Brilliant Playlists

Tips for making smarter Smart Playlists

By Christopher Breen

As our music libraries swell to gargantuan proportions it can become increasingly difficult to manage the music we listen to (or would like to listen to if we could just find half the tunes we possess). Thankfully iTunes offers a leg up with Smart Playlists—a tool for automatically creating playlists that contain exactly the kind of music you want in iTunes and on your iPod.

Of course, Smart Playlists can’t do the job on their own. They need an agile brain behind the scenes to help them separate the good from the not-so. While I’m certain that your gray matter is up to the task, why strain the frontal lobe when people like me are paid to do the work for you. Put your feet up, crack open a cooling copy of iTunes, and let’s begin.

New Music All the Time

Where better to start than at the beginning? If you’re sick of hearing the same old stuff, create a new Smart Playlist that reads:

Play Count is 0.

Below you can limit the playlist by number of songs, the length in hours and minutes, or the amount of space the playlist consumes (in either megabytes or gigabytes). In the Selected By pop-up menu you can further narrow your choices by choosing songs by Album, Artist, Genre, Song Name, Highest or Lowest Rating, Most- or Least Often Played, or Most- or Least Recently Played (I believe the universe collapses in on itself if you choose Play Count is 0 and then select tunes by Most Often Played).

Be sure to also enable the Live Updating option. When you do so, iTunes will check to see what you’ve played either in iTunes or on the iPod when you next sync it and replace any songs in the playlist that have been played with tunes that you’ve never played.

The iPod mini Playlist

The iPod shuffle has the cool Autofill feature that automatically fills the little player with tracks that don’t take up a lot of space (we’ll look at Autofill in a bit). Unfortunately, Autofill doesn’t currently work with any other iPod models and, if you have a reasonably large music collection, it could be useful with an iPod mini.

Oh sure, when you plug an iPod (that’s configured to update automatically) into your computer and your iTunes library contains more music that your iPod can hold, iTunes creates a playlist of music that will fit on your iPod, but iTunes isn’t discerning about what it puts in that playlist. It’s just as happy to copy huge AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, and audiobook files to your iPod as it is to grab the tiniest MP3 and AAC files you own. If you want to pack as much music as possible onto your mini, you need something smarter.

With that in mind, create a series of conditions that read: Kind does not contain. This list of conditions would include AIFF, WAV, Apple Lossless, and QuickTime—song formats that take up a lot of storage space. To avoid packing the mini with songs encoded at high bit-rates (the higher the bit-rate, the larger the file), ask the Smart Playlist to limit songs to those that weigh in at less than 192kbps.You’ll certainly want to exclude the Audiobooks genre and might also wish to skip such genres as Holiday and Children’s Music if its mid-July or you can’t bear one more round of “The Eensy Weensy Spider.” Finally, be sure that the top of the playlist reads Match All of the Following Conditions. If “any” rather than “all” is selected, the Smart Playlist won’t be exclusive enough—as long as one of the conditions is met by a song (bit rate, for example) the song can be used in the playlist.

If you have a lot of music on your computer and you’ve rated that music, consider adding a rating condition that reads My Rating is Greater than 3 Stars. Be sure to limit the size of this playlist with the Limit to option at the bottom of the Smart Playlist window. For an iPod mini this option should read Limit to 3500 MB selected by Album (you must use megabytes rather than gigabytes because the GB field won’t accept decimals, as in 3.5 GB).

Once you’ve created this playlist, select your mini in the Source menu, and click the iPod Preferences button. In the iPod Preferences window that appears, enable the Automatically Update Selected Playlists Only option, select the Smart Playlist you created for your mini, and click OK. The mini will be updated with your playlist—and continue to be as long as you leave this option selected.

shuffling Along

The Autofill feature that appears when you plug an iPod shuffle into your Mac or Windows PC is far smarter than the “how about I fill up your iPod with whatever I like” solution I mentioned earlier, but it could be smarter still. After creating several Autofill playlists, I was surprised to discover just how many songs in my music library run for less than a minute. I like Brian Wilson’s “Barnyard” and the Who’s “Tommy’s Holiday Camp” as much as the next guy, but I prefer that my iPod be filled with songs that are more than musical appetizers. Likewise, I don’t want to pack my shuffle with songs containing endless drum solos or large wav files (the one uncompressed format playable on the shuffle).

Also, having an iPod full of holiday music was great in December, but now that it’s nearing Valentine’s Day, I can do without visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through my head. And because I prefer that my exercise sessions aren’t interrupted with fits of laughter, any Spoken Word selections (which, in my collection, are made up largely of Eddie Izzard recordings) are out.

With all this in mind, my For the Shuffle smart playlist demands that playlist contain no WAV file, tracks are longer than two minutes (and shorter than eight minutes), and tracks tagged as Holiday and Spoken Word files are not included. I limit the playlist to 490MB because I want to know exactly what’s going to go on the shuffle rather than what might end up on it (if you leave the Limit To option disabled, Autofill will choose a subset of tracks from a potentially much larger playlist of songs). As with my other Smart Playlists, I leave the Live Updating option enabled.

Once you’ve created the smart playlist, simply select the iPod shuffle in iTunes’ source list and choose the smart list you created from the Autofill From pop-up menu. To refresh the contents of the smart playlist, just select everything in it and hit the Delete key to remove its contents. Because Live Updating is switched on, the smart playlist will be automatically repopulated with music.

In the Mood

Unless you’re the kind of person for which the party never ends, you’re going to want to listen to a far different kind of music on Sunday morning than was hammered into your brain the night before. To assist in this, you can create Smart Playlists that match your mood. And the key to doing so is iTunes’ Comments field. It works this way:

As you traipse through your music collection, find songs likely to work for you in particular situations—hung-over Sunday mornings or tunes that will get your blood racing while you exercise. When you find such songs, highlight them and choose Get Info from iTunes’ File menu. In the resulting window, click the Info tab and enter an appropriate word in the Comments field.

When you’re ready to compile your playlist, configure the top row of pop-up menus to read Comment Contains Whatever, where Whatever is the mood or situation you’d like a playlist for—Comment Contains Exercise, for instance.

Mood playlists have become increasingly important with the advent of the iPod shuffle. Because their storage space is so limited it makes sense to create playlists that will suit particular occasions—working out at the gym, playing on the subway on your way to a dead-end job, or learning a set of tunes for an upcoming gig. Again, use the comments field to classify your tunes and create mood playlists that you can choose in Autofill.

Be Exclusive

In iTunes 4.5, Apple enhanced the Smart Playlist in an important way. Previously, there was no easy way to keep sections of your library from appearing in a Smart Playlist. For example, let’s say you’d digitized all your old phonograph albums for the sake of posterity but you didn’t want any of the songs on them to ever appear in a Smart Playlist. Sure, you could have added a “phonograph” comment to each archived song and told the Smart Playlist to not include any song with the comment “phonograph,” but would it be easier if you could simply tell the Smart Playlist to exclude all songs within certain playlists? That’s exactly what iTunes 4.5 and later does for you by including the new Playlist criterion. You can now tell Smart Playlists to harvest songs only within certain playlists.

Using our example, just place all the songs you’ve ripped from vinyl into a playlist you’ve called From Vinyl. Then configure a Smart Playlist so that it reads Playlist is not From Vinyl. From there you can further narrow down your choices by including or excluding other playlists.

The Subgenre Playlist

By default, iTunes provides one entry for “art” music—Classical—and lumps be-bop, swing, and fusion in the single Jazz genre. Anyone who’s familiar with such music understands that such labels are far too broad. If you’d like to classify this music more specifically, reveal iTunes’ browser, and open the Get Info window for an artist or album. In the Genre field, enter a more specific classification—Opera, Baroque, Romantic, be-bop, or cool jazz, for example—and click OK to close the Get Info window. Add genre entries for your other classical and jazz music.

Now configure the top row of pop-up menus in the Smart Playlist window to read Genre is Romantic (or some other Classical or Jazz subcategory of your choosing).

Backup Your Purchased Music Playlist

If you lose the music you purchase from the iTunes Music Store, you lose it for good and all—Apple won’t allow you to download purchased music a second time without paying for it. For this reason, you should routinely backup your purchased music. This Smart Playlist can help you do it.

