Rating: 
Summary: good but pricey
Review: If quality is defined as meeting or exceeding the requirements I would rate the 10GB iPod for Windows just a click shy of being perfect. The transfer speed via firewire is nothing less than amazing. My other portable is a Rio 500 with a usb 1.1 interface. I transfered about 430 MB's of data into the iPod in far less time than it takes for about 60 MB's into the Rio. The versatility of the iPod is wonderful. Read the spec's. No hype. Very high quality playpack. For the audiophiles you don't even need to compress into mp3 format. Thanks to the large harddrive, you can rip cd's to .wav and playback uncompressed. The address book is handy. The large and clear backlit lcd screen is beautiful. Navigating is a breeze with the touch sensitive scroll pad. This is a device with a well thought out form factor and the current bench mark for players of it's type. The downside: no Audible support yet. Audible customer service said it would be late November or December before the Windows iPods were supported. Another feature missing that is unforgiveable in an otherwise brilliant device is a lack of a bookmark feature. If you have a large library of music or spoken word files, when you power off you have to remember where you left off. Unforgiveable. I hope Apple addresses this with a firware or software update. If not I'd guess an enterprising third party will deal with it. This is a fragile device. Unlike the Rio 500 for example, dropping this on a ceramic tile floor will likely kill the harddrive. Buy an extended warranty. You'll probably need it. Lastly, I would have like to see this with disposable batteries instead of rechargeable. This would make it more travel friendly. Bottom line is that this is a wonderful player that is just a notch from being perfect. Nice work Apple.
Rating: 
Summary: Firewire
Review: I am looking at an I Pod but have Windows 98 and no firewire card. I am thinking of buying a belkin firewire card. Does anyone know if that would work.
Rating:
Summary: The Ipod-Windows Kicks ...!
Review: I decided on the IPod Mp3 after reading various reviews of both the Ipod and tons of Windows based products. With the software (Music Match) being the biggest gripe, I decided to go for the IPod. It rocks! I just got it today - charged it while I was at work, got home - loaded the software, (I had a previous version of Music Match already on my computer, so from the day I ordered the Ipod thru last night I loaded many cd's and created playlists so that when my baby arrived, I could get her goin'!) Everything worked smooth. I have a laptop that is less than a year old, running Windows XP, so maybe that helps - it also has a built in 4prong FireWire port. Only irritation was the remote control, so I hit the internet, went to apple.com, and found out the problem - the jack wasn't snuggly in the socket (not obvious when sound is coming thru the headphones which connect to the remote) Apple's Help area was super easy to use and addressed my problem quickly - obviously I am not the only one who thought something was wrong with their remote... So, I have NO gripes with Music Match or the I Pod itself, all has worked perfectly fine for me. Perhaps some of the reviewers who were disappointed just want to plug in the equipment and POOF have songs... Oh - the touchpad style scroll thing is sensitive, but anyone with any experience with a notebook touchpad or rollerball style mouse will easily assimilate to the scroller on the IPod... OOHHHHHHH and the sound is wonderful, even thru the earbuds that came with the IPod! Go Get It!
Rating:
Summary: The real skinny -- absolutely fantastic!
Review: If you've read other reviews, they will tell you how great the iPod is, but how poor the included software (MusicMatch) is... About the iPod: one word "fantastic". Small, stylish, and the headphones are comfortable and sound great. Some people will complain about the mirrored backplate and how it constantly gets smudged, blah blah blah... so what, wipe it off... The included case is ok, but there are better cases that allow full access to the front panel controls. If you don't want to buy a new case, that's what the remote is for... About MusicMatch: be sure to download the latest version (v7.2 when I wrote this). It's really not so bad. The new version even allows you to upload music to the iPod without having to re-write everything. After trying various other ripping and transferring tools, I can see why Apple chose this one -- it's the most functional and easiest to use (again, use v7.2). Don't waste your time with other tools, they are not necessary and are not as good -- spend your time getting to know this software and you won't regret it. ---- CAUTION: be sure to turn on "error checking", or you are prone to bad quality MP3 when you rip your own CDs. Don't waste your time ripping hours of CDs only to go back and do it again! It should be a default option. It doesn't add much more time to the ripping, unless it finds errors and has to re-read tracks, -- but this is a good thing if you want good output. (And yes, even clean looking CDs may have problems, so don't push your luck!) ;-) And just because this software doesn't have the "look and feel" of your typical Windows or Apple application, have no worries -- after a few hours of playing around with it you'll like it, trust me. It's packed with good features, including very good tag editing tools. Read the help file when in doubt -- [...]people!!! Judge for yourself, but I'm very happy with my purchase!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent hardware, troublesome software
Review: It is so nice that Apple decided to release their IPOD to the PC community. The iPOD itself looks great. The size is small enough to fit in the pocket, although it's heavier than it looks. The menu system on the ipod is very easy to understand and powerful. You can even set the language for the menu. (It has 100+ languages built in. Note that these languages are just for the menus. If your MP3 has information/name in another language, it will not show up) The sound is very clear and loud. The earphone, remote control, battery charger, etc are all fit nicely with the ipod. Everything shows Apple's sleep style. However, the software that comes with it really is not that good. I am very dissapointed the Apple decided to use a third party like musicmatch instead of writing their own I-Tune for PC. The interface if kind of strange and not that straight forward and after the installation, it starts whenever you turned on your computer. When I tried to go to the option tab of musicmatch hoping to disable the autostart feature, it crashed. I use XP Home and every other software works fine. Also, the ipod is not connected icon always appears on the bottom tab and there is no way to disable it.(Maybe it's tied to the musicmatch setting, but since I can't change that due to the crash, I don't reall know for sure.) Overall, 5 star for the hardware, 2 star for the software.
