When the iPod first came out, I knew I had to have one, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it immediately because they were fairly expensive and I knew I wanted a lot more storage than 5gb. I told myself that when they came out with a 20GB model, I would bite. When the 20GB model did come out, I had other concerns to deal with financially, so I kept putting it off. About 2 months ago, not having one was killing me, but I knew that revised iPods were just around the corner so I continued to wait. Then, on a wonderful Monday, the rumored new iPods were announced. As much as I was hoping for 40GBs and Bluetooth playlist sharing, 30GB and a thinner, smoother design would have to do. Yeah, the music service is cool, but having the iPod would be enough… for now.
I went to the Apple store in SOHO at 5:30 to arrive at 6. I knew there would be a line but little did I know that it would be a line all the way from Prince St. to Houston St. I decided to see how fast the line was moving so I dutifully got in it as I waited for friends to arrive. The conversations were varied, but there was one guy that really made me laugh. He was just hanging out in the line asking people why they would wait in line, and commenting on how he was just going to wait a few days. Yeah, that’s a much better idea than wasting your time in line! Half an hour later my friend arrived and because I hadn’t moved much—maybe because I had been shown the error of my ways, yeah right—we left.
The event would be going until 10pm, so although there was a chance they would sell out, I decided to come back later.
We got back at about 9pm. The event was very cool: cool people, cool tunes, cool decor, cool giveaways… what can I say, it was just the overall aura. I can’t imagine Microsoft EVER being able to pull something like that off. I bought my iPod, a 30GB, and hung out for a while, but since we were headed to see X-Men 2, not too much of that coolness rubbed off.
On the subway, I couldn’t wait any longer, so I opened it. The experience of opening it is… OK, cool. The box is a cube that folds out into two compartments. Everything is VERY well presented and the new iPod design is well… COOL! Smoother and thinner. The buttons, however, are surprising. They are just holes in the clear plastic cover so they have sharp edges. A very unique tactile sensation. Ultimately I think I will like it a lot, but truth be told, I haven’t held it much at all yet. I’m still downloading songs.
IT’S 6:02pm the next day.
Why is it taking so long, you ask? I don’t have a FireWire ready Mac available, but I couldn’t wait to get the iPod, so I’m loading this up on Windows… Yeah, I know!
I installed Musicmatch several times, but it just wouldn’t recognize the pod. The Apple software recognized it fine, but that didn’t seem to help Music Match at all, which unfortunately is required (that I know of). I had installed Musicmatch before on the PC with an Iomega HipZip. Every time I launched my new installation, it kept telling me that I needed Iomega drivers for the HipZip. Musicmatch tries to help you install them by going to the site, but when you click on the appropriate download, it finishes the download and tells you that it can’t find it. The same goes for the MM iPod plug-in. I looked for it manually and tried to install it, but it wouldn’t work. I tried everything else I could think of for another hour, at which point I had spent 3 hours) and still had not uploaded a single song. So I uninstalled Music Match and all the Iomega software on my computer for one last try. After reinstalling everything but my Iomega software it still didn’t work, and somehow it still wanted Iomega drivers for the HipZip.
So I downloaded EphPod. I was a little nervous because the site didn’t say anything about the new iPods, but at this point I was desperate. I installed Ephpod and (like the Apple iPod manager) it immediately recognized the iPod.