Funky Speaks v2.0

Why the Classic?

As you can see above the iPod Classic is quite an upgrade for me. I was happy with my Mini, but its battery started to die and it would not hold a charge for longer than 30 minutes. And I need longer than that from my MP3 player.

As luck would have it Apple held its special iPod event around the same time and as soon as I saw the iPod Classic I was sold. Of course, that was before they announced the iPod Touch.

This presented me with a dilemma, go for the sleek touch-screen interface or the ability to take my entire library with me? In the end, the huge hard-drive won me over.

And now that I see the kinds of prices Apple is asking for the iPhone here in Europe (and the fact that it hasn’t been announced for the Netherlands yet) I’m only more confident in my choice.

The iPod itself

It’s a beauty. While its design doesn’t differ much (if at all) from the iPod 5G, its aluminum exterior fits nicely with my new iMac. This is a point I will go on more about in another post, perhaps, how Apple is seemingly finally heading towards a more cohesive design in both hardware and software (lots of Leopard-y widgets in the Classic interface for example). The clickwheel feels different from the Mini’s, it feels rougher (though not worse) and the button slopes inward instead of outward. When the hard disk is spinning you can hear and feel it, which is strange at first, but it’s something you get used to.

The playback and quality of audio seems equal to the Mini as far as I can tell, but I’m not some kind of audiophile with perfect pitch. It does however have a tendency to skip in the middle of long songs (like Tool’s Forty Six & 2) which I presume is because the song doesn’t fit in its cache and the iPod is forced to read from the slow hard-drive during the song. While annoying, it doesn’t happen often enough for it to really bother me.

The screen is really bright and sharp, just how sharp it really is doesn’t hit you until you start playing video on it. If you’ve got video that’s been properly formatted for it (my favorite tools to do this are VisualHub and HandBrake) it looks amazing. It might not be Hi Def, but it’s good enough to watch a movie with.

While it’s cool that I can take my photos with me on my iPod, the clickwheel interface just isn’t right for it. Not to mention that it doesn’t support iPhoto ‘08 events so it just dumps a bunch of photos on you. Luckily I had some smart albums for each year of photos I took so at least there’s some organization.

I was skeptical at first about games for the iPod. The games that were on my Mini sucked (except for Music Quiz, which usually provided for at least half a minute of entertainment). But these new ones are pretty cool mobile games. Three come with the Classic: iQuiz, Klondike and Vortex. iQuiz is just Music Quiz+ (and therefore pretty cool), Klondike sucks since it’s Solitaire and I don’t understand it and Vortex is Breakout in 3D. I have bought Tetris from the iTunes Store (one of only three games compatible with the iPod Classic, it’s not backwards compatible, which sucks) and it actually works quite well with the clickwheel. So now I have Tetris on the go without playing a crappy cellphone version or lugging around a DS or GameBoy.

Now, the much-maligned interface. Yes, it’s slow. Especially compared to the Mini I came from. Yes, sometimes it stutters when it loads the art for the fancy Ken Burns-thing on the right. But I don’t really spend all that much time in the menus to be honest. Once I’ve got a playlist going I don’t even look at my iPod anymore, except maybe to skip a song I don’t want to listen to at the moment.

I won’t bore you with the details of how it syncs and all, you should all be pretty familiar with how that works. If you don’t, just check apple.com.

Internet reactions

There’s been a sort of internet backlash against the Classic (Marco’s is the first I remember reading), mostly about the sluggishness of the interface. Now, I didn’t have my iPod until after the 1.0.1 firmware update so I can’t speak for the problems that were in the 1.0 version, but I really haven’t been that bothered by it.

I checked Apple’s support forums to see what the most complaints were. And the most vocal complaints seemed to come from Windows users. Now, I’m not saying anything like WINDOZE LUSERS LOL (I can hear some of you chanting “STRAWMAN! STRAWMAN” so loud that it seems like I’m in a sequel to the Wicker Man), but it’s just something I noticed. Let’s take a look at some of them from the Using iPod Classic forum. The most ridiculous ones are about the clock:

What’s the point of cover art, when it is taken off 30 seconds after a song begins. At least make it a setting, so you can change it either way.

 

i want to see what music is playing not some lame clock screen saver. what were they thinking when they put a time limit on “now playing”????

 

ERASE THE CLOCK SCREEN SAVER

 

Wow, I can’t believe anyone would think this is a good idea. I might as well be using a shuffle, if I can’t see what’s playing. Sure glad I spent hours adding album art

All of those (except for the last one) are from Windows users. Notice that the two of three Windows users are unable to use proper punctuation and capitalization. The one wants more settings (You have to be able to configure everything!). And the Mac-guy is just whining. There.

Now just to be clear, this “clock screen saver” appears after about 30 seconds after you’ve stopped pressing any button. It shows you the time, play status (playing or paused) and the battery. I’d say this is pretty handy for a quick check when you take it out of your pocket. While I could kind of agree that it’d be a bit handier if it showed you the currently playing artist and track, but really. Who sits there and watches his iPod? I choose a playlist and put it in my pocket.

I guess I don’t really see using my iPod as an active activity. I listen to my iPod while doing stuff. So it doesn’t really matter to me if I can’t see what song is currently playing. Chances are if I’m using my the interface it means that I don’t like the song and I’m skipping it.

Conclusion

The iPod Classic 160 GB does not get an FSFunky Stamp of Approval, but does not get a thumbs-down either. It gets a “Meh, it’s good for what it does”.