A choice has been made...
So yesterday, I rejoined the Evil Empire. I picked up a silver iPod Classic (120GB). After my gift card and reward zone certificates, I paid $194 out of pocket.
Some quick impressions:
1. The iPod classic is the same size and weight as my Zune. I remember when the Zune first came out, people kept saying "it's too big, like a brick". The classic is just a little wider and a little shorter than my zune. The screen is way smaller.
2. iTunes fucking sucks. What did they do to it? When I moved over to Zune, I preferred iTunes. Now iTunes is a resource hog and seems crippled compared to the Zune 3.0 software.
3. I have to add my music manually to iTunes? With the Zune software, you told it where you kept your music files and any time you added anything new to that directory, it would automatically import into your Zune library and then automatically sync to the Zune. I read there's a script you can put that will auto-add to iTunes though.
4. Podcast support seems shady at best on iTunes. When the Zune software first came out, their podcast support was awful. Now it's leagues ahead of iTunes.
5. iTunes is a prettier program than Zune, but it's functionality is about half of Zune. Aesthetics Over Functionality: The Apple Mantra. I've been saying that for years.
6. The iPod click wheel is pre-historic compared with the squircle on the Zune (yes, that's what it's called). Navigation on the Zune is way better. Is there any way to turn off the floating album covers on the background of the iPod navigation screens?
7. Genius. That's an awesome idea that seems to work really well. I built a Genius list last night based on Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey". It looked pretty solid. On the way to work I did one on the iPod based on "Who Made Who" by AC/DC and it churned out a list of 25 songs that I love. Impressive!
I'll stick with the iPod classic for now. Once the next gen Zunes come out, I'll probably hop back over again. Back and forth, back and forth. If anything, this experience will help me add to my list of reasons why I'm not an Apple person.
Some quick impressions:
1. The iPod classic is the same size and weight as my Zune. I remember when the Zune first came out, people kept saying "it's too big, like a brick". The classic is just a little wider and a little shorter than my zune. The screen is way smaller.
2. iTunes fucking sucks. What did they do to it? When I moved over to Zune, I preferred iTunes. Now iTunes is a resource hog and seems crippled compared to the Zune 3.0 software.
3. I have to add my music manually to iTunes? With the Zune software, you told it where you kept your music files and any time you added anything new to that directory, it would automatically import into your Zune library and then automatically sync to the Zune. I read there's a script you can put that will auto-add to iTunes though.
4. Podcast support seems shady at best on iTunes. When the Zune software first came out, their podcast support was awful. Now it's leagues ahead of iTunes.
5. iTunes is a prettier program than Zune, but it's functionality is about half of Zune. Aesthetics Over Functionality: The Apple Mantra. I've been saying that for years.
6. The iPod click wheel is pre-historic compared with the squircle on the Zune (yes, that's what it's called). Navigation on the Zune is way better. Is there any way to turn off the floating album covers on the background of the iPod navigation screens?
7. Genius. That's an awesome idea that seems to work really well. I built a Genius list last night based on Jonathan Coulton's "Code Monkey". It looked pretty solid. On the way to work I did one on the iPod based on "Who Made Who" by AC/DC and it churned out a list of 25 songs that I love. Impressive!
I'll stick with the iPod classic for now. Once the next gen Zunes come out, I'll probably hop back over again. Back and forth, back and forth. If anything, this experience will help me add to my list of reasons why I'm not an Apple person.