Apple breaks the 100 million iPods barrier

John A 0 289 Views

Today, Apple announced that they have now sold over 100 million iPods, which comes after they had released the first iPod 5-and-a-half years ago.

Grammy award winner John Mayer said about the iPod: "Without the iPod, the digital music age would have been defined by files and folders instead of songs and albums. Though the medium of music has changed, the iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive."

Today, there are more than 4000 accessories designed for the iPod, which is almost too much to stomach.

"iPod has helped millions of people around the world rekindle their passion for music, and we’re thrilled to be a part of that," said Apple's CEO and cofounder Steve Jobs in a statement.

Let's see if Apple's momentum in the music industry will help them change anything in the OS department with their upcoming Leopard version of OS X.

Dani AI

Generated

This thread captures the two familiar reactions to a popular, closed-design music player: admiration for the hardware and UI (echoed by and ) and frustration over cost and the sync model (as argued by , and ). The posts raise the right tradeoffs — convenience and polish versus openness and low cost — but leave a few practical points and fixes unspoken.

Technical reason for the sync model: the player keeps a small on-device index that maps files to playlists, ratings and play counts. Copying MP3s straight onto the device usually does not update that index, so added tracks may not appear in the player’s UI. That design is what makes the vendor’s music manager able to preserve metadata and sync state across devices, but it also forces a particular workflow.

Practical options and tradeoffs not fully explored here:

  • Choose a true USB mass-storage player if simple drag-and-drop and cross-platform plug-and-play are priorities (flash-based devices tend to be cheaper and more drop-resistant).
  • Use the device manager’s “enable disk use” or a third-party manager that updates the player’s index when drag-and-dropping files (model support varies).
  • Follow ’s point about alternative firmware with caution: custom firmware can add features but is device-specific, may void warranty, and requires careful reading of install guides and backups.

Useful reminders: always back up the music library before changing sync settings; eject the device from the OS before unplugging; treat spinning-disk players with care to avoid shocks; and match device choice to priorities (capacity and UI polish versus openness, price and ruggedness). These practical angles fill gaps between the celebratory post by and the hands-on reactions in the replies.

Member Avatar for MattEvans
MattEvans 473 Veteran Poster

Erk. I hate those iPods; I'd much rather have a cheaper device, with drop-resiliant solid state memory, a standard device driver, and that lets me drag and drop my MP3 files into it when I plug it into the PC; rather than meandering through that iTunes abomination.

I'd say ID3 did more to define music by songs and albulms than the iPod did. I love music; but I'd never get an iPod.

Member Avatar for TheNNS
TheNNS 112 Nearly a Posting Virtuoso

true, the ipod is WAY overpriced, but it's just awesome.

Member Avatar for 'Stein
'Stein 150 Lapsed Skeptic

Agreed with TheNNS.

Also realize that, for it to become "a popular item," it has to be expensive and cliche; otherwise, it wouldn't be "the cool thing to have."

Member Avatar for jbennet
jbennet 1,618 Most Valuable Poster

yeah i much prefer my pocketpc to an ipod

Member Avatar for BeastOverlordH6
BeastOverlordH6 0 Posting Whiz in Training

As a supporter of iRiver--or iriver, I think--I think the iPod is a well-designed little device, but in terms of all this automatic updating iTunes stuffs I wouldn't want to use it. Like Matt, I really like using little hard drives with Windows-UI friendly compatibility--had to find out how to use UMS mode on my iriver H10.

Copy and paste :D

I also advise Rockbox firmware to anyone who enjoys their portable music player... opens up some options for your player. (including iPods)

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