Configure the top row of pop-up menus to read: Kind contains Protected AAC, give it a name such as Backup Library, and click OK. This places all the purchased music files in your iTunes music library into a single playlist. (Your Purchased Music playlist should contain these same songs but if you’ve reorganized your iTunes Music folder, it’s possible that some of the music you purchased won’t appear in the Purchased Music folder.)

Select Preferences from the iTunes menu on the Mac or from the Edit menu on a Windows PC and click the Burning tab. In the Disc Format portion of the Burning window select Data CD or DVD and click OK. This allows you to burn your iTunes files in their current format rather than converting them to a format compatible with the audio CD standard (a format that creates much larger files). Select your Backup Library playlist and click iTunes’ Burn button. If the number of files in the playlist exceed the capacity of a CD-R disc, don’t be concerned. iTunes will burn as many files as it can to the first disc and then ask for as many subsequent discs as necessary to back up everything in the playlist.

When you’ve burned that playlist, Control-click (if you have a Mac) or right-click (if you have a PC) on it and select Edit Smart Playlist from the contextual menu. Click the + button next to the top row of pop-up menus and configure the resulting row of menus to read: Date Added is in the Last 2 Weeks. Enable the Live Updating option and click OK.

If you’re using a Mac, launch iCal and create an appointment two weeks hence called Back up iTunes! Configure the appointment so it recurs every two weeks and set an alarm that reminds you to back up your playlist. If you’re using a PC, use the calendar within Outlook or an application such as Palm Desktop to create a similar alarm.

If you do lose your purchased music, open iTunes’ Preferences, click the Advanced tab, and be sure that the Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder When Adding to Library option is enabled. Insert each backup disc, select the Add to Library command from iTunes’ File menu, navigate to the disc, and click Open. The purchased music files will be copied from the disc to your computer and placed in your iTunes music library.

The Audiobooks Playlist

The fourth-generation iPods, iPod minis, and iPod photos place audiobooks in their own special playlist. If you have an earlier iPod, you can fake an audiobooks playlist. Just configure the top row of buttons to read Genre contains Audiobook.

Go Out and Make Some of Your Own

With these tips in hand, your iPod will be filled with the music you want, when you want it. But this is only a beginning. You have far greater knowledge of what your music library contains and how you’d like to listen to the music in it. I’ve offered a glimpse of what can be done with Smart Playlists, it’s up to you to take the next step.

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Smart Playlists

Smart playlists are just about the best thing going for iTunes, other than built in, multi-format ripping or CD buring in both audio or MP3, or the nifty "Browser".  I use them all the time.  To my winamper friends, it's an alien concept.  So, here's some of my more useful playlists.

Favs

This is a neat one which, if you have a properly rated collection, will provide you with your own personal radio station.  The "Last Played" setting ensures I don't ever overhear a song.  A variation of that would be to put a limit on it, and sort it by Least Often Played, that way you'll always have a fresh mix of your favorites.

Fav-Blues

This is just like my Favs, but tuned for Blues only.  I've turned down the Star rating a bit to open up the field more.  Without it, I could have just used my Favs playlist, with the Browser set to play only Blues.  With it, I have some blues that would never appear in the main Favs.  I have about 4 Fav- playlists.

Never Played

Every so often, you'll infuse your collection with a ton of new songs that you should probably listen to at least once.  What's the point of carrying around songs that you may never listen to?

Newest

Sometimes, when I rip or download a bunch of new songs this playlist becomes useful, as it will usually contain the songs which need to be properly tagged, or have album art downloaded for. 

Rarely Played

This playlist focuses on songs I haven't heard in a long time.  It does so by choosing the 100 songs that haven't been played in the longest time.  iTunes will randomly pick one of those 100 songs, play it and remove it from the playlist and add the new 100th least recently played song.  I have that "Genre is not Comedy" bit in there because I recently added all 54 "Bud Light Real Men of Genius" radio commercials, and since I didn't play them all yet, this playlist was half filled with commercials.

Unrated

I'm a rating nut, and I try my best to have all my songs rated, but it's quite a challenge.  This playlist helps me out.  "My rating is less than 1 star" finds all my unrated songs.  "Last Played is in the last 3 days" means I have a good chance of remembering the song.  I check this every so often and rate the ones that are in there.  You'll have to tune the "3 days" bit so there's always a manageable amount of songs in there.

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Apple Color 4G iPod 20/60GB Review

Pros: Apple’s best iPod yet, with a color screen and user interface, photo display through itself and TV sets, and 17-hour battery life. Great audio quality and overall experience. An affordable, substantial improvement on the black-and-white fourth-generation iPod released less than one year ago.

Cons: Photo display initially requires extended sync process, add-ons required to download photos directly from a camera, or display photos on a TV. Still no way for users to easily replace battery.

06.29.05

In November 2004, iLounge reviewed Apple’s then-new iPod photo (iLounge rating: A-), a premium version of the fourth-generation black-and-white iPod released in late July. We praised the storage capacity, battery life, and new features of the color-screened music and photo player, but thought that it was expensive at $499-$599, and a little rough around the edges for such a pricey device. Even when Apple dropped the iPod photo’s price - mostly by removing pack-ins - and released a lower capacity version in February, we still felt that the company hadn’t addressed most of the concerns we had raised in our initial review, and left our A- grade intact in our Spring/Summer 2005 Buyers’ Guide re-review.

Several major things have changed since then. Apple released the inexpensive iPod Camera Connector (iLounge rating: B+), which was a considerably better value than the $80-$110 devices iPod owners previously needed for camera-to-iPod photo transfers. The company also published a Software Update that added support for digital photo viewing without computer synchronization, and new slideshow transition effects, addressing two of our review’s issues.

And this week, Apple eliminated the biggest barrier for potential buyers: premium pricing. A 20GB (5,000-song) version of the iPod photo is now Apple’s fifth “iPod” - considered by the company to be a color fourth-generation model - and sells for $299, while the old 60GB (15,000-song) version now sells for $399 - a $200 price drop since its introduction last October. Now only do these two new iPods offer the best features and capacity yet for their price tags, but they perform better than their predecessors in other ways, as well. While not the perfect A+ iPods we’re still hoping to see, they’re fully worthy of iLounge’s flat A rating and high recommendation.

What’s In The Box: Hardware and Software

Since last October, Apple has dramatically streamlined the packages of its color-screened iPods, shrinking their boxes and cutting their pack-ins to a minimal level. Though the boxes are no longer as exciting to open as their intricately designed predecessors, Apple has thankfully gone back to using classy exterior designs, with the iPod name in silver foil and clean product shots on three of each black box’s sides. Gone are the colorful and overplayed images of silhouette dancers, replaced by Black Eyed Peas album art and shots of the hardware’s photo display capabilities.

Both the 20GB and 60GB iPods come with one pair of white earbud-style headphones, two sets of black foam earpads, an iPod-to-USB 2.0 cable, a wall power charger, a single data CD, and a collection of instruction, ad, and warranty booklets. The data CD contains PC and Macintosh versions of Apple’s iTunes music software and the necessary drivers to connect your iPod to your computer, as well as electronic versions of various iPod instruction manuals.

This collection of items is all any person needs to fully use and enjoy a new iPod - no further purchases or software are required. You insert the CD into your computer, quickly install iTunes and drivers as applicable, and then connect the USB cable to both your computer and iPod. iTunes provides an incredibly powerful and easy set of tools for transferring your music from CDs to your iPod, as well as legally downloading music and other audio content online. Recent versions of iTunes have also added video management tools, calendar and personal contacts management for Mac users, support for free radio-style “podcasts," and more.

It’s worth a small technical note that Apple has now officially done away with the FireWire cables that used to be included with standard “iPods,” a change that was made back in February when these devices were called “iPod photos,” but not carried out for the 20GB model up until now. As a result, Mac owners and the few PC owners with standard FireWire ports will not be able to take advantage of FireWire’s added computer-to-iPod transfer speeds, but the included USB 2.0 cable will certainly suffice for the data transfer needs of most users. If your computer only has an older USB 1.0 port, you’ll need to charge the iPod with the included wall charger, and expect that it will take longer to initially fill and subsequently update the contents of your iPod.

How Does the New iPod Work?

