Father of iPod Mini
I’ve been belaboring the idea of getting an iPod for months. Really, this is probably one of the hardest consumer electronics decisions I’ve tried to make recently. Well, the decision making process was shortcut today when I found myself to be the winner of an iPod Mini! Yeah!
Some know that I got my start on computers on the Apple //c and then the Macintosh. Deep down in this jaded IT professionals heart is a soft spot for all things Apple. I’ve got a similar soft spot for all things Unix as well which makes one wonder why I spend my entire day looking at Microsoft dominated systems. Anyway, that’s another blog entry.
Opening up the iPod Mini was a reminder of how Apple “gets it”. They realize the user experience starts with opening the box. The packaging is even cool! Everything was made to be really simple. In fact, I found that when I was having a hard time I was essentially thinking too much about what I was trying to do.
Anyway, I’m only about an hour into using it but I love the iPod Mini. I’m worried that love may turn to infatuation and I’ll be getting a 40G “big” iPod to go with it. iTunes is a great player package. Unfortunately it is so much more intuitive than any of the Windows players.
More to come as I use it, but the immediate reaction is “sweet!”
See, now how can Apple do so well on so many things and then just miss the boat. I’m playing with iTunes, which is relatively great. However, I need to move it’s library/index/database file somewhere other than the default. I do some searches, and find this link
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=150410
Seems what I want to do you just cannot do. Period. No. Didn’t think of that one. Jhez!
<rant>
Why you would hard lock this index file to a users "My Music" folder is beyond me. First of all, for many, many, many people that is on a network drive. So now iTunes is a little sluggish since it has to load a 40MB (and write on exit!) index file to a network drive. I guess I should be happy I’ve got GigE.
Secondly, that folder is specific to that user. No wonders you can’t have multiple logins on the same machine using the same iTunes collection.
This is the kind of lack of control that drives Windows and Unix people nuts about Apple products. I mean, at least this should be some registry edit if not just in the preferences options for iTunes.
</rant>