken out of the music! CDs have (get this) CD quality sound...makes sense, right? The music you download from iTunes has one tenth of the music that CDs have. And since you're not getting the liner notes, or the video that is sometimes included on the CD, you should pay less than one tenth of what a CD costs! Plus, when you consider that there is the distribution, bricks and morter (physical stores) and employees that need to be paid, you can see that at the costs that a CD is, (about $17 now) a downloaded MP3 should be less than 17 cents! Come on people...it's your money...vote with your wallets!
In all, I gave this device 2 stars becuase it does look cool...but unfortunatly, it's not the device for windows users!
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST MP3 PLAYER ON THE MARKET
Review: I just bought a brand new iPod and it works great. I have no complaints at all. The interface is awesome, it is small and compact, easy to use, and comes with all the wires and CD-roms you need to get started. I have no complaints, only praises.
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