FreeLists / blindipod / [blindipod] Re: need recommendations for iPod

[Woody Anna Dresner <adresner@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Jo,

I believe the iPods you can buy new are the iPod Shuffle, Nano, and 
Video.  The Shuffle is easy to use because all content is put in one 
thing after another with no menus or folders.  The drawback is that 
there's no way to organize content - put all the songs from one album 
together, for example.

The iPod Nano and Video are accessed in the same way - with a click 
wheel.  This is usable because the menus don't wrap around - when you 
get to the top of a menu, you don't find yourself at the bottom if 
you keep going.  And since the wheel clicks as you move through the 
menu, you can count clicks to figure out where you are.  You can also 
have someone take items off the main menu to make it easier to 
use.  The main difference between the Nano and Video (besides the 
fact that you can play videos on the Video) is that the Nano has a 
flash disk, while the Video has a hard disk.  This means the Nano 
won't skip, but the Video holds a lot more - the Nano comes in 1, 2, 
and 4 GB sizes, while I believe the Video comes in 30 and 60 GB 
sizes.  A disadvantage of the Video is that you can't set the clicks 
so they're played through the headphones, but you can still hear them 
on the iPod's built-in speaker as long as you're not in a place 
that's too loud.  You can set the Nano so that it clicks both through 
the speaker and through the headphones.

A great thing about both the Nano and Video is that you can run 
Rockbox on them.  This is open-source software that controls your 
player and talks.  You can set it up so that the menus and all your 
song and album names talk.  Rockbox is free, which is amazing.  It is 
still in beta, but it works very well.  The Rockbox software can't 
play protected content, like Audible files, however, so if you want 
to play those on your iPod, you have to switch to the original Apple 
firmware.  This is easy to do - it just takes pressing a couple 
keys.  There's a bug with the most recent Nano firmware - if you're 
running it, the iPod won't play anything when you switch from Rockbox 
to the Apple firmware.  I hope this is fixed soon.  But otherwise, 
this works well - I routinely listen to Audible books and songs from 
the iTunes store using the Apple firmware and switch to Rockbox to 
play everything else.

Anapod Explorer does not affect the usability of the iPod at 
all.  It's just another way to transfer content to your iPod.  If you 
use Rockbox, you can transfer files you want to play in Rockbox to 
the iPod using Windows Explorer.  You still need iTunes or Anapod 
Explorer to transfer content to be played by the Apple firmware, such 
as books from Audible.  If you're getting an iPod Shuffle and plan to 
use Audible formats 2 or 3, I wouldn't recommend Anapod Explorer, but 
otherwise it's a nice alternative.  iTunes running Brian's scripts 
works just as well, though, and you can use iTunes for more things, 
like burning CDs and purchasing music.  But the Window-Eyes set files 
for iTunes don't make most of those features accessible.  Since the 
set files are free, though, you might try using iTunes with them 
before buying Anapod Explorer.

For more info, visit the Portable Players Portal by following the 
link at the bottom of all list messages.

HTH,
Anna