The new iPod adds power to the elegantly simple control and menu system of its black-and-white predecessor. Within an enclosure that is half glossy white plastic and half mirror-polished metal, the iPod combines a 2-inch color screen with a simple circular controller called the Click Wheel. You skim your finger over the Click Wheel’s touch-sensitive surface to move up and down in menus, adjust volume, and skip through photographs. Buttons hidden under its surface - one each to the north, south, west and east, plus one in the center - let you skip quickly through menus, go forwards or backwards in lists of audio tracks, and play, pause, or turn off the iPod. No easier control and menu system has yet been designed for a music player of the iPod’s complexity.

Apple’s screen is a significant improvement over the ones sold in the prior generations of iPods. Brightly backlit and made with a “transflective” LCD material, it’s easy to read indoors and outdoors, and capable of displaying over 65,000 colors. Seven lines of large, clean menu text plus a header can be displayed at once, with a battery icon always present on the top right of the screen and a play status indicator on the top left. In text file display mode, the iPod can show up to eleven lines of small text at once, and can also display attractive color graphics and games that its older predecessor couldn’t handle. For more details on all of these features, take a look at our Power Users’ Review of the iPod photo; with the exception of a new menu option that segregates downloaded Internet radio programs called Podcasts into their own library, little has changed since then.

As a music player, the new iPod improves in only one significant way upon its predecessor: it now allows you to store and view album artwork for each of your songs, displaying a small icon during playback that can be magnified to a larger (though not full-screen) view for short periods of time. It does not play back music videos or include any sort of visualizers; songs are accompanied on-screen only by their titles, artists’ names, and album names. You can still rate songs, increase or decrease volume, and skip to any part of a song with simple button presses - all with only one finger, if you desire.

When used as a photo storage and playback device, the new iPod is only a few hairs shy of perfection. Out of the box, it can transfer photographs from your computer using nothing more than iTunes, a process that initially takes a considerable period of time but decreases upon subsequent synchronizations. You can create and view slideshows from your photo collection, either silently or accompanied by music. A collection of five different transition effects can create movie-style wipes and pushes, simple visuals that add a little spice to any slideshow.

Additionally, you can connect the optional iPod Camera Connector or two other devices to transfer photographs to your iPod without a computer, and can also purchase separate cables or a Dock to connect your iPod to a TV for slideshow viewing. While not as sophisticated as a photo slideshow generated by a computer program such as Apple’s iPhoto, the iPod holds its own as a portable photo storage and display device.

Audio, Battery, and Storage Performance

In previous reviews of Apple’s iPods, we’ve noted that we don’t have any major complaints about the general audio quality of these players: they are accurate, sonically balanced devices that have earned the praise of average users and audiophiles alike. A small minority of users has insisted that iPods don’t have as much bass as certain other audio devices, but other than that - and related calls for user-customizable equalizers to permit dynamic changes to the device’s sound - the new iPod is about as good as portable audio players get from an audio standpoint.

That includes Apple’s substantial, but not complete remedy of an audio interference issue we identified in black-and-white fourth-generation iPods last year: a static sound that overlapped songs whenever the hard drive was accessed, audible with most pairs of headphones. While we can still hear a short, faint occasional hint of static in our pairs of high-end earphones during hard drive accesses, the noise was not audible using Apple’s standard earbuds or “typical” earphones we tested. Unlike the black-and-white iPod’s problem, most people won’t mind what little interference there is, but we still strongly believe that Apple should eliminate it entirely in the next-generation iPod.

We are quite happy with the new iPods’ battery life, which in our testing exceeded Apple’s 15-hour estimates by a full two hours - over 17 hours of run time, compared with the black-and-white 4G iPod’s 12-13 and the 3G iPod’s 6-8. Rare is the occasion when we’re away from a computer or wall outlet for longer than 12 hours of iPod playback, so 17 hours works quite well for us. While the iPod family could and should continue to improve in this regard, this is nowhere near the issue it was back a year ago. Our only remaining issue is that users cannot easily replace the iPod’s battery by themselves - you need to use special tools to pop off the rear metal compartment - and we certainly hope that this issue is addressed in future iPods. It’s been a limitation of the iPod family since the beginning (see a comparison photo of 2G and color 4G iPods, below), but needn’t be.

The storage capacities of the two current iPod models also deserve a few words. In the past, 20-Gigabyte iPods have proved the most popular with iLounge readers, holding a peak of around 5,000 songs at standard compression rates. We applaud Apple for being honest about the iPods’ storage capacities, even as competitors have stooped to claiming that their devices can hold more songs in the same 20GB of space - despite their scratchier, lower-quality sound.

However, as the new iPods can now play back both music and photographs, the 20GB iPod is required to squeeze even more content into the same space - album artwork, pictures of various sizes, and less-compressed songs stored by increasingly quality-sensitive listeners. After transferring a sample collection of 7,095 photographs to the new iPod, we saw that over five full Gigabytes of storage had already been used up, leaving far less room for music and album artwork. For future iPods, Apple needs to work on reducing the size of its photo database, perhaps through improvements in processor power (enabling realtime scaling of stored images rather than storage of multiple thumbnails). Today, however, music lovers planning to make major use of the new iPod’s photo features should give serious consideration to the 60GB model, which for $100 more triples the smaller version’s storage capacity and leaves plenty of room for whatever you might want to put on the device.

Physical size and Accessory Compatibility

In upgrading the iPod family from black-and-white to color screens, Apple was forced to make only one compromise: thickness. While the new iPods are as tall and wide as their 30GB and 60GB iPod photo predecessors, and thereby fit in all of the same cases, cradles, and other accessories previously designed, they are not as thin as their black-and-white 4G predecessors. The 60GB model is .75 inches thick, and the 20GB model is .63 inches thick, each a bump of .06 inches over last year’s 40GB and 20GB black-and-white iPods. Practically, these differences are virtually irrelevant and fully justified by the device’s superior batteries, but they’re modestly noticeable when compared right next to last year’s models.

Critically, however, these iPods are now fully compatible with the wide array of third-party accessories that have been developed for prior iPods - everything from speakers to voice recorders, camera connectors, battery chargers and car mounts. These accessories either were already compatible when the iPods were sold as iPod photos, or because their manufacturers have subsequently released fully compatible revisions that are now the only versions on store shelves. If you already own an iPod accessory other than a case that doesn’t work with your new iPod, you can most likely contact the accessory’s manufacturer for details on how to obtain a fully working replacement.

Additional Details

If you’re looking for additional information on various features of the new iPod, or its included iTunes software, iLounge has plenty to offer. Our comprehensive Power Users’ review of the iPod photo contains all you’ll want to know about the current iPod’s menus and built-in applications, while our Complete Guide to iPod photo Pictures will help you make the most of its photo features. To learn about iTunes, check out our Tutorials pages, including details on the new features in the current version (4.9) of iTunes, and for information on compatible accessories, you can find cases and other items on our Reviews page, and a easier-to-read digest in our popular, free Buyers’ Guide.

For a discussion of the new iPod’s name and comparison photographs with other generations of iPods, check out our Backstage article Naming the New iPod.

We have two photo galleries full of new photographs of these new iPod models: first, the iPod 20GB gallery, and a separate gallery for the color-screened black U2 Special Edition iPod released at the same time. Our historical photo galleries of older iPod models can be found here.

If you’re not sure whether the new iPod is the right model for you, take a look at our recent Editorial, Today’s iPod lineup, and you. You can also find our super-simple iPod picking guide in the Buyers’ Guide.

Still have questions? With over 65,000 members and 600,000 messages, our Discussion Forums likely already address anything you might want to know. If not, post a message, or use Ask iLounge, our weekly Q&A column. There’s a good chance that you can find the answer on the site, but if not, we’re always happy to help.

Conclusions

It would have been easy to pass on re-reviewing Apple’s newest iPods - after all, the 20GB version is little more than a cheaper, lower-capacity version of the 30GB iPod photo released only four months ago, and the 60GB version is just the same, only in a different box. That simple fact has elicited groans and tears from the most devoted iLounge readers, particularly those who purchased black-and-white-screened iPods only recently.

But to view the new iPods from the perspective of existing owners would clearly miss the significance of what Apple is now offering to new potential buyers: a color-screened, photo-capable 20GB digital music player with unparalleled ease of use and the best software package on the market, all at a lower suggested retail price than any serious competitor. Similarly, its bigger 60GB brother and black-bodied U2 clone are more affordable than ever before, while continuing to possess all of the key features that made them stand out at their October 2004 introductions. Owners of black-and-white-screened iPods may complain, yet there’s little doubt that they’d quickly upgrade if given the right incentive. The reasons for this are obvious: the new iPod’s color screen is not only useful for photos and album artwork, but makes typical reading of its menus and other text considerably easier - and visually more pleasant - than on last year’s iPod.

