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Alt Text: Perils of Joining the iPod Nation

wired.com — 'I feel a little odd about buying anything labeled classic, though. In marketing, classic is a way of making timidity and obstinacy sound cutting-edge. You're on the avant-garde forefront of resisting change! You hated anything new before hating anything new was trendy!'

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MarauderMon, on 03/26/2008, -8/+2Hilarious! Haven't read Alt Text before, but great stuff... "The Cask of Cupertino" - my god, I think I actually got all of his in jokes. Yikes...
- Spuy767, on 03/26/2008, -4/+3It wasn't particularly funny. But if a lack of desire to add features for the sake of feature is obstinacy, then so be it. I had a creative mp3 player with an fm tuner and a voice recorder. I used both features precisely 0 times. It's hard to tell if he's joking and picking features to make fun of for comic value, or if he is simply too inept to use them properly. Amarok has my vote if you're running linux. And I've almost been able to get it running passably under OS X. Under windows is currently an unstable mess. But compared to anything else at the moment, iTunes, even with its flaws is about the simplest way to organize your music, whether you buy ***** fro iTMS or not. I do not.
aceakm, on 03/26/2008, -9/+1Bury me like I buried this post.
- theeEqualizer, on 03/26/2008, -4/+1ok
Tarkaan, on 03/26/2008, -11/+1***** Jobs and his iPod, Creative products have always been better, and this douchenozzle would know that if he'd had any experience with the technology. iPod sucks.
- orangetiki, on 03/26/2008, -2/+1well without the iPod , creative wouldn't have anyone to copy off of.
  I am joking. There are PLENTY of other MP3 players out there that creative can copy off of
astrosmash, on 03/26/2008, -9/+3What a surprise, more anti-Apple stuff from Wired. I'm sure it will get them lots of page views.
NSResponder, on 03/26/2008, -7/+5The Onion has this clown pegged:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28694

-jcr
notepaddotexe, on 03/26/2008, -7/+1I like my iPod and all but I find the "rate your songs" thing kind of useless. Is there really any point to having that 1 star song in my library? Why should it be in my library if I don't like it? WTF? I guess it's more along the lines of "I like this song but not that much" kind of scheme though, eh?
- astrosmash, on 03/26/2008, -3/+8You don't need ratings if you're not a music fan.
  
  Music fans like to keep complete albums of music, even if those albums contain tracks that you never want to come up in shuffle mode. That's what 2 stars is for.
  
  Music fans also like to identify the new music in their library. That's what zero stars is for.
  
  A 1 star rating means delete this crap immediately. You set it while listing to your Pod so you can remember to delete it later.
  
  Finally, music fans usually have music collections too large to fit on their Pod. Ratings are therefore useful for determining what does and does not get sync'd from your computer to your Pod.
  - notepaddotexe, on 03/27/2008, -1/+1I'm a music fan who takes pride in collecting various obscure albums of bands that I like, along with the rest of the audiophiles. Since when does rating songs in my iTunes library gauge how much of a music fan I am?
- haydesigner, on 03/26/2008, -3/+3"A 1 star rating means delete this crap immediately."
  
  I've never understood why there is not a 'delete this song' option on an iPod.
Aorawn, on 03/26/2008, -4/+2So what, you can't create a custom playlist in iTunes?
- orangetiki, on 03/26/2008, -0/+5you mean when I hit the button that says create a playlist, and drag the songs I want into the playlist, it isn't a custom playlist? what a jip.
  - Assezdefromage, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2This was the major shortcoming of the article for me. I wound up wondering why he didn't just do it himself.
orangetiki, on 03/26/2008, -5/+2Gee, can the writer get any more douchier (sp?. if it is an actual word.)
Sorry ladies, but it's the only word that fits.
- TheKeithD, on 03/26/2008, -2/+1"Douchier" sounds like a French word.
linkerjpatrick, on 03/26/2008, -3/+5I know that "fan-boyish" can be irritating but what's even more irritating is the "anti-fanboy" who resists using quality products and does things the hard way just to be different and look like they aren't swayed by trends.
neodorian, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2"Beck songs where the rhythm track doesn't sound like he's throwing Ben Wa balls at an armadillo."