Rating: 
Summary: MusicMatch is Definitely a Joke and Other Issues...
Review: Trust Me-MusicMatch can ruin one's iPod experience (so many glitches, I will not even try to list them). Get XPlay right away. Don't get my review wrong-I like my iPod and use it daily and probably would not buy any other model, but for how expensive it is, I think they need to change a few other things. Please use Apple's iPod feedback website so things that are wrong with the iPod get changed (go to Apple's website and hit iPod and then hit feedback). Some issues may seem picky but if you have an iPod with 1000s of songs by 1000s of artists and use it all the time, they would greatly improve the iPod experience: 1) Apple needs a separate PC website because PC support online is basically non-existent. 2) No audible.com (audible book service) support for Windows-based users. Additionally, it looks like Apple has an updated Mac iPod Updater (1.2.1 recently came out) but not a corresponding new Windows iPod Updater and the website does not tell you that the update is not compatible with Windows. PC iPod's should have the same support and features as Mac-user iPods and it seems like there could be a divergence. 3) "SOUND CHECK" is a volume stabilizing feature on the iPod but it is not compatible with MusicMatch 7.1's "Volume Leveling" and therefore, effectively not compatible with Windows-based iPods. This is a great feature and it is wrong that it is not currently being supported in Windows. 4) Cannot add "Composer" tag (used on the iPod) through MusicMatch and other music management programs. 5) iPod's Internal Software. I have suggested many of these changes to Apple: A) Long song, artist, and album names get cut off and some songs have the same name (happens when you have 1000s of songs), which can lead to confusion. There is a screen (I believe browse...albums...all songs) where the songs are not in alphabetical order but in album order but the names of the corresponding albums are not on the screen. Apple should add length (time), album, artist name, genre and track number of a song after the song title when the song title is highlighted for a certain amount of time. I think this could be accomplished by automatic scrolling over to the information when the song is highlighted and the longer the song is highlighted the more information is revealed. This could be especially helpful for songs with the same name, which happens when you have lots of songs. Further, this could alleviate the problem with song titles being too long for the browse screen and this happens a lot with different remixes. Also, there are album titles that are too long for the screen, too (for example, "100 Masterpieces of Classical Music (Vol .1)" vs. "100 Masterpieces of Classical Music (Vol .2)" vs. "... (Vol .3)" and so on) and scrolling over to reveal the full title and artist would be excellent (and if there is more than one artist for an album, it could say "Various Artists") because right now if an album title is too long (and the same with artist name), there is no way to see the full title on the iPod even in the "Now Playing" screen (it only scrolls to reveal the full song name). B) Add day of the week to the clock. C) Songs that have no album title (missing tag) should be put under a "Miscellaneous" or "No Album Title" when browsing "Artists...Albums". Since these songs are not included in the album listings, they will not play if you were to play from the album screen or when shuffling by albums. D) Apple should add scan or intro that plays the first 10 seconds or so of songs (and you should be able to do this randomly and within artists, composers, genres, albums, and playlists) until you hit a button and then it will play that song and will resume the scan after the song. This is extremely nice when you have thousands of songs on your iPod and don't want to sit there and hunt for the song. E) Playlists. Currently, you have to download playlists (not only song order but the actual songs so if you already have the songs in the playlist on your iPod, you will have duplicate songs) from your computer. Therefore, you should be able to create playlists on the fly from the files that are already on the iPod. More importantly and at least, I would like to be able to create a queue list (even just one queue list at a time would be fine) so I can choose a song to play and then choose the next song to play and the next and so on and being able to save it as a playlist would be a great bonus. F) Add .wma file support. G) The iPod places the group "Lo Fidelity Allstars" in the "F" section (rather than "L") like it does for the titles that begin with "The" and the same happens with titles that start with "De"). This should not happen in English menus. H) Add support for second artists and song comments tags. 7) FireWire Issues. As a PC user (especially laptop users and 4-pin FireWire card users), you may have to buy a new FireWire card and an AC adapter if you want to supply power to the iPod while connected to your computer because many PC FireWire cards do not supply power to the peripherals. There is not a separate power source on the iPod other than its FireWire port (which is can be connected to the FireWire card OR to the AC Adapter but not both). Downloading songs can be lengthy and battery intensive so the battery may only last for an hour or two while downloading via a non-powered FireWire card and so you will have to recharge before downloading to the iPod again.
