h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What is your opinion of the new iPod Mini and Garage Band? Post your comments here.

http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/
http://www.apple.com/ilife/garageband/

Also, anyone watched the Apple 1984 20th Anniversary advert yet?

http://www.apple.com/hardware/ads/1984/

... the athlete appears to be wearing an iPod! Funny... I don't remember that being there in the original version!

B.

I think the new iPod's very cool - I always thought they should produce colour iPods. Unfortunately the mini iPod's a wee bit too expensive for me - it looks more cost-effective just to buy a normal iPod.

GarageBand on the other hand, looks very cool.

beans.

The mini ipod looks wonderful, but one problem I see immediately is that it only lasts 8 hours on a battery charge, greatly limiting its portability.

Garage Band sounds like a totally sweet program. I'm salivating for a copy.

With a cost savings of only $50, but with the loss of 2/3 of the storage space, I'd have to agree with you, ASW.

Regualar iPods have a charge life of only 8 hours also? Does this present a problem? Does anyone have experience with this?

I have a first generation iPod and I've never had any problem with battery life. The 8 hour charge life represents 8 hours of play-time. I can't see many people listening to music on an iPod for more than 8 hours a day, so I guess it's ok....

I guess I'd call my iPod second generation -- it's not one of the newer slimmed down models, but it has a slightly different interface than the initial model.

Anyway, I use my iPod incessantly, and the battery lasts far longer than the one on my cell phone -- I frequently use it non-stop for 6-8 hours (I use it at work), and then it doesn't take too long to fully recharge.

Thanks! My main interest would be in using the iPod to listen to music all day at wo*k, so unfortunately, an eight hour charge doesn't sound generous to me ... especially since I'd probably forget to charge it in the evening and then walk out the door in the morning without it.

Anything more intricate than a simple battery change is far too complex for my mental capacity.

I currently have a mini-disc player/recorder, but duplicating the CDs from my music collection is a major pain in the . I was hoping for something drag and drop simple ... just drag the song file from the CD over here <----- to the disc over there -----> and you're done ... is the iPod that easy? Newer generation mini-disc player/recorders are much improved in this way, but other than the time-consuming recording factor (which I hate) it's been a great gadget. Sound quality is excellent!

BTW, I can listen to my mini-disc player continuously approximately eight hours a day for a week or more using only one AA battery (I can use rechargeables) ... I wonder why the iPod uses so much power?

If you're using it at your desk at work, it's not too difficult to actually recharge it while you're using it -- I do that all the time, and manage to get through a 12 hour work day with no interruptions.

The power supply demands of an iPod are really more like what you would expect of a very small laptop than what you would expect from a portable CD or tape player.

Hmmmn, still too low paid to push the boat out for the iPod but Garage Band sounds great!

Putting music on the iPod is even easier than that, AW. Pop your CD in the Mac, iTunes starts up. Drag the song you want into your iTunes library, it rips to an MP3. Later, connect your iPod, and the music transfers without you doing a thing. Of course, you can override the totally automatic synchronization, and sync to specific playlists or drag and drop directly to the iPod (all within iTunes).

I don't have problems with the battery life either. I generally listen to it about an hour a day, and the charge usually lasts 8-10 days. This summer I brought it with me on vacation, listened to it far longer each day (4 hours, roughly), and never had to charge it once during the week that I was away.

Thanks to everyone for the great insights and advice on the iPod.

I think I'm beginning to see why they're so popular.

I have read the adverts, and then the small print and am wondering how many trcks/ albums are posable in real life to place on to a iPod. As it would be for clasical music, 4 minute tunes is quite meaningless.

Lightman

It is best to ignore the track count listed in the adverts - as Lightman says, "meaningless". Instead work out how many albums you can get on the thing. A 40GB iPod can store 10,000 songs... so assuming there are 15 songs to the average album, that equates to 666 albums. Gives your plenty of space the entire works of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, and Kataturian!

20GB = 333 albums
15GB = 246 albums
4GB = 66 albums

B.

Crikes!!! if you look at it like that:

15GB = 246 albums
4GB = 66 albums

... then it is way better to pay the extra £50 for the 15GB version!

B.

The current speculation is that the price of the iPod mini will drop before the end of the year, some people are predicting that it will be in the $100 range after a couple of years as the components become cheaper. And it is a standard Apple practice to introduce something at an elevated price, then drop the price in about 4 months.