Staff
Matt
Chicago, IL

iPod is a great machine but iTunes is a devious plot to trap you

4 star rating

mac and pc user, intermediate-user, athlete
Pros

    looks great, easy to use, great capacity

Cons
    battery wears out over time, cheap headphones , iTunes DRM trap

JAN
25
2007
Several years ago I bought an iPod when it first came out and could not get it working with my Windows PC. When the Shuffle came out by that time we had a Mac in the house and it worked like a charm. We quickly hit the limit of music and then bought the Nano when it came out. I used it a lot when I exercise but unfortunately my five year old found a way to break the hold button and the device became unusable. Which lead me to buy the iPod 30GB. Like everyone knows, the iPod looks great and is easy to use. I have even used it to watch to first four episodes of 24 which is pretty cool. I also downloaded a business audio book and have found that to work really well. So you might ask, why the attention grabbing headline. Well, here is the problem that I have with Apple that the media seems to gloss over. If I buy my music from iTunes, I cannot move that music around to other types of players or other computers. Apple is smart. They make iTunes really easy, and therefore people use it more and more over time. They have sold 2 billion songs. What happens tough the iPod owners decides they want to use another player? They are totally out of luck. Some of the more sophisticated technologists talked about how Digital Rights Management is evil and that music companies should free their music to be shared more easily. Not surprisingly not all the music companies like this idea. But, as Bill Gates pointed out in a recent interview, if you really want to buy music that is free of DRM restrictions, like iTunes is, than just buy the CD and rip the files onto your computer and move them to as many players as you want. How crazy is that. The more consumer friendly way of buying music is to go to a store rather than buying it online. So bottom line, the iPod is a nice piece of hardware but do not buy from iTunes unless you want to be held captive to Apple for the rest of your life.



I_thumb_up Apple - iPod Video White (30 GB) Media Player is recommended by Matt

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c0mputeher wrote on Nov 23, 2007 at 10:44PM

Why use iTunes for music? You can always use Limewire, its free :)

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