Stupid Tech Question of the Year IPOD

Confloozed · #1 21.05.2011, 16:35

So, tell me about these things(no un controllable, only controllable, laughter please). I don't own one, nor do I know how to operate or do anything with them. I have a request from two young boys to purchase them for a gift. Does it matter if I buy them in Switzerland or France? Do they work the same? And, of course, how do I operate it.
This is not a joke...I still have a cassette deck in my car and would go 8 Track if I could.
Good Day

gata · #2 21.05.2011, 16:48

	Quote:	Confloozed
	So, tell me about these things(no un controllable, only controllable, laughter please). I don't own one, nor do I know how to operate or do anything with them. I have a request from two young boys to purchase them for a gift. Does it matter if I buy them in Switzerland or France? Do they work the same? And, of course, how do I operate it. This is not a joke...I still have a cassette deck in my car and would go 8 Track if I could. Good Day

Buy them from any apple store. Just walk in and ask for one. You dont need to know how to operate them. The two young boys will be experts in about 5 minutes of playing with them

Upthehatters2008 · #3 21.05.2011, 16:49

	Quote:	Confloozed
	So, tell me about these things(no un controllable, only controllable, laughter please). I don't own one, nor do I know how to operate or do anything with them. I have a request from two young boys to purchase them for a gift. Does it matter if I buy them in Switzerland or France? Do they work the same? And, of course, how do I operate it. This is not a joke...I still have a cassette deck in my car and would go 8 Track if I could. Good Day

They are easy to operate, intuitive if you have a finger or thumb that moves, you will soon pick it up.

Doesn't matter where you buy it...

Confloozed · #4 21.05.2011, 16:52

So here is another question...what does it do?

jrspet · #5 21.05.2011, 16:54

It plays stored music files which can be listened using an appropriate earphone set - something that most of today's mobile phones also do pretty well.

Confloozed · #6 21.05.2011, 16:55

How do you store music to them?
please don't groan me, I am not making this up

jrspet · #7 21.05.2011, 16:56

Using the supplied USB cable, connected to a laptop / PC.

gata · #8 21.05.2011, 17:00

	Quote:	Confloozed
	How do you store music to them? please don't groan me, I am not making this up

I believe you also need to download itunes. Let the kids teach you.

KeinFranzösisch · #9 21.05.2011, 17:08

www.apple.com or www.apple.ch (you can also order online)

click the iPod link at the top of the page.
Various types of products. iPod, iTouch, Nano, Shuffle, etc.

Nano would probably be perfect for them.

The are cheaper in other places though. European prices tend to be higher than US, for example.

IanSmithUK · #10 21.05.2011, 17:10

Mostly plays music or podcasts, but newer models have a small colour video screen and can also be used to watch movies/TV shows etc and have some limited application functionality (calendar, alarm etc)

To be at all usable it needs iTunes (free software) running on a Mac or a PC. You connect the iPod using a USB cable and this is needed to copy the operating system for the iPod, music, TV shows, movies etc. Your PC/Mac effectively becomes the "master copy" of stuff that can be copied to the iPod for portable listening/watching.

You either purchase music through iTunes or you can "rip" your existing CDs (insert them into a CD drive on your PC/Mac and iTunes will prompt you to copy it) using iTunes on your PC/Mac and you "synchronise" your iPod with your PC whenever you have something new to add by connecting it up to the PC/Mac. iTunes is usually clever enough to even download the CD artwork for a CD from the internet when you rip it so that the iPod can display the cover artwork on its colour display.

You can also load the iPod up with free podcasts. Again iTunes is used to download them. You typically "subscribe" to a podcast. The BBC do a ton of these so you can eg download the weekly Kermode and Mayo Film podcast, or Richard Bacon's daily chat show podcast, or the Friday comedy Show and every time you start up iTunes it will download the latest episodes so that the next time you connect your iPod they will all get copied across.

Think of it as time-shifted radio available anywhere in the world (and for free courtesy of the UK license payer :-S).

I have my iPod loaded up with audiobooks purchased from Amazon too eg a Swiss-German audio course that gets copied across to my iPod via iTunes.

Once you have one you find more and more uses for it and typically then want to "upgrade" to an iPhone (the same thing but with more applications and a phone and a GPS system built-in) which is why you see all those teenagers on buses and trains never speaking to each other and spending all day "communicating", "listening" and "playing games" on their iPod devices (effectively an iPhone is just an enhanced iPod device)

It's great when travelling abroad eg I have my entire CD collection on something the size of a pack of cards and with a data connectivity plan I can have my iPhone (iPod device) show me where I am and give me maps to show me where I want to go to.

The down-side of any iPod is that it needs to be "keyed" (associated) to a PC/Mac based on an Apple id (email account) and if you want to continually download stuff you often end up cluttering your Mac/PC with copies of what's on the iPod (which can grow really fast) because that's the only way to get the stuff on the iPod in the first place.

And if you delete it from your PC/Mac then the next time you want to load something new up (sync) on your iPod all the stuff you've deleted from your PC/Mac will be deleted from your iPod too unless you get into the habit of going in and changing individual sync settings and trying to manually copy stuff across (something which gets very messy and confusing very quickly and which I've never really mastered).

This probably confuses more than it explains, but hopefully it's a bit of a start!

Rhino · #11 21.05.2011, 17:14

Hi C.
An iPod is a "media player" device - kinda like an updated walkman.

Some iPods play only stored music files, some play stored music and show stored pictures, others are able to do music, images, and video. The most advanced model (the iPod Touch) is able to play music, images, video, it can play video games, and can also connect to the internet so it can access web-pages and other web content over WiFi.

It is possible to put the media files onto the iPod by connecting the iPod to a computer (any PC type) with a USB cable. This is a very simple procedure, and apple supplies free software (iTunes) that makes this process seamless. This same software also allows for the conversion of CD's into "music files" so the user can store their CD collection onto an iPod for listening.

All iPods are made by Apple. There are other competing "media player" devices - but iPods are by far(!!!) the most popular and ubiquitous units (and also arguably the easiest to use).

You can get full information here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPod

The final thing that you should also know before you buy them an iPod is: What do these kids want to use it for. As mentioned previously there are several models and their abilities increase as their size (and prices) increase – so if the kids want them for games you should know this before you buy.

Have no fear about whether this is a good gift or not - as the other users have said… the kids will be showing you how to use it within 5 minutes. iPods are intuitive, easy to use, and very well designed.

My 7 year old god-daughter has one and she really enjoys listening to her mom’s ABBA collection from the 70’s. ;-)