Swad Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Being the unmotivated college senior that I am, I decided to take this evening and spend some quality time with iTunes and my 5th Generation iPod. A few thoughts: 1. Better late than never, “gapless playback” gives my iPod a new lease on life. I have a lot of albums, as I’m sure we all do, that have tracks which blend into each other. In the past playing these albums was a painful experience since I wasn’t hearing the art the way the artist intended. No longer. The iPod gracefully handled everything I threw its way, from Mae to MuteMath to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (just listen to the last two sections - glorious music). If I were being picky I’d say that I noticed a split second (and I truly mean a fraction of a second) pause between a few of the tracks. At this point I’m just thrilled with this feature that should have been in place since the beginning. 2. Thanks, Apple, for allowing my soon-to-be 1 year old iPod to stay relevant... and anything but obsolete. Customers like myself enjoy knowing that special Apple events might actually make the hardware they have better than it was before - not making them wish for an upgrade they can't afford. 3. The iTunes movie experience is fairly seamless. I purchased Bicentennial Man for $9.99 and commenced the download. I’m on a campus connection so my speed varies with the number of frat parties, but the 1.4 gig file took 2:06 hours to finish downloading. While I experienced a few glitches getting the video to play in iTunes (the “Now Playing” window looked like an LSD trip for a few minutes...) playback on my iPod and in Front Row were flawless. Congrats to Apple on getting digital video downloads right. 4. iTunes Movies should not be saved in Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Movies. Isn’t that like clicking the Start button to shut down? 5. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but PAC-MAN rocks. The controls are intuitive and it’s just darn fun. Based on the way games are stored (a small file with the extension .ipg) I’m sure we’ll be seeing a torrent of them soon. 6. Downloaded films are divided up into chapters, which I didn’t realize until I placed the movie on my iPod. This obviously makes jumping around in the film much easier. 7. When it comes to movie quality, I can say that I was quite impressed. Granted, the MacBook doesn’t have the largest of screens, but at full screen the quality was as good as most TV/DVD combos that most students use. 8. There’s now a “Volume Limit” setting to cap the volume at which your iPod plays. Quite handy if you’re as anal as I am about hearing loss. [Edit: Ok, so this may have been put in place earlier... let's just say I don't check my settings on a weekly basis...] 9. The iPod integration within the regular iTunes window is very slick. 10. Is iTunes 7 a hint at the UI we’ll eventually see in Leopard? I hope so. It’s easy on the eyes and looks quite professional. It makes glossy and blue seem a little outmoded. 11. Bicentennial Man is a great film for the sci-fi buffs among us. Oh, and James Horner totally plagiarized himself by ripping the soundtrack for A Beautiful Mind from this film. Come on James. A lot of us listen to what you produce. At least mix up the chord structure... These are my short experiences with the changes Apple introduced today. Overall, I'm quite impressed, which is saying something for a skeptic like me. It's always been the attention to detail that attracted me to Apple and it's apparent that considerable thought was given to these upgrades. What have you discovered? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kennyGS13 Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 have you figured out how to use the search feature on your ipod? i've been looking everywhere for it but i can't find it, i'm thinking it's probably just an exclusive for the new ipods Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p3n5t3r Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 As a iPod color/photo user I am a little disappointed that they didn't come up with a true iPod upgrade. I'm willing to buy me a new iPod, but this upgrade just isn't good enough. The battery on the 30 gig still lasts only 3.5 hours, which makes the enormous amount of space kind of useless if you want to watch videos/movies on the road where there is no electricity near. I can get 3.5 hours of playback out of my PSP. Secondly, I don't like the new iTunes interface at all. I think they've gone into the wrong direction. It feels like they started their photocopiers this time. Sadly windows media player isn't great to copy from. I liked the blue bubbles kind of sliders and checkboxes, this grayness is making me depressive. The next thing is the new iPod nano. Why did they choose to make it a ripoff mini? The original nano was one of the sleekest devices ever made, this one seems like a kindergarden device. It's true that I'll get used to it with time, but right now I don't like it. I believe that not updating the iPod to a next gen iPod and at the same time lowering the price, clearly shows that Apple might be up to something. That is introducing a new line of iPods in the near future. The high end nano now costs the same as the low end iPod 5.5, so the true video ipod might as well cost the