Last October, we said that “there’s little doubt once you’ve used the iPod photo that its new screen and interface will be in virtually every full-sized iPod Apple sells two or three years from now.” Frankly, we never expected that Apple would be a more than a year ahead of that curve, and that competitors such as Sony would be focusing most of their recent efforts on black-and-white hardware. By switching across the board to superior color displays, offering last year’s great storage capacities and user interface experiences, and polishing most of the iPod photo’s rough edges, Apple has redefined what consumers should expect from a $299 digital music player, and very much earned our high recommendation.

With all of that said, there is certainly still room for improvement. iLounge readers continue to ask for a variety of new features that could further enhance the iPod experience, ranging from an integrated FM tuner to crossfaded playback, customizable equalizers, and even better batteries. While none of these features is today a necessity, future iPods would unquestionably be helped by their inclusion - and competitors will unquestionably continue to exploit their absence to mount challenges to Apple’s market dominance. Our flat A grade recognizes the iPod for what it is today: a great value and truly wonderful product, without any serious reservations. Whether the next full-sized iPod merits equal or higher praise will depend very much on what Apple’s competitors can muster before its release, and the wisdom of Apple’s response.

[Editor’s Note: Following publication of this review, Apple Computer clarified that the new color iPods remain part of the fourth-generation family, and as such we have changed “fifth-generation” references in our review to “color fourth-generation.” We thank Apple for providing this clarification.]

 

My 5g U2 iPod is on its way. Its gonna rock so much. Hey, is the U2 iPod gonna be thicker to? Would it still fit in a 20gb dock?

Oh, by the way. I think you misspelled “all” in one sentence. I didnt see which one.

By Rascal_King on 06.29.05 at 11:31 PM

why is apple abandoning the firewire standard which they helped create. firewire is way better than usb.

By podskater on 06.30.05 at 01:06 AM

Two possibly dumb questions:

Q. Though the new thickness is very small, will I need a new case, or will my 4G 20gb iSkin stretch to fit the new 20gb iPod color screen? It is a very stretchy case, thats why I ask.

Q. I’m assuming that the wall charger is USB 2.0 compatable (whereas I have to use the included firewire cable for my wall charger)?

Either way, i’m certainly going to return the now discontinued 20gb monochrome display that I just bought, and hold on to my store credit and buy a color display when it is in stock locally! Thank you iPodlounge for being the first to let me know about this new lineup!!

By pinkninky on 06.30.05 at 01:24 AM

I don’t think the term 5G is deserved.  Taking a 30GB and dropping it to 20GB is not a generation jump.  Neither is dropping the price. 

Unless there is a big reason you want to call these 5Gs?

By Eriamjh on 06.30.05 at 03:24 AM

Can anyone report as to whether this iPod has the audio quality issues that the *old* iPod photo’s suffered? In particular the iPp’s were said to have difficulty with high-fidelity works such as piano solos or similar.

I’m in the market for a new iPod, but not if they’ve still got these audio issues. If they do, then Apple has just killed off the only decent-sounding, full-sized iPod - the 4G.

By jamesd on 06.30.05 at 03:56 AM

The comment on case compatiblity is misleading.  I know that for people with 20g 4g Vaja cases, they’ll need to buy a new case to fit a “5g” 20g iPod.  But Vaja cases are handmade to fit.  I would think many other cases will still fit the 20g just fine, if not make for a tighter fit.

By Morvran on 06.30.05 at 04:04 AM

I just don`t get why iPodLounge is calling these a 5G.
All the people i know agree this is NOT a 5G we’ve all been waiting for.

I think it only confuses people.

I`m still waiting for 5G to replace my good old 15gig 3G.

By Unbeliever on 06.30.05 at 06:01 AM

After a firmware upgrade my photo 60 is exactly the same as the “new” model. IMO, the “5G” moniker is both unjustified and undesirable.

By Spad on 06.30.05 at 08:05 AM

I think they address this as 5G (I consider this 5G) because it’s a change in some aspect of the normal iPod-- the 2G and 4G were mainly only changes in the wheel, and this one is a change in the screen.

By anonms on 06.30.05 at 08:16 AM

is there any reason for me to return my newly bought ipod 30 gb photo as i bought it a week ago is there any reason that i should get the new 20 or 60 instead cause aparently the 20 gb is the same as the 30 in terms of bulk but 30 ofcourse is bigger but is there a better firm ware update or anything big that i should consider changing my ipod

plz reply asap as times running out thanks

By amad on 06.30.05 at 09:23 AM

It is too bad that Apple took away the ability of Smart Playlists to Live Update on the Ipod without resyncing to Itunes.

Owners or 3G Ipods now have more capabilities and features than 4G Ipod owners.  This latest firmware upgrade removed this valuable feature from all 4G Ipods, and I am sure it is also disabled on the new Color Pods as well.

This feature used to allow songs to be automatically removed from a playlist based on play date or play count once you played them, and was the only way you could manage a playlist so you did not hear the same song twice.

It is a shame that Apple is taking usefull features away.  It is, after all, an MP3 Player, and managing and playing music and playlists should be the most important function of it.

By BuzzardBait on 06.30.05 at 09:40 AM

I just ordered a 60 gig IPod Photo from Circuit city and they have it listed as “IPod (60GB)
Part Number: M9830LL/A”.  This is the same as the new 5th Gen on the Apple site.

I am hoping that I am getting the 5th Gen as opposed to the 4th gen.  Can anyone clarify?

By throwrocks on 06.30.05 at 09:52 AM

Pinkninky: Because of the added 0.06” thickness of the new 20GB iPod, the best fitting case will be one made for the now discontinued 30GB iPod photo, rather than the previous generation 20GB iPod. Silicone cases for the 20GB iPod will stretch to fit, but alignment of the holes will not necessarily be perfect. Also, the included power adapter is a USB adapter, and will work with the included USB cable.

Amad: Keep your 30.

Regarding the “5G” designation: this is the fifth distinct product to be called “iPod.” Don’t worry or get too worked up over this - Apple is not going to stop making new (and more revolutionary) iPod hardware, but this name change strongly suggests that whatever comes next will be the “iPod [xxxxx],” not the “iPod.”

By Jeremy Horwitz on 06.30.05 at 10:32 AM

I agree with other users that this may not be deemed a “Gen 5 iPod”.  Sure, they added a color screen, made it thicker, and added battery life, so maby it does deserve the title.  We could also call it “Gen 4C” for Generation 4 Color.

Now that I think about it, this is a redesign of the gen 4, and is much different.

By P4ipod on 06.30.05 at 10:44 AM

I realize this question may become annoying within the next 14 days, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

My younger sister and I bought 20GB ipods from Circuit City within the last 14 days (we have until Sunday, July 3rd to return them).  Now that the new “5G” ipods have been announced, i’m having a small bit of buyer’s remorse.

My question is, objectively speaking, is the increased battery life in the new “5G” substantial enough to warrant a return of a recently purchased 4G?

We’re not really concerned with the color screen as we just want it for music.  Also, I’m bearing in mind that the new ipod is slightly thicker.  Plus, I should point out that Circuit City gave each of us $30.00 gift cards when we bought them, which ultimately means we bought them at $270.00, as opposed to “5G” cost of $300.00 (I’m assuming they’re not offering same promotion for the new ipods).

In the end, I really just want to run this by my sister before Sunday to see what she wants to do.  $300 to her means a whole lot more than it does to me, and I just want to make sure she gets a good deal.  Again, any advice will be appreciated.

By newipod05 on 06.30.05 at 11:15 AM

Is the screen the same on these as it is on the first iPod photos? I have one of the older ones on order.

By klwdallas on 06.30.05 at 11:25 AM

5th gen my arse! these are stil 4th gen im my eyes. i bought my 4th gen 20 gig about 10 months ago and i feel the use i have got out of it outweighs the benefits of a the coula screen but i feel for people who bought one a few months ago, especially those with their names engraved on them

By craigowen89 on 06.30.05 at 12:23 PM

newipod05, you should just keep the ipods you have since you are not concerned with color screen. Go to circuit city and get a price match as they are now selling your 4g ipods for 269.00 (your bonus gift card has nothing to do with the price you paid).
So after the price match you will have new ipods for for a total of 239.00!

