iPods
August 13, 2005 by Dave Earley
Filed under Uncategorized
Since I just posted this comment on LostRemote, I thought I’d put it here too. The question was asked whether people would really bother frequently updating podcasts onto their portable devices.
It’s not like you’ll go back to your computer every 3 hours and plug in your iPod – or other audio device. I think it’s all becoming a little too iPod centric and, frankly, it’s losing its ‘cool’. I digress – to get the latest podcast. You may listen every three hours on your computer, but if you have to come back to your computer all the time, the portable device is really not doing what you want. It’s possible that you would do this too. CNN now has an hourly podcast update of the most recent news that runs just under two minutes per ‘cast’.
Anyway, the point I was going to make was this. The only problem with syncing every day or every few hours, particularly with an ipod or other players with built-in batteries, is the overall degradation of battery life. Hack, a daily radio current affairs show in Australia, did a few shows on iPods, which I then listened to on my iPod. Basically the premise being that while Apple may claim an 8hr battery life (depending on iPod), that life can over time be shortened in a few ways:
- not charging to a full charge
- charging when not needed (ie-not a drained battery)
- use of the equaliser settings in iTunes
- using higher volume levels and, of course
- extensive use of the backlight
iPods come with a Firewire cable and a USB cable. When plugged into your computer, you can transfer music using either – where Firewire is much faster – but can only charge using the USB cable. I have an iPod mini, which doesn’t come with the firewire cable, but USB only. Thus, anytime I want to update podcasts or change music on my iPod mini I must at the same time be charging the battery. As a result I don’t update my iPod unless it’s charging, it’s not charging unless it’s flat, and that’s only every few days. Otherwise, using the firewire cable, I’d definitely update it with daily podcasts. I still do subscribe to daily podcasts, I just don’t like to have to sit at my desk to listen to them.
But you can if you like. This post also in podcast form.
Podcast-ipods.mp3 (1.2mb)