Rating:
Summary: Apple IPod for Windows: The ultimate mp3 player
Review: Reader's Recommendations: Top 4 reasons to buy an ipod
1. Ipod is a ultraportable 10 gb music player that has full compatibility with windows
2. Outstanding service and support from Apple, as well as an award winning music program in musicmatch.
3. Highest quality MP3 player on the market in both sound, visual, ease of use quality. Fast download times.
4. Worth the money: can be used for anything including running, walking, driving, on the airplane..anywhere.. definetely worth 400
Read the rest of my review for a detailed review and description of its unique features I recently purchased the apple ipod 10gb for windows, the ipod connected to my computer which is a dell, easily with musicmatch jukebox and i have also used a program called Ephpod which works wonders in organizing your contacts, calendar and playlist functions of the ipod, in terms of sound quality, unparalled, ease of use superb, beauty great except that the case can pick up fingerprints pretty readily, but the included case and remote control are awesome and well made, problems, had one but it turned out it was my misunderstanding, apple support is much more helpful, caring and knowledgetic that their counterparts at Dell and Compaq for who i have dealt with pretty readily and often, the firewire part of the action presented me no problems because my laptop has a built in firewire port, but if you need to get a firewire card for your pc, try to get a 6-pin one that lets you charge the ipod while it is connected to your computer, like on the mac version, ... Good Luck with an Ipod its portability, size and interface make it the best mp3/cd/md player option that is available, i have used many different players and this is the best one for athletes or people on the go, running and most sports this is the best option for taking your whole music collection along. The firewire support is great because you can purchase and use a 6pin as well allowing you to charge the ipod as well as transferring music To answer some questions that have arisen,
The most helpful program when using Ipod for Windows is NOT xplay, it frequently crashes and erases all info on IPod, Ephpod is an easy download at Ephpod.com it has all the functionality of an apple and allows you to customize your ipod with news, calendars, contacts etc.
The apple ipod for windows does support Audible Books, it has the software built into it and ephpod as well as musicmatch support audio book format. Ephpod is still the better option.
If you have any questions email me at...
I have had the ipod for about a month now and it has never failed to produce high quality audio and is extremely portable. Of the new options out there by creative, archos and rio are not as good, they sacrifice something somewhere, wheter it is portability, or skip protection which the ipod has 32 mb of protection.
Good Luck with your IPOD it is definetely worth the money
Rating:
Summary: This Product Worth Every Penny
Review: The Ipod Came to me just today about 3 hours ago and i have put songs on it in less than 30 minutes. that is something that has never happen to me with any other player i have gotten. The backlight is amazing too. It also has great sound quality. I just dont know why so many people are complaining about Music Match. I mean it worked like a charm for me. Trust me this is a great product and it is really worth the money.
Rating: 
Summary: Great expectations--disappointing performance
Review: This is a really slick-looking device, and the packaging is way cool. I was looking for something like this after my Handspring Visor ceased functioning (thanks, Microsoft), so when I saw Walt Mossberg's review in July, I ordered one the same day, and had been eagerly awaiting its arrival. Apple has a good name, Mossberg is usually accurate, the review above is good. I was sorely disappointed. It does NOT work as advertised, and the lack of documentation only compounds the problems. I had to squint to read the serial number (required by setup). It loaded my music quickly (Firewire is amazing!) but then kept flashing a message "Do not disconnect"; after a long wait, and no help from the documentation, I finally found the eject button in the software. The thumbwheel is very jumpy, and put me in French before I could stop it. They have no useful instructions for the thumbwheel. They have no logical documentation on the features included. They advertise compatibility with Microsoft Outlook, but I could not get my Outlook contacts to transfer, even after consulting all the online documentation (and it was, again, skimpy). The calendar was totally incomaptible. After spending the better part of an evening trying to get this thing to work, I am sending it back to Amazon. It is the first thing I have returned to Amazon, but I refuse to pay ...for a tempermental toy that doesn't even have complete instructions. If you like form over substance, this is a way-cool gadget. If you want a functional MP3 player, look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: iPod wonderful...