By dukka on 06.30.05 at 01:41 PM

the “big reason” for calling these 5G is the price drop + addition of a color screen. any questions?

By the_commanche on 06.30.05 at 02:12 PM

Well if you go that route the_commanche, then a simple price drop should mark a whole new gen, no?

Since iPod Photo was the same as these 20/60 so-called 5G. Same battery life, sam screen, same interface.

I’m still waiting for a real 5G. iPL can call these whatever they want.

By Unbeliever on 06.30.05 at 02:26 PM

I think the real reason it’s being called the 5g is because it seems to be all apple is gonna release this year in terms of new full fledged ipods, I think that all colour screen ipods(original 30/40/60 photos) can now be deemed 5g ipods, people were never sure but this seems to be it, it was just a long transition into a new generation.

By Enigma on 06.30.05 at 02:44 PM

As far as cases go, all of Speck’s cases should still fit.

By anonms on 06.30.05 at 09:11 PM

How did you test the battery life ? Switch the damn thing on and just look at it for 17 hours ? Listen to the same track continuously for 17 hours ? Details please....

By Karl Hungus on 07.01.05 at 12:17 AM

Am I the only one here who thinks that going from a 30GB to a 20GB model, charging basically the same price and calling it an upgrade is questionable?

Also your statement about compatibility leaves out an important fact. People should know that the 60GB Ipod has the poorest 3rd party support of all ipods. You will greatly limit the amount of cases you can buy, forget about armsbands, and watch out for accessories with a dock. If there is one thing I regret about my 60GB model its the lack of compatibility that it has.

And finally I think you conclusion was more about looking for something/anything positive to say than anything else. I realize this is a site devoted to marketing/promoting/celebrating Ipods, but the price drop for the 60GB model is the only thing of note IMHO. The 20GB model going color is more about losing a thinner lighter model and 10GB vs how much “better” it now is. If I didn’t need the space I’d ditch my 60GB Ipod Photo for for an “older” 20GB 4G in a heartbeat.

By mesostinky on 07.01.05 at 06:01 AM

quick question, is there a physcial weight or width difference in the 20GB and 30GB colored screened ipods?

By BlueSIm on 07.01.05 at 06:20 AM

Wow.  I ‘m glad I bought the 30 gig Photo back in March.  I’m half way or less through ripping my CD’s (most at 160, a very few higher or lossless), I’m keeping a new podcast novel, “Earthcore” (decent story, entetaining) on board, and I have a couple hundred ipod/tv format photos on board.  I’m up to about 10 gigs.  I can see most of 30 gigs getting used up by year’s end, definitely more than 20 gigs.  Sure I could not store everything on my ipod, but it makes management easier if I just automaticly update, and it’s not like the extra data weighs more… Personally, 30 gigs is the right size.

By MotoTrojan on 07.01.05 at 06:57 AM

Karl (great Lebowski reference): Our recent battery tests always use the same formula, which we’ve detailed in past articles - iPod set on 50% volume level, standard earbuds attached, randomized (shuffle songs) playback chosen on large library of songs with varying bitrates and lengths, no equalizers turned on, very minimal use of backlight (when unit turns on, has settings applied). It’s essentially a test of maximum continuous playtime.

Meso: “Questionable” is a fair word, but it doesn’t change the fact that today’s “iPods” are significantly better than last year’s, both in features and in value. It’s a measure of the relentless advancement of the family that some people would today roll their eyes at a $399, color 60GB iPod when only last year Apple was selling a black-and-white 40GB iPod at the same price. Ditto on today’s $299 iPod. Premium features at an affordable price. That’s a win for consumers.

Regarding the 60GB iPod, “greatly limit” is a fairly significant overstatement. We’ve tested the majority of cases that have been released for the various iPods, and very few companies have passed on supporting the 60GB model. The bigger question - and one that has dogged all full-sized iPods since the release of the iPod mini, and the iPod shuffle - is whether people really want to exercise wearing something with the footprint of any larger iPod.

Also, we’re not a site devoted to marketing iPods. If we thought that these iPods were unimpressive, we’d say so.

Blue: They’re the same.

By Jeremy Horwitz on 07.01.05 at 08:43 AM

Just to be clear: the 20 (regular and U2) is still thinner than the 60 (and 30) models.

Too bad it’s slightly thicker than the old 20, but not much--and you get extra battery life.

Plus there’s always the Mini… can’t wait for a color screen in that.

By Nagromme on 07.01.05 at 10:04 AM

If we can agree that the iPod photo was not included in the generations of the iPod, as the shuffle, and mini aren’t either, then the new iPod is a generation ahead of the 4G monochromatic iPod, and therefore would be 5G.

I know that Apple has said that it is still a 4G iPod, but I disagree.

By Impulse29 on 07.01.05 at 12:52 PM

Impulse,

If Apple considers their latest products still part of the 4G model, who is anyone to argue with that?

Manufacturers are constantly updating and upgrading their products, and the generation type still remains intact.  Automobiles are the most obvious example.  Cars are constantly getting upgades, some quite significant, and yet the manufacturer still considers them the same generation design.  Apple is certainly entitled to do the same (which BTW do I agree with).

By flatline response on 07.01.05 at 03:39 PM

Well as much as I don’t want to argue, I think that adding the photo ability to the standard iPod, which doesn’t only mean changing the screen to colour, but also the port, chips, and the dock. If adding a touchwheel to the iPod was enough for G1 to G2, then I think that making another line of iPod, the photo, the normal iPod, it should be a new generation.

Analogies can be helpful, but only in the same context. Although Apple and car manufacturers both make products, they are in totally different fields. iPod’s upgrades are in the form of firmware upgrades which do not mean a new generation.

Would you be implying that Apple would have to change the button layout/ button functions to be a new generation (as it has been for all previous iPods)?

By Impulse29 on 07.01.05 at 04:28 PM

Why this got an A and the 30G photo got an A- I don’t know.  Personally, I’d rather pay an extra $50 Aus to get 10Gig more and have it a tiny bit thicker then have a 20G.

I agree with MotoTrojan, 30g is the right size.  Also note that in australia, the “new” 20g has bumped the price up $30 to AU$449 where 1 month ago, AU$499 would have got you an extra 10Gig.

I’m just happy I’ve got my 30G photo, my iPod of choice of any iPod to date.

By Jibbons on 07.01.05 at 07:28 PM

Impluse29, I think Apple will just change the design but retain the wheel-- it’s an excellent design and it doesn’t really need any changing.

By anonms on 07.01.05 at 09:37 PM

STOP CALLING THEM 5G’s!!!

By JeremytheIndian on 07.02.05 at 03:26 PM

i love this new upgrade. but as soon as the real 5g comes out… who knows what will happen to these? will apple discontinue this once the 5g comes out this year?

By zerophase on 07.02.05 at 04:02 PM

I think apple is going to pull four new ones for us on the 5G debut.  I think apple will…

1. give us iTunes 5,
2. I heard apple placed a bunch of orders of 80GB drives (double platter) and the 40gb and the 60gb (will be single plater) making it the size of the 20GB, so perhaps the 5G iPod (XXSomthingXX) will be a 80GB,
3. I think a 3G 8GB mini (color screen maybe)
4. 2G Shuffle with LCD in 2GB and 4GB

I sure wish apple would make a PDA… But pretty much I think apple is doing a pricing game for a reason I have a feeling that apple is doing the 20BG for $299/ 60GB $399 so people will say “hey for $100 more I can triple my size “ thus Dumping the old dual plater 60GB and for the new 5g Apple will give us a slim 40GB/60GB and add the 80GB

I noticed this when the iPhoto was offered in a 30GB.  My assumtion was that apple had a bunch of 30GB drives from the rare 3G 30GB that didn’t sell as much

Plus I hope that for the %G the battery is 20hrs or more. my Ipod moves with me alot, from school to the car to work and back it looks at 2 to 3 full charges a day just to stay juiced up with me.

By bmxing85 on 07.02.05 at 09:55 PM

P.S. Apple please Kill the U2 model. it was cool but it got old (fast).  Perhaps offer a artist ed. for the mini too.
P.P.S. Just to throw it out there, Perhaps with the Gorillaz ad, you could of done a “Feel Good IncPod” or something new like that, I would of bought the ipod with some Gorillaz stuffon it, since the Freak’n Demon Days CD won’t rip in iTunes, or even open on my computer for that matter (What is up with that? Wasted $15 on a useless piece of plastic)

By bmxing85 on 07.02.05 at 10:06 PM

why is apple abandoning the firewire standard which they helped create. firewire is way better than usb.

