I’ve got a 2G 20GB iPod and the battery isn’t holding a charge very well anymore. I’d love to buy a new iPod, but I don’t see a really compelling reason to upgrade. I still have plenty of room and I don’t particularly need the ability to create a playlist on the iPod. Perhaps replacing the battery (or having someone do it for me – or perhaps not if it only takes 20 minutes) is a better solution?
So what features would make me want to upgrade? I’m almost the perfect iPod shuffle user. I generally hook up the iPod in the car, on random, and just hit play, pause and fast forward. However, when I’m listening to a song, I sometimes want to do things that I can’t easily:
- I want to easily be able to browse other songs by the currently playing artist. Let’s say “Walk on the Ocean” comes on, I might decide I want to hear “Crowing” or “Crazy Life” next. Navigating to the Artist menu, then scrolling down to Toad the Wet Sprocket, All Songs, etc. is a pain.
- I also have different versions of the same song – sometimes by the same artist, sometimes by different artists. Let’s say “Hazy Shade of Winter” by Simon and Garfunkel comes on; I might decide I want to hear the Bangles1 version instead.
I know that Apple would (probably) never add these features, because they represent a semi-complex concept and might be difficult to understand if you didn’t already know what was going on. However both of these and more could be accessed through a contextual menu from the middle button – “More songs by this artist”, “Similar songs by name” (would do a smart search on each word in the song title and return highest matches first), “More songs in this genre”, etc. Just noodling ideas around. The new versions don’t do this already do they?
Of course, all the sexy new iPod gadgets (anyone know if that thing works?) require a dock connector too…
UPDATE: As an example, last night, the iPod had just moved to 2 bars or battery. This morning, it was dead. In contrast, the GameBoy hasn’t been charged for three weeks and is still going strong.
- Don’t knock the Bangles – I saw a kick-@$$ cover band play a bunch of their stuff in Vegas a few years back and it brought me right back to Jr. High. 😉 [up]
My iRiver MP3 player, which is CD based, has a great feature I wish they would have ported over. If you double click the Next button, and on the 2nd press hold down a little longer, it will advance to the next directory you have. For the shuffle it could have been the next playlist.
I’m in the same boat as you, pretty much doing everything in shuffle. But if I’m in the mood to listen to just one artist or album, I can get to that directory without ever looking at the LCD. The 512 shuffle is a perfect upgrade since it’s nearly the same storage as my existing device, and won’t skip!
I put a new battery into my iPod (a g1 5 giger) it was easy and took less then 20 min and now get about 6 hours out of it.
Sam
I would upgrade! I have a 40gb 4g, the dock conector makes life so easy.. and then the scroll wheel, the featues you menion i dont know of.. but i have 6,000 on it and it takes less than 20seconds to get to anysong, with the beautiful scroll wheel.. it is defenitly worth the upgrade.. you know not to put money iinto somethin really old.. so UPGRADE lol
I dunno, I think 20 seconds is a long time, but the interaction on the 4G with the scroll wheel is the same as the 2G so there is no additional benefit there.
Don’t hesitate to put a new battery in if you’re otherwise happy with the player. I replaced my 3G battery over the holidays, and it wasn’t that complicated at all.
My friend’s battery on his 3G iPod died a few months ago, and had a good experience with iPodResQ. At least, if you’re scared to do it yourself. I forgot how much it cost him, but the service was really nice. 🙂
I bought a 4G 20GB a few months ago and I love it, but I never had a previous model. The FM transmitter is nice, but the volume is a bit low so you need to crank up the volume on your tuner. You have to remember to turn the volume down before you disconnect or else you’ll blow your eardrums out (I didn’t learn that lesson until the 10th time)! If you have a tape deck and an audio adapter, stick with it and replace the battery.
Who knows? In 6 months Apple may come out with a 5G 5GB iPod the size of the shuffle. Or a 2G Mac mini the size of an iPod. 🙂
Alex, you may not need a new battery at all — apparently simply “restoring” (ie, re-formatting) your ipod might do the trick: http://homepage.mac.[...]d/iPod2.html
I remember reading this article awhile back. My Ipod is still going strong so I can’t vouch for whether it works or not, but it’s certainly worth trying before investing any money into a battery.
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