same as a high end iPod 5.5. Could it be that Apple was just making space for a new product line? One more thing, I love the new suffle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Draconis Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 The Volume Cap was already implemented one update earlier. Pretty handy, but what I understand from your story is that you can play music gapless with any 5th generation iPod? So not the new ones? What I discovered was that on my 'old' 5th generation iPod you can set the brightness. But the gapless playback function must be awesome . I am gonna try it on my classical music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FrDakota Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Being the unmotivated college senior that I am, I decided to take this evening and spend some quality time with iTunes and my 5th Generation iPod. A few thoughts: 1. Better late than never, “gapless playback” gives my iPod a new lease on life. I have a lot of albums, as I’m sure we all do, that have tracks which blend into each other. In the past playing these albums was a painful experience since I wasn’t hearing the art the way the artist intended. No longer. The iPod gracefully handled everything I threw its way, from Mae to MuteMath to Carl Orff's Carmina Burana (just listen to the last two sections - glorious music). If I were being picky I’d say that I noticed a split second (and I truly mean a fraction of a second) pause between a few of the tracks. At this point I’m just thrilled with this feature that should have been in place since the beginning. 2. Thanks, Apple, for allowing my soon-to-be 1 year old iPod to stay relevant... and anything but obsolete. Customers like myself enjoy knowing that special Apple events might actually make the hardware they have better than it was before - not making them wish for an upgrade they can't afford. You are lucky to be able to upgrade the firmware of your 5G, I cannot. iTunes 7 Windows says my iPod v1.1.2 is up to date and iTunes 7 Mac doesn't want to upgrade a Windows iPod. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackt283 Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 I cannot stand Bicentennial Man, nor Robin Williams. That stupid face he has with that stupid gold shell he wears. God dammit, as if that movie has not been made 10 million times over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mithrantir Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 i think it is official now, iTunes' new appearance sucks bad. and to be more specific, let me go through some nice and ugly stuff (imo at least) New Icon - Good, it was something i have been expecting since (being an old iPod user myseld) i was fed up with that old greeny thing ^^ New Buttons - Sucks. I think apple is doing some weird {censored}. At the beggining, they go from the g4 ipod to the sleeky g5 ipod, and then they remove the sleek buttons from the iTunes to put some pretty uglier ones. not good guys... New Playlist Selection Color - Pretty faire imo, if it had been implemented without all of the other "dark" changes i could even like it a bit, but now it just helps with the depressive scenery... New Navigation Bars (or whatever they are called) - By far the worse feature they implemented. I even doubt if they are good enough for Windows Explorer. To be honest, these things dont suck THAT bad, but they are by far worse than the old ones I would also like to point here that i dont like the look of the Name/Time/Artist titles. Just like with the navigation bars, the old ones where way better. About the cool features, i am pretty sure that all of you like the iPod Management, the Download Manager, the new revised Library etc etc so i will just give a hands up for all of that good stuff Please tell me if you agree with me so i know if there is any chance of Apple going back to the old good-looking design and i dont have to leave with a Vista-Tunes for ever Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p3n5t3r Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 I totally agree. I was talking about the same things in my post earlier Let's start a back to blue bubble sliders and checkboxes iniciative! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali Zaid Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Is search included in the new iPod update 1.2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewno Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Is search included in the new iPod update 1.2? I dont see it anywhere... maybe it's not implemented yet...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