By podskater on 06.30.05 at 02:06 AM

APple ain’t abandoning it.  Firewire cables bought from Apple still work fine.  98% of iPod owners are PC users, who don’t have a clue about Firewire, and wouldn’t use their FW cable.

YOU CAN STILL BUY A FIREWIRE CABLE!

By iPod Dance on 07.02.05 at 10:42 PM

“Analogies can be helpful, but only in the same context. Although Apple and car manufacturers both make products, they are in totally different fields. iPod’s upgrades are in the form of firmware upgrades which do not mean a new generation.”

Impulse,

However different, they both are still consumer products; that’s the context.  Both can and do encounter modifications that summarily change the performance of each product over its entire lifespan cycle.  In the case of the 4G, how should adding a color screen and picture capabilities not be any different than adding a turbocharger or boring out the cylinder displacement for, say, a Type 996 Porsche 911 (conveniently forgetting that we are currently in the age of the Type 997).

Both improve the usability/performance of the product over the lesser/earlier siblings of the respective product, yet as different as the original 4G is from a color 4G, they can easily be seen as the same design generation/model, just in the same way as a late run GT3 was to the first 1998 911, since to Porsche and us followers they’re still both Type 996 models even though they perform, look and even DRIVE very differently.

As for what I would deem significant enough of a change to move on to another generation/model labeling for an iPod: first of all, it’s not MY call.  But if I WERE to be the one to decide, I’d say it had to be a fundamental change in the execution and function of the iPod to warrant such distinction.  Monochrome to color and JPG displays ain’t it to me; that to me is an upgrade improvement, not some fundamental difference in how I use the iPod, especially given that the original iPod Photo was previously considered as a 4G derivative. 

But wired to wireless, or audio to audio+video, or something that profound in changing the nature of the iPod...THAT I would consider profound enough to warrant a change.  As for revising the outside appearance: that to me is not as important in determining a model change as it often is to others, but if Apple were to beef up that cheapo, noise-making headphone jack on the 4G (at least it is on my 40GB with headphone cords using a metal base to their plugs), I MIGHT consider that ALONE worthy enough for a generation change. (Listening, Apple?). Regardless, as I said before it’s not for me or even you to say anyways.

And besides, regardless of any anologies you deem inappropriate, Apple and their product planners still have already spoken: 4G the new photos are.

By flatline response on 07.03.05 at 12:53 AM

“is there any reason for me to return my newly bought ipod 30 gb photo as i bought it a week ago is there any reason that i should get the new 20 or 60 instead cause aparently the 20 gb is the same as the 30 in terms of bulk but 30 ofcourse is bigger but is there a better firm ware update or anything big that i should consider changing my ipod

plz reply asap as times running out thanks
By amad on 06.30.05 at 09:23 AM”

There is no need to exchange from a 30gb to a 20gb. u just need to go to apple.com/ipod and look for the new update v.1.2 . this update will make it the same as the new ipod color 20gb by adding the new features such as Podcast. aside from that, there is nothing new about the new color iPods. I have a 30gb iPod Photo, perfect size, but the new ipods take away from the fact that u can say u have a ipod photo vs the person who had the black and white ipod. o well.

By Striker_Fox on 07.03.05 at 11:14 AM

*whimpers at the thought of a fairly new ipod being rendered obsolete*

By punkrockavocado on 07.03.05 at 12:11 PM

I just got my 20 gig color. It is sweet. I now know what you all have been raving about with the Photo.

By mrjwhit on 07.09.05 at 01:37 PM

Someone asked earlier regarding the audio quality of the ipod. I bought the 4g 30gb ipod photo and used some classical music in ALC and 192 AAC and there is a slight difference in quality if you listen on a high end system. I did not hear any artifacts on either. ALC playback was smooth (I previously bought a early 4g 20 gb ipod which used to skip through ALC files - thus it was returned) it seems that apple fixed this problem. I use it with the Kenwood IP-500 ipod interface in the car - Its an impressive combo with great sound quality, allowing you to control everything from the head unit. For the person asking about classical music or solo piano, make sure you rip from original CDs not CDRs. I did not hear any difference between LAME VBR 192 / iTunes 192 highest / or 192 AAC.

By Nadoor on 07.11.05 at 04:47 AM

My 4G b/w iPod’s battery is acting up and i really consider sending it to Apple to get a replacement/ battery change. But I’m unsure if they will send me the new one with a color screen or an old b/w one. I really like the b/w one, simply because it’s thinner.

So, does anyone know if I get a color one or b/w one?

By Prismatic on 07.11.05 at 11:45 AM

APPLE, BRING BACK THE 30GB iPOD!!!
I OWN 30GB 4G PHOTO AND IT’S THE BEST.
I WANT TO BUY IT FOR MY FRIENDS BUT THE CLUBMAC FREE ENGRAVING AND THE OVER CHARGED SHIPPING ISN’T SOMETHING THAT WAS IN MY MIND.
I PURCHASED MINE FOR 317 WITH EDUCATIONAL SAVING.(CHEAPEST DEAL I FOUND EVERYWHERE - PUT IN ANY SCHOOL NAME THEN YOU ARE ELIGIABLE)
AND NEW 20GB IS ONLY .06mm THINNER AND AROUND 270 ON APPLE STORE (W/ ED. SAVING) NOT THAT FAR FROM THE PRICE I PAID FOR 30.  ANYONE DON’T MIND HAVING EXTRA THICKNESS ON YOU iPOD, GO FOR 60GB.  WHY NOT HAVE MORE SPACE WITH MUCH LESS THAN WHAT THEY USED TO OFFER.  FOR THE REST, CONSIDER CLUBMAC FOR 30GB OR THE APPLE STORE FOR 20GB ( I WAS VERY DISSAPPOINTED WHEN I MADE THIS PURCHASE FOR MY SISTER B-DAY PRESENT ).  ONLY IF I MADE THE PURCHASE A WEEK EARLIER.

By le_petit_prince on 07.13.05 at 01:56 PM

i just got my 20gb color yesterday and i’m loving it completely right now… i had an old 40gb and was insanely jealous when the 30gb photos came out because i’ll be taking a trip overseas with a digital camera and i dont have a large memory card in it.  taking my laptop would have been a disaster waiting to happen, so as soon as i saw apple integrated the color screen and photo abilities into the new generations, i scouped one up… i only have about 9gb of music, so storage space is definitely far from being a problem.  i’m pretty picky when it comes to the music i’ll keep and listen to, so 20gb will last an unreasonably long amount of time.  even if i take 1000 pictures on my trip, i’d still have room to tote around lots of extra files in disk mode…

for a $50 savings over the 30gb model, i am extremely happy with the value of the 20gb.  for a college kid, that $50 goes a long way (esp. in the bars)

By Apoc112 on 07.14.05 at 06:48 AM

okay, i dont know if this is true (and i highly doubt) but i heard that you can trade in your fourth generation ipod for a new photo...is this true or am i just kidding...please comment back!

By tracy xx on 07.15.05 at 07:02 PM

tracy xx

I just got back from my local Apple store today with my 3rd iPod in less than a year.  I don’t know if it’s bad luck or what.  I asked if I could trade, and the tech said no.  If you really wanted to trade, he suggested selling the b&w iPod on eBay and using what you get for it to buy the new one.

Since this one I picked up today is brand spanking new, not even turned on, not even out of it’s plastic pajama top, I’m going to try to sell it, as well as the AppleCare warranty.

Now there’s something.  I get a 3rd iPod, and the warranty runs out on the first one, which died in October.  Don’t you think that I should be able to start a new warranty on this one, since it’s freakin’ new?  Essentially, I would have had a brand new iPod with a 6 day warranty.  Bunch of junk.

Enough of my ranting.  How much does this forum think I can get for my iPod?

By alan.hopper on 07.16.05 at 12:49 AM

As described at another blog, the 60GB “with color” sounds like a great substitute for my ibook to store photos on a trip.  But please clarify, will the new 60gb use a “dock to firewire 400” cable to power the new ipod from an old firewire ac adapter? And will it sync to my ibook via a firewire to dock cable? I have the cable.  (Apple tech support says yes, but your review casts doubt.)

