by Abbas Jaffar Ali on November 22, 2003
Introduction
When it comes to style, it’s hard to beat the Italians in clothing, the Germans in cars and Apple in computers. This American based company constantly wows us with their amazingly designed hardware be it a notebook, a full-fledged desktop Computer or an MP3 player- which is what we have with us: The amazing iPod.
The unit we received featured a 20GB hard disk (10GB and 40GB versions are also available) and measured 4.1 by 2.4 by 0.62 inches- about that of a cigarette pack with half the width. The unit was a bit heavier than our expectations scaling at about 5.6 ounces (the 40GB version is slightly heavier.) The front of the iPod is milky white like previous models; however, the back is a reflective mirror which looks extremely cool. The front of the unit also houses the backlit 2” LCD screen capable of displaying 160x128 pixels along with the navigation keys and the scroll bar. There’s a hold button and the connector for the wired remote control / headphones on the top while the FireWire interface at the bottom allows you to connect the iPod to your computer.
If you have a Mac at home or work, you have the luxury of charging the iPod directly through FireWire on your computer with the included base unit. Us PC owners have to attach the other end of the FireWire connector to a power plug provided with the unit. Besides the base unit and chargers, Apple bundles the wired remote control and a carrying case along with a quick start manual and drivers/software. A 6-4 pin FireWire adapter is also included along with the earphones.
It takes the iPod a few seconds to start the first time you power it, however, after that, it just goes into sleep mode and can be brought back to life instantly. Apple places four buttons in the front which are Menu, Play/Pause, Forward and Rewind. Besides these, there is a circular scroll pad with a selection button. Keeping the navigation to just these keys makes iPod EXTREMELY easy to operate without any learning curve really. The buttons light up in orange which makes the unit look very cool.
The Main menu has five options- Playlists, Browse, Extras, Settings and Backlight- the last one instantly lights up your screen and buttons. Playlists help you create a list of songs that you want to hear and adding any song to the play list is as easy as holding the center button on the scroll pad for a couple of seconds. You can also add entire songs by an artist or albums by holding the center button on them which brings us to the way you browse through your library.
Selecting Browse from the main menu brings up a list of how you can organize your music into. The iPod allows you to select between Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres and Composers. Info on the songs can be accessed through the song’s ID tag but can be customized for your iPod. This makes selecting a song extremely easy even if you have hundreds of different Artists or Albums as moving you finger faster on the scroll pad makes you go through the list quicker. To give you an idea, we managed to scroll from the top to the bottom of the list of about 150 artists in less than three seconds- VERY impressive!
The settings menu allows you to adjust the different settings of the unit like Shuffling between songs, setting the repeat mode, setting the equalizer, the contrast and the backlight options amongst others. You can also configure what you want to appear on the main menu. Going back a step in iPod is done by hitting the menu button and something we would’ve liked to see is the option of going directly to the main menu if the menu button was pressed for a couple of seconds, however, for now, you just have to keep tapping the menu button to go one step above.
The final option on the default menu- Extras puts a lot of cools things on the iPod that make it much more usable than just an MP3 player. Starting off, the iPod has a built-in clock and you can set an alarm to wake you up. If you have a pair of speakers connected to the iPod, you can make any tune on the iPod act as your wake-up alarm, otherwise a beep does the job. The iPod also allows you to store your contacts on it and although there is no way to enter a contact, it can easily synchronize between your Outlook or Palm for quick and easy access to a thousand contacts. Similarly, you can synchronize your calendar and notes on the iPod as well giving it the functionality of a mini PDA. Lastly, the unit features a few games that can keep you entertained.
Continued
Coming back to what the iPod is mainly used for, the music quality of the unit is excellent and you have a built-in equalizer to adjust the sound per your needs. Whats even cooler is that each song can have its own equalizer setting! The pair of earphones that Apple bundles sound pretty good and should do the job for most users. As we mentioned earlier, a wired remote control is also included in the package that can control volume levels, play/pause and skipping forward and backwards so you can control the unit without holding it- although we doubt that you’d want to keep something so cool hidden.
The unit features about a 25 minute memory buffer and as long as you’re going in order of a Playlist, Album or Artist, the unit is smart enough to line them and thus allow immediate playback. If you chose random songs from the unit, then sometimes, it can take between 3-6 seconds to get your song started while the iPod powers up and finds the song on the Hard Disk.
Battery life on the iPod was pretty impressive as well. The unit features rapid recharging meaning it recharges 80% of the battery within an hour- great for people in a hurry. Charging the battery completely takes almost four hours and provided us with 6-7 hours of usage which is pretty decent although we would’ve liked a bit more and that could’ve been possible if the battery was removable which it unfortunately isn’t.
On the software side, Apples bundles iTunes for the Mac and MusicMatch for the PC. However, a version of iTunes is now available for the PC and can be downloaded for free from Apple’s website. iTunes lets you organize and transfer files between your PC and the iPod. You can also purchase songs directly off the web and transfer them to your iPod. Unfortunately, this service is not available to people outside the US as a valid US billing address is required for purchasing songs. Hopefully we’ll have the UAE and the rest of the Middle East on that list soon. iTunes also allowed us to play streamed music through its radio function where you can select a category of songs and listen away.
In closing, we loved the iPod. There are a couple of things missing like no built-in FM or Voice recording but all of these are available as additional accessories. Although we must say that we would've liked to see these options bundled with the iPod considering its price- 1300 Dirhams (US$350) for the 10GB unit, 1750/- (US$475) for the 20GB unit and 2150/- (US$585) for the 40GB. There are cheaper hard disk based MP3 players in the Market like Creative’s Jukebox which do a pretty decent job, but then- its like comparing a Toyota to a Mercedes. You get what you pay for and with the iPod what you get is an extremely stylish product that allows you to do a lot more than just play music without being overly complex to use. We love it.
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