Review: Do I recommend to iPod, despite the price? The answer is a loud Yes. This product is wonderful. Holds more music then you may ever need. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. If you're the type that needs to read instructions before even attempting to figure things out, well guess what, even you can use this product. The sound quality is great; the size is petite and easy to put anywhere, whether it's your pants pocket or your shirt pocket. The carrying case may seem skimpy but it actually does a good job of protecting the iPod. The case is similar to the hard plastic cases for cell phones where you slide the iPod out to make any adjustments but the case stays strapped to your belt. The remote is great to, again intuitive in use and after only a use or two you'll have no problem hitting those buttons without looking.
When it comes to listening to all those songs on the iPod you have many search options such as search by song, album, and singer. Add all the playlists you want to make listening to what you want even easier. If I have any complaint, it is the shiny chrome surface which is perfect for fingerprints and smudges but after a day or so of use, you will get use to it and no longer notice.
By the way, you want the firewire card the iPod requires and the reason is simple - speed. USB would take 8-10 hours to transfer 10 gigabytes of music, firewire only takes an hour or less.
So you have this wonderful piece of Apple hardware but what about the Windows software - MusicMatch? Well, it stinks. That is putting it mildly. To add songs to your play list you first have to add songs to the MusicMatch library, no big deal there, but no instructions on how to do it either. So you have your songs in the library and you want to change them so after you have the iPod hooked up you click "Sync" and after thirty or so minutes you have 1000 plus songs on your iPod.
So where are the problems? Well after you fire your iPod up you notice some strange things like the same artist listed five times or the same album showing three times. Looking carefully you will notice the difference is only a character or two so Pink would be listed Pink, Pin, and Pi. So you think, aw man, my iPod is defective, but if you check out your MusicMatch library you will notice that it lists the singer the same way. So you correct those entries using the "Tag" option. But guess what, when you look at the album titles, artists, song titles and genre you notice that so many of them have errors, usually the last character missing from each field. Suddenly you don't have to fix dozen or so titles but quite literally your entire library of 1000 plus songs times four fields, using the tag option. On top of that, there is no guarantee that MusicMatch will transfer those changes to your iPod. The fix according to MusicMatch is to add a space at the end of every entry, and this works but again to have to do this to 1000+ songs for four different fields is a time-consuming proposition. Supposedly a fix will be out for this problem but considering what a basic thing it is to read a text field and duplicate that information there is simply no excuse for it.
Also, another problem is that the syncing. By syncing the iPod you would think that meant I added a new album to my collection and after hooking my iPod to the computer, just that album will be added. Nope, MusicMatch deletes your entire library from the iPod and re-adds it, in the process adding the new album. Also, before even doing this you have to tell the library to add this album. It does not automatically add it even though that album is in the same directory that the library is compiled from.
A final problem is there is a feature that allows volume leveling so that all the songs have the same volume when played. Sounds like a cool feature till you realize that for MusicMatch to make the changes to level the volume it actually alters the file on your computer then transfers it. So you can't revert back to the way it previously was and also as a bonus, all that information about album, song title, genre and artist are now gone and the only way you can change them is to use MusicMatch's tag ability because the Windows property section no longer contains those fields.
So to sum up, iPod wonderful mp3 player, quit simply the best on the market. MusicMatch, a joke of software that cannot do something as simple as read text fields properly. My recommendation? By Windows iPod, marvel at it. Take that iPod disc that comes with it and toss it back in the box. Instead, use a search engine to find Ephpod. It is a free program that makes transferring music to the iPod a pleasure. It actually reads the tags right and when it syncs, low and behold, the program only adds the new stuff without deleting everything from the iPod and adding it again like MusicMatch does. Also it supports audible, calender, and contacts easily. Basically, it is everything that MusicMatch should have been. Did I mention it is free? So get your iPod, get Ephpod, and you are ready to go and enjoy this wonderful piece of hardware.
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