New iPod is not necessarily improved
By Michael Prager, Globe Staff, 6/1/2003
The 15-gigabyte iPod introduced April 28 with a couple of cousins, one bigger and one smaller, is impressive. It can hold and play back thousands of songs, can perform somewhat like my Palm Pilot, is formattable for either PCs or Macs, and is impossibly sleek and light.
I would probably want to run out and get myself one, if not for one thing: I have a 10-gigabyte model from the line's first generation, and it's better. After 10 days testing an Apple Corp. loaner, I can only vouch for the first half of that American ideal, ''new and improved.''
Conditioned by decades of corporate marketeers, we demand that standard, and it's usually not a problem: Most products could stand some improving. Undoubtedly the iPod, already acclaimed as the best of its type, could get better, too. But so far, it hasn't.
It is a given that ''new and improved'' requires ''more,'' but these designers gave more of the wrong thing. The largest of the new models is said to hold up to 7,500 songs, which is impressive but also preposterous. My home computer's iTunes, the Macintosh desktop music-management and playback software that so seamlessly meshes with
iPod, has ''only'' 4,583 songs, and I've been stocking it with the zeal of an unmarried hobbyist for almost a year. I could have more, but I've already ripped every CD in my collection of 500 that has even one song I want to hear. When I decided I should try to listen at least once to the 3,200 or so songs from the group that I like, it took me nine months! When I went on vacation for a week, able to carry ''only'' 1,500 songs, I returned having barely ruffled the stack, despite plenty of flight and drive time. Sure, I had the freedom of options, and I reveled in it, but the law of diminishing returns had been invoked long before the new iPods appeared.
What I want more of is battery capacity. But in service of sleek, they reduced it from 10 hours' time to 8! What good is a gizmo that holds even, say, 100,000 songs if it's always needing more juice to let them out?
Here are some other reasons that give pause before purchasing:
Most iPod add-ons that I bought, such as the cord that lets me charge it while driving, won't work with the new models. The same goes for the Griffin iTrip, a highly praised peripheral that sends iPod output to FM radio, allowing playback on a car radio or home stereo. Even the basic Firewire cable
no longer fits. It seems almost silly to say, but I had trouble handling the little sucker, not because it is smaller but because of its new layout. Previously, all the functions were performed by a center button and a shuttle wheel circled by four bars. Now the bars are hypersensitive buttons aligned between wheel and display window, and I accidentally triggered functions I didn't want -- usually ending what I was listening to -- often enough to make me think it wasn't just an issue of growing accustomed.
My friend Doug, even an earlier adopter than I, owns the 15-gig model I've been testing. He says he has to reset his player once or twice a day, and points to discussion pages at macintouch.com that reveal plenty of other buyers with the same or similar problems. Apple spokeswoman Lara Vacante says the company is aware of the problem but won't discuss it.
I won't be surprised if one day I own one of these. Even a slightly less likable iPod is still better than its peers. But the satisfaction of having the best will always be tempered by the memory that it was better.
Michael Prager can be reached at prager@globe.com.
This story ran on page N18 of the Boston Globe on 6/1/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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