First look at Apple's iPod

Posted by : surfboard extreme Thursday, March 21, 2013

First look at Apple's iPod

Apple's iPod, a 6.5-ounce MP3 player the size of a deck of cards, is one of the most exciting products to come from Apple in years.

Powered by FireWire, the iPod can hold as much as 5GB of data, providing a compelling balance of size and capacity. However, this combination of features comes at a relatively high price: $399.

Sandwiched between the iPod's stainless-steel back and Lucite front is a hard drive large enough to hold roughly 1,000 songs encoded in MP3 format at 160 Kbps.

The drive's enormous cache -- 32MB of solid-state RAM -- virtually eliminates skipping; shaking the iPod vigorously and even banging it against things didn't interrupt smooth play. (However, we don't recommend this- - shaking and banging can damage the hard disk.) The large cache also allows the hard disk to spin down, extending battery life.

Accessing your music files via the iPod is easy. The 1.5-by-1.5-inch screen has very crisp text, and a bright backlight makes the display easy to see in the dark. The controls are designed for one-handed use. To make selections, you use a single middle button below the screen; a rotating jog wheel around that button controls volume during playback and lets you scroll through hierarchical menus of playlists, artists, and songs. Four buttons located on the jog wheel's perimeter control track playback, as well as backlight and sleep modes. Using the controls can be awkward at first, but once we became accustomed to them, the interface's ingenuity was apparent.

It's unfortunate that Apple didn't include a belt clip, case, or arm band like those that come with other music players. And although the included white ear-bud headphones are stylish and, as Apple claims, provide good-quality sound, we found them too large to wear comfortably for long periods of time.

There are other MP3 players that work with the Mac, but none has been integrated with Apple's iTunes. In fact, the iPod's release coincides with that program's first major upgrade: iTunes 2.

The iPod can synchronize its contents with your iTunes 2 music library, automatically updating itself with the latest changes to your library and playlists. You can also switch to a manual mode and pick the songs and playlists you want to transfer.