By djmjr on 07.18.05 at 01:33 PM

any mention of the audio defect present in high picthed piano tracks when using low impedance earphones? or is that just glossed over in all the praise?

By yw_217 on 07.19.05 at 02:36 PM

 

ipod dance: i tend to disagree, i work in a computer shop and sell PC’s on a daily basis.

all our new PC’s have FireWire capability and the users know what it is,

the fact of the matter is that there are still tons of people without firewire, alot of laptops also don’t have it. usb is in anything and everything these days, oh no! its an intel standard too, funny that

By linux_insidev2 on 07.21.05 at 12:57 AM

Read More......

MusicMagic Mixer software review

MusicMagic Mixer software review
Introduction:

Even though there are dozens of options when it comes to music software, most are simply derivations on popular programs like iTunes and Winamp. Still, every once in a while something unique pops up that is worth checking out; case in point, MusicMagic Mixer by Predixis, a piece of software that analyzes individual music tracks and then creates dynamic playlists based on their attributes.


The Fingerprinting:

As opposed to rule-based playlists (“smart playlists” in iTunes, “automatic playlists” in Windows Media Player 10), which rely exclusively on ID3 tags, MusicMagic Mixer (hereafter referred to as MMM) actually scans each song and obtains a ‘digital fingerprint’ of the track (it recognizes properties like what instruments being used, speed and style, etc). It must be noted that it takes some time for MMM to fingerprint each file, around 1-3 minutes, so you’ll likely want to let the program analyze your library overnight. Once the lengthy process is complete, setting up a playlist based on these fingerprints is easy as cake. Simply selecting an artist, album, or song, and hitting ‘Mix’ will create a playlist based on the attributes of said selection(s). The options menu lets you adjust the size of your mix (by # of tracks, total time, or total megabytes), and alter variety and artist style as well.

Once your playlist is created, you can shuffle it to your liking, and save it as a .m3u file, meaning it is compatible with most DAP's and media players.

All these options are nice, but of course the million dollar question is, how well does this fingerprinting feature work? How about a few tests…


Test #1: Acoustic guitar/piano

For the first test I created a playlist based on the fingerprint of ‘The Elements’ by Greg Graffin, a tune that contains no more than vocals, a piano line, and an acoustic guitar accompaniment. Naturally, I was expecting the playlist to contain songs that used acoustic guitars and/or pianos. And it did. By using those two instruments for a benchmark in similarity, I judged that about 95% of the songs in the playlist featured both instruments and sounded close as a whole (some Beatles and Third Eye Blind tunes with the same instrumentation were among the songs in the playlist).

Test #2: Brass group

This test created a mix around a track entitled ‘3rd Man Theme’ from Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, an ensemble that includes several trumpets and trombone, along with the rhythm section. The resulting playlist included mostly similar sounding songs, including some more Herb Alpert tunes, some brass quintet pieces, and impressively enough a number of songs using synthesized brass instruments rather than real ones. This test was about 95% accurate like the first one, with only the occasionally odd unrelated rock song in the mix.

Test #3: ‘Tagless’ music

After casually creating a half dozen playlists and being reasonably impressed, I still wondered how much of the playlist selection in MMM was actually based on the fingerprint, rather than some sneaky sorting using ID3 tags. I decided to create a playlist around a grungy, punk rock jam, ‘Born to Lose’ by the Bouncing Souls, an untagged file as it was. Though not as accurate as the first two tests, about 80% of the songs chosen were of the same genre and sound as ‘Born to Lose.’ This definitely convinced me of the legitimacy of Predixis' fingerprinting feature.


After experimenting with numerous methods for mixes, I’ve come to the conclusion that this fingerprinting feature basically works as advertised. It's a neat feature that is great fun to play around with.


The other stuff:

While MMM’s big draw is its analyzing and mixing capabilities, that’s not all it can do. You can also use it to batch edit ID3 tags, and manage music on portable devices (ones that are seen as removable storage drives in Windows). The tagging interface is simple and useful enough, and is similar in function to iTunes and Windows Media Player 10. The device feature (only available on the retail version) itself is pretty straightforward. It works with any USB mass storage device (DAP’s with the feature include iRiver, iAudio, Archos, and more), and when connected MMM displays all songs and .m3u playlists on the device for easy editing of ID3 tags or editing/creating of mixes. Dragging and dropping files from your music library to the player is possible as well, though it’s really just as easy if not easier to use Windows Explorer for that task, so the feature isn’t super necessary. Also, like other management software, you can set MMM to watch a certain folder on your computer for new files so it can automatically import them into its library.

It’s important to know that MusicMagic Mixer will not replace your standard music library software, as it lacks key features like music playback, ripping, and CD burning. There is a ‘play’ button in MMM, but it only opens the selected file(s) in your default media player.

Conclusion:

Predixis’ MusicMagic Mixer is clearly aimed at music fans that spend lots of time creating and editing playlists in programs like iTunes and Winamp. For those folks, MMM may be worth the cost. It's simply, efficient, and unlike smart playlisting, its analysis method doesn't requite perfect ID3 tags to be effective. For the rest though, it just doesn’t offer enough else to choose it over something like iTunes, J.River Media Center, or WMP10. If you’re already satisfied with the software you’re using for music/playlist management, you probably won’t find enough here to justify the cost ($ 30 for the full version).

Pros:
+Simple, clear interface, very stable program
+Cool, innovative fingerprint analysis
+Exports playlists in popular .m3u format
+Supports analyzing/fingerprinting of Mp3,WMA,Ogg and FLAC files

Cons:
-Lacks common features like playback/ripping
-Not enough features to justify cost

Read More......

Musicmatch Jukebox 10

 Musicmatch Jukebox 10
REVIEW DATE:  12.08.04

Total posts: 6

By Troy Dreier

The new Musicmatch Jukebox 10 (the first release since Yahoo! purchased the company) delivers incremental improvements to an already strong music manager. Whereas Microsoft's Windows Media Player 10 branched out to help you organize all types of media files, MMJ 10 sticks to its knitting, delivering mostly ease-of-use refinements designed to help music lovers better organize and play their collections. The result: While WMP 10 arguably has the edge for casual users (and for those who will use its multimedia capabilities), MMJ 10 is our favorite for music lovers looking for the most robust audio manager.

Unlike WMP 10 and RealPlayer, which aim to help you manage all your digital media, MMJ 10 (which runs only under Windows XP) focuses on audio. It does not aspire to organize and play your entire multimedia library (music, photos, videos); it's trying to be the best music-management solution for serious enthusiasts. And it succeeds, handling enormous music

libraries impressively. Working with a collection that contained more than 100,000 tracks, MMJ 10 was just as responsive as it was with small collections. Organizing your music is easy, with more tagging options (including a full set of ten new tags for classical music). And we love the new drag-and-drop tagging (a feature also found in WMP 10), which lets you change mistagged songs simply by dragging them into the correct folder.

One new feature is the completely revamped AutoDJ tool. With it, you select a few artists to build a playlist around, set the controls for how much variety and how many songs you want, and let the program do the rest. If you subscribe to Musicmatch's fantastic On Demand service, which lets you stream all the music you want (from the service's 800,000-track library) for $7.95 per month ($95.40 per year), the AutoDJ can even include On Demand content. This is a great way to discover new music. Fans of the previous AutoDJ tool, which uses filters to create playlists, will find that it's been improved and is now called AutoDJ Classic.

Other improvements include new library views, a handy tool for managing your playlists, faster CD ripping and burning in the free version (8x burning and 10x ripping are now supported), and an option to filter out explicit lyrics from the online services. There aren't many new features exclusive to the premium version. Jukebox Plus ($19.99) does, however, include a tool for finding duplicate tracks; it also supports custom library views and lets you export your library to a spreadsheet.

But MMJ 10 might not be right for everyone. Some will prefer WMP 10's Explorer-like tree menu to MMJ's drop-down menus. Accessing different views or the various controls is also easier in WMP 10, thanks to the tree menu and a tabbed interface. And while WMP 10 is no replacement for a dedicated photo-management application such as Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, those with modest photo-organizational needs (or a Portable Media Center to sync with) might prefer to use WMP 10 as their sole app. Also, WMP 10 users can easily shop from MSN Music and Napster within the player, while MMJ 10 users can choose only Musicmatch's store from within the player.

