Melissa Rodriguez
Staff Writer
Want to be hip and up to speed with the latest technology?
Well do not go out and buy a walkman, buy an iPod.
The iPod is apparently the newest musical dream that can hold up to 10,000 songs, with a battery that lasts up to 12 hours on a single charge.
“An iPod is convenient because it’s basically an MP3 jukebox on your hip, and what’s convenient about this is that it’s alphabetized via play list, via artist, via album, etc,” said senior broadcast major Toso Mata’u, who has had an iPod for a year.
“It breaks it all down for you as a computer does so you have access at your thumb tip,” he added.
Many students at ULV seem to have fallen in love with this new toy very quickly.
Everywhere you look you see students plugged into an iPod earpiece.
The sister toy of an iPod is a mini-pod, which comes in many different colors but has a smaller memory capacity.
“Mini-pods are a big deal right now because they are so small and convenient, and it’s a big deal for kids,” Mata’u said.
“You can get them in different colors. It’s actually selling itself so easily, it’s really really cool.”
When an iPod is first purchased, all that it comes with are three basic games: Music Quiz, Solitaire and Parachute.
Songs can be downloaded onto the iPod from CDs you already own or bought for 99 cents each from the iTunes Music Store on apple.com.
That Web site features thousands of songs from many major companies such as BMG, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal and Warner Bros.
The program iTunes is software that comes with the purchase of an iPod and can be used on Macintosh and PC. iTunes has many choices from rock, jazz, Latin, new age, inspirational, opera, R&B/soul, reggae and soundtracks.
“They market it as being easy to use, but if you don’t really know what you’re doing it can be tough, as far as transferring music from your computer to your iPod,” said Jay Aguila, a communications major.
“That’s the only thing that I would know that people would have problems with – actually getting the connection going and knowing how to use iTunes, because it can be a little complicated,” Aguila said.
It seems the iPod has no real downside, at least according to users on campus, except the price, $300-$400, depending on how much memory you need.
They are convenient to students because they can hold basically, well, everything: important contact information such as name, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, downloaded directions from the Web, the latest stock information and shopping lists.
“In the simplest form an iPod is basically a memory card,” Mata’u said. “What you are doing is storing a data compressed file onto a memory card that has headphones, so although many people use it for its real use, which is audio, you know music and songs, you can also transfer files. I can use it to transfer movie files on to another person’s computer.”
A microphone adaptor can be purchased for the iPod and anything can be recorded, such as a class lecture, or it can capture your own voice for any memos such as a “memo to self.”
In addition to the voice recorder adapter there are about 10 plus other adapters that can make your iPod more convenient for you if it is not already convenient enough.
You can purchase additional speakers and make it your radio at home. There is also an adaptor that holds a memory card from a camera and can be transferred to the iPod. There are so many toys for an iPod that make it convenient for anyone in the world.
“There’s a lot of little add-ons that the Mac people have done with iPods,” Aguila said.
Melissa Rodriguez can be reached at mrodriguez2@ulv.edu.
Melissa Rodriguez