That was probably the only part that made me laugh.
claudiocarmona, on 03/26/2008, -5/+2I disagree with this guy completely. I think the rating system and smart playlists are one of the most powerful features from the iPod/iTunes ecosystem.

I have way too many songs to remember all the artists and albums I have, so I keep my iPod in shuffle and sort my music by assigning stars to them when I listen to songs on it.

For example: you can create five smart playlists for your top five genres. If a song has 1 star it goes to the Rock smart playlist, if it has two stars it goes to the Jazz smart playlist, and so on and so on... If it has any star at all it goes to the general favorite smart playlist. This way you have your favorite songs broken into any schema you can think of, I just happened to pick genres.

This allows me to organize my songs when I am away from my computer and on the road with my iPod. I can later create more playlists based on these 5.
- rilus, on 03/26/2008, -0/+3Wouldn't tags work better for that?
  - Peavey, on 03/26/2008, -0/+2Either comment tags or proper use of Genre tags.
stalax, on 03/26/2008, -0/+6Lore Sjöberg is the ***** man and anyone ragging on his column needs to grow a sense of humor. Check out his older work at http://brunching.com/archive.html
petemorley, on 03/26/2008, -2/+2"I feel a little odd about buying anything labeled classic, though. In marketing, classic is a way of making timidity and obstinacy sound cutting-edge. You're on the avant-garde forefront of resisting change! You hated anything new before hating anything new was trendy!"

How is that a hard concept for him to understand? If Apple had brought the Touch out as the new model of iPod without the classic to back it up, die hard iPod fans would have gone mental at the radically different design with no alternative. Can't call them both the iPod, therefore give them a tagline each. It's the classic design, which probably has something to do with why Apple didn't name the Classic the iPod "Pen" or the iPod "Squirrel".

At the end of the day, it does more than it's predecessor but it shares that "Classic" iPod look.
- MacParrot, on 03/26/2008, -1/+2You scammed my squirrel! Goodbye forever!
  
  (yes this is probably too obscure for most people to get, but it made me laugh)
taketheleap, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1I want some of that fake-hawk cream he's talking about...
swook, on 03/26/2008, -1/+9Wow. You guys don't know who Lore Sjoberg is? FYI, he outclasses us all.

He isn't knockin the smart playlist feature, he's merely writing satire on the type of person it's turned him into. He isn't taking any sides on the fanboy/anti fanboy camp here--he's writing satire. I can't believe how frothy you guys get over iPods. Geez.

Seriously, the man is a world class satirist and I suggest you look him up.
- MaxD, on 03/26/2008, -2/+2Isn't satire supposed to be funny (or at the very least witty) though? That was just random (suppose he needed the playlists). I wouldn't call him a world class satirist, perhaps a Wired classed one (which these days seems to be less and less a good thing).
- Janv1er, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Maybe.... but it sill gets old after a while...
gordonp, on 03/26/2008, -0/+1This article reminded me how cool Frente was.
frascellyboy273, on 03/26/2008, -0/+3that was actually hilarious,
ya know you guys can laugh at the article and still like ipods..
SocialSound1982, on 03/26/2008, -1/+1That's why I save myself the trouble and only use Pandora.com. 100 free radio stations custom made by me, i can play it on my home stereo and cell phone, new music every day, never have to make a playlist or pick a song, and I can buy the whole album used on Amazon, etc. etc. etc.

http://www.pandora.com/people/rasta1982
thenadamgoes, on 03/26/2008, -0/+0wow, you bought an ipod and are now venturing into the realm of itunes, welcome to what most of us did 6 years ago.

Hey, when you discover starbucks, why don't you write 1300 words on how stupid it is that they don't use small, medium or large. I mean, nobody has ever brought that up before.
330angelo, on 04/04/2008, -0/+0John C. Dvorak has no imagination. Here's what the iPhone Desktop will look like -- a phone in your pocket and a computer on your desk. Sheesh!

http://shipsoftwareontime.com/2008/04/03/iphone-de ...
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Alt Text: Perils of Joining the iPod Nation

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