Still, MMJ 10 makes an already good jukebox even better. It has the most depth in music organization of any jukebox out there. If all you want is a way to organize and play music, you'll be very pleased.

Member Ratings

bostmaguy July 18, 2005 Member rating:

The "editors" of PC Mag must be out to lunch. Not only have I, a technically savvy geek, found the interface complicated and overwhelming, when iTunes for Windows was made available, I felt like I entered Valhalla. It even prompted me to purchase a Mac for home and roll out Macs to "test" departments at work. Now everyone wants to be in a test group. Well, testing ends shortly and we will be doing a systemwide rollout based on my recommendations. All of this happened because I was looking for a better way to manage my music, and the waterfall effect kicked in.

  

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tgalang July 12, 2005 Member rating:

Based on Troy's Dreier article, I decided to purchase Musicmatch 10.0 Plus for $19.95. It was money poorly spent. They claim to only have technical support for Plus users, yet they have no phone number, do not reply to emails (I'm still waiting for two responses from emails sent 6/27 and 6/29 - it's 7/12 right now), and their online help is full of errors. They also refused to refund downloaded music in the following two situations: I had an error downloading three songs ($0.99 each) and for two and a half weeks they wouldn't download. I went to Real and purchased the songs there. After I debugged the problem myself (no help from Musicmatch) when I wanted to download more songs, these old songs finally downloaded. Their billing department couldn't care less that I had purchased them from Real, or that I had to wait 2-1/2 weeks to get the songs. They just wanted their $3. Two other songs that I downloaded will not burn to a CD with the error "No burn rights". Even though I can't get any technical support to fix this, the billing department will not refund. I tried to give them the logic that I had just purchased a $230 20 gig MP3 player, that I have spent around $50 in the last six months on their site, and it didn't make sense to piss me off over $5 of worthless music. They could care less. I plan on disputing the transactions on my credit card (including the cost of Plus since they aren't offering the promised technical support) since this may be my only recourse. Troy, take a look at their online help. Type in a key word (such as "rights") to search their knowledge base, and note that you get nothing close to anything to do with "rights", and every article synopsis is identical (and wrong). No company like this should ever be a PC Magazine Editors Choice.

  

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zdphotog June 14, 2005 Member rating:

I have contacted them by email Never get any responses Called on the telephone All I got was answering machines Support is non existant. I do not see where they get such a high rating from magazines since there is no support for this product!!

  

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xaris777 May 9, 2005 Member rating:

I challenge anyone to get anything but an autoresponder from customer support. Each time you reinstall Windows on a machine Musicmatch thinks it is a different machine. You can only play purchased music on 5 Machines. Reinstall your operating system the 6th time and you lose the right to listen to your music. the web sight says to go to one of the old machines and deactivate it in order to free up an activation. Of course the old machines don't exist to deactivate. In that case the FAQ sight says to contact customer support. Yea Right. I have tried repeatedly and am still waithing

  

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rollintraver February 20, 2005 Member rating:

I upgraded from MMJB9 to the new version 10, and the auto song detect option no longer works at all, and the on-line technical support is not helpful. Recording from non-cd sources is one of the main reasons for me to use MMJB, in fact I typically import the results into iTunes because it is a more intuitive interface.

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iTunes 4.9 with Podcasting

 

iTunes 4.9 with Podcasting REVIEW DATE:  07.18.05 Company: Apple Computer, Inc., www.apple.com Price: Free
By Troy Dreier
Podcasting—the ability to time-shift and download your favorite radio programs (NPR has been a pioneer here) and subscribe to a multitude of homegrown audioblogs over the Internet—has, despite a grab bag of free tools, inconsistent feed-management styles, and a hodgepodge of largely disparate content, grown rapidly over the last 12 months. Now Apple gives podcasting a huge nudge into the mainstream by blending innovative podcast download and management features into the latest release of its widely distributed iTunes music download and management software. This integration is a boon for podcast consumers who, up to now, had to choose from a number of adroit, yet standalone, podcast-download software options, including iPodder and PodderX. But integration is not the only reason we liked this iTunes update. Apple also makes a couple of smart choices, both on the client application and the iTunes music store, that will help users find and manage podcasts. To help people discover podcasts, Apple has created a podcast directory that can be accessed from the iTunes Music Store, so that users can search by browsing through categorized lists. While Apple's directory features content from big-name providers like Disney and National Public Radio, the bulk is from the kind of small-time do-it-yourselfers who first built up podcasting. The directory is light years ahead of what you'll find with other podcasting tools, which like iPodder typically offer text-only lists to sort through. Apple's directory had 3,000 podcasts at launch. While some programs were miscategorized and others' descriptions were sketchy, Apple appears to be polishing the area rapidly. New podcasters can submit their shows via a link on the directory. Apple only links to the podcast files; it does not host them. A company representative said Apple will not link to pornographic or illegal content, and shows with adult content will be marked with an "Explicit" label. (While there's no written rule, we doubt you'll see any Macintosh-secrets podcasts listed.) To receive a podcast, simply click the Subscribe button on the show's directory page, and it will download to your iTunes library. All podcasts are currently free. Apple has built helpful podcast controls into iTunes that let you set how many episodes of each podcasts you'd like to have and how often it should look for new content. It even deletes old ones automatically, a feature we wish competitors would replicate. We were not happy to discover that these settings apply to all podcasts universally. It's a choice that could frustrate power users who want all the episodes of some podcasts and only the current one of others. Some competing podcasting utilities like NetNewsWires, which handles podcast management and more, offer more granular control than iTunes—letting you set preferences for each show individually—and can pass files automatically to iTunes or other music organizers. Subscriptions are listed in a new podcast directory in your iTunes library, and new content is helpfully marked with a blue circle. A title graphic and program description downloads with most podcast streams. Apple makes it easy to download old episodes; simply click the triangle icon to the left of each podcast subscription to see a list of previous episodes. Apple also built a little something for podcast authors: It has created a useful and unique chapter feature, which podcasters can use by downloading Apple's Chapter Tool beta software. With it, online broadcasters can create chapters within a podcast so that listeners can quickly jump to a different point. These chapters are displayed in a pull-down menu at the top of iTunes. Few podcasts use the feature currently, but you can see it on the iTunes New Music Tuesday and Podfinder podcasts. We experienced problems downloading some popular podcasts, such as the Al Franken Show and Wired News, often getting an error instead of the correct file. An Apple rep suggested that these programs might suddenly be too popular for the host servers, which could turn off after a certain amount of downloading. Since Apple doesn't host any of the actual podcast files, it's safe to assume that the content servers are showing some strain as iTunes' large installed base of users discovers podcasts and begins downloading in previously unseen numbers. Transferring podcasts to an iPod is simple, as iTunes' controls let you set exactly which podcasts you want to transfer. After users update their iPod's software (www.apple.com/ipod/download/) they'll see all their podcasts listed in a new podcast folder. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell which podcasts are new on an iPod. This is an issue regardless of which podcast-management software you use, though we do wish Apple had addressed it with its own podcast tools. Apple has created an innovative podcast download and management solution that easily outstrips its competitors in visibility, and adds some much-needed innovation to boot. The subscription controls are somewhat sloppily implemented, but the benefits of an integrated system and the ability to delete older podcast episodes easily outweigh these negatives. We still think Musicmatch Jukebox 10 is overall the better music manager, and it remains our Editors' Choice, with its powerful user-pleasing features, but iTunes is significantly improved with this release.
MEMBER RATINGS	Rate it Yourself
sehested	Member rating:
July 19, 2005 I'm not going to write a full review - There are pleanty of those around - but let me try and justify my personal rating. Before going with iTunes I was a happy user of MusicMatch Plus. However the interface for the portable player I had at the time was a bit cumbersome and I realised that to get the ease of use I wanted I would need iPod and iTunes. Having made the switch I never looked back. iTunes is more intuitive and pleasant to use. Its integration with the iPod is second to none. I enjoy the integration with iTMS which I find very pleasing to browse for new music. The ability to control iTunes via its COM interface allows me to write small scripts for special managing tasks of my music library. Such as joggling files for listening tests, Updating tag information, or Adding art work. I beleive this feature is quite unique to iTunes and have not seen anything like it in neither WMP nor MMJB. Although there are always things that could be improved I don't hesitate to give iTunes a five star rating as the best music manager around.

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