non sequitur Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 id much rather buy the dvd and rip that than buy the movie through itunes... i might download the rock though to see how the quality and stuff is. I dont mind the new interface, its just verydifferent. think different.? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali Zaid Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 new interface is good, but not because the new interface itself, it's because it means the UI team in apple are busy. For me I do like the new theme, although I miss the old one, hopefully it will bring some new Mac interface that as successful as it's anncestors Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouch Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 To be honest i don't see movie downloads taking off - for a start who wants to pay for a standard definition movie when HD is just taking off - i'd much rather spend my money of dual SD/HD dvd's. Even if the store offered HD movies - nobody really has the bandwidth to cope wtih the downloads unless your one of the lucky few with fibre. ALso there is a distinct lack of support from actual movie publishers - beyond pixar of course but then that was a given. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jonz14 Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 What new interface? my ipod says 1.2 in the about menu and I don't see anything different with the interface My ipod also will not copy any of my music purchased from the music store and it will not sync any videos whether they are drm protected or not please somebody tell me what is wrong Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ampTK Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 people mean the new iTunes UI jonz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandmanfvrga Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 The thing the pisses me off is that the album view puts a new "album" for each new artist. Dumb on my soundtracks. The album downloads are not working right. Maybe due to the hits on their site, maybe not. It should be fixed soon. Other than that, I don't see the bitching on the new look. It is great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
INFNITE Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 best thing IMO are the prices. 80GB costs $350? thats just killer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p3n5t3r Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Does anyone know if the 80 gig ipod is thicker or thinner than the old 20 gig ipod color/photo ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandmanfvrga Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 On the site you get to see the 30 gig and 80 gig widths. I have attached a screen grab. EDIT: Ok iTunes has this option for compliation. I can do that and make it one album (it was splitting the albums based on artist.) but I think that should be default. The cover art is coming down slowly, I guess maybe they are getting hit so much. The only thing now I don't like is when I am working on an album it keeps jumping back to the one playing. It should wait till there are no keystrokes or any mouse movement in the itunes window. Now, I am happy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouch Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 The thing the pisses me off is that the album view puts a new "album" for each new artist. Dumb on my soundtracks. The album downloads are not working right. Maybe due to the hits on their site, maybe not. It should be fixed soon. Other than that, I don't see the bitching on the new look. It is great. Just select the whole alubum, get info and set Compilation to 'yes' and bingo - only one cover. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timyang Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 just for your information, A Beautiful Mind(2001) was made after Bicentennial Man (1999), so the copying was the other way around, and to imaging A Beautiful Mind's soundtrack was actually nominated for Oscar! Not talk about the film itself, Bicentennial Man's music is really a bizarre mish-mash of his other film music, one of the worst I've ever come across, deeply lack in coherency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orea Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Iv found that if u scroll fastly through ur albums, it shows the letter ur on, but then i have 650 cd's and that is alot! BaYlisS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 13, 2006 Author Share Posted September 13, 2006 Yeah, that's what I was saying - James Horner, who did both soundrtracks, clearly ripped the soundtrack for ABM from BM. The intro song is almost the exact same in chord progression, etc. I really like the ABM soundtrack, FWIW. One of my favorites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sandmanfvrga Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 I am happy now, BUT I have found some soundtrack albums are not in the store. Batman and Robin, Dracula 2000, and the The Lost Boys. I don't understand why they don't have them. I wish we could add our own cover art. Also I have Linkin Parks, Reanimation album. Ok, on their site there is a version of the album with bonus tracks. SO I can't ge the album art since my album was the original album. I had to edit my Queen Greatest Hits album to match the store before it came down. What they should do is allow us to apply any album cover from the store we want cause I have my album I bought legally and I can get cover art, which sucks. Though is is getting better. I love the album interface and scrolling through my albums. It rocks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swad Posted September 13, 2006 Author Share Posted September 13, 2006 sandmanfvrga - you can get other album art from Amazon. Just open up the info pane for any tracks you want to edit and then drag and drop the album art into the window! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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