Hey everyone, quick question:
Assume I don’t like wearing earphones since I like to preserve my hearing, and assume also that I would like to avoid watching movies on a small screen for the sake of preserving my eyesight — what other uses might I have for an iPod?
Χά?ιν ὑμῖν ἔχω !
An overpriced but stylish portable storage device.
An iPod Touch can be turned into a portable PDF-reader with a little trickery.
Luke
Don’t use an IPod but rather a more generic and far cheaper .mp3 player.
It has a volume control. So far as I know if you keep the decibels in the safe zone, such devices don’t pose a threat. At safe volumes they are good for listening to books on tape (well not on tape, but you know what I mean) and also good for language acquisition – especially for those persons who are learning independently.
I haven’t heard about the possible negative effects on one’s sight. Has this been studied?
If you have a mac, you will have your calendar and contacts available. This is way cool at meetings…
I appreciate the responses, guys, this is an important issue for me.
I do have a mac, and those contacts and dates could be useful.
As for eyesight, nearsightedness is caused by reading or looking at anything within 7 feet (the point at which the eyes are relaxed) for an extended period of time without giving the eyes a break. I used to be nearsighted, badly too, but now I have 20/20 or better. I recommend the Vision For Life eye exercise programme, which I used very successfully.
Language acquisition: how would an iPod be more useful than merely my home computer?
Anything else?
There are cheaper mp3 players on the market and if all you want is to use them like an old-fashioned Walkman they’re more than fine. When you buy an iPod you’re paying for the design, the ease-of-use, and the seamless integration with iTunes and Mail and Address Book, etc. If that’s not worth it to you, then it’s not.
I’ve been seriously dismayed by the rise of the iPod culture. I was eagerly awaiting the outcome of the format war between SACD and DVD-Audio. Imagine my chagrin when they were both eliminated in favor of music downloaded at a compression ratio that makes my ears bleed to listen to! Now I’m sure Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will both bite the big one and be replaced by 320 x 240 downloads on 2.5-inch screens.
As far as nearsightedness goes, I wish! I’m about 4 powers farsighted, so I’m going to need glasses to look at them (or read) anyway.
Are you serious? Not only are there many lossless formats, but in most instances you cannot tell it’s been compressed unless you’re playing it off of some rather sophisticated equipment, and even then it’s hard. 256 kpb is hardly going to cause bleeding of the ear.
The problem with headphones is that one often has to raise the volume in order to hear it properly, particularly when one is outdoors or in traffic. Thus most people who do use headphones regularly are also listening regularly at dangerous levels - otherwise they wouldn’t be able to hear the music or whatever properly. AND it’s combined with the noise of whatever is outside. Also, even when, say, a regular speaker and a headphone are set at the same decibel level, the headphone will do much more damage since it is much closer to the ear. Thus I would only use headphones if I really had to (i.e. if it were essential to my work), and I would carefully research all of the tricks and techniques to counter the damaging effects of headphones.
I also have a philosophical objection to headphones. I want to stay connected to my surroundings, and I don’t want to be cut off from the world around me by constantly having music playing in my head. Even when I’m in my car, I never listen to music - I want to keep my ears open to the cars around me, to all of the bumps on the road, and to my own engine. Especially the engine - it would be difficult for me to drive if I couldn’t hear my engine - I have a manual transmission without a tach, and without the hum of the engine I’d have to guess everything.
Mind you, philosophically I wouldn’t mind listening to headphones in a quiet room. But I could also listen to regular speakers.
You’re right–256 kb/s is not as bad as 128, but let’s be honest: that’s what most people are storing on their iPods. And…I have some rather sophisticated equipment, which makes the limitations of even regular CDs quite apparent a lot of the time. I was really ready for the higher resolution of SACD or DVD-Audio. I don’t care about the five channels or the higher sampling rate. All the five channels does is substitute ten arrival times for the four that were already hopelessly confusing your auditory cortex with regular stereo. When my Carver equipment with the sonic holography quits working, I’ll have to go to headphones full-time, I guess. I’m just a dinosaur, consigned to the dustbin of history, as I keep hearing even CDs soon will be.
I agree with you on this. I have one car, though, that has an automatic with a tachometer. Could someone explain this to me? What are you supposed to do with this information? I just like being able to hear any malfunctions that might take place before they become serious–developing a good ear has saved a couple of engines for me over the years; and I wouldn’t have heard the signs if I were listening to music!
I feel exactly the same way (except for music in the car — can’t an iPod be linked to a car’s radio input?).
To listen to your iPod in the car radio, you need a special accessory that you attach to the ipod and which then emits the music on a radio channel that your car radio will play. Sometimes it is noisy due the the frequency proximity of other radio stations.
Or if you are lucky, your car will be “iPod ready” by design.
My car doesn’t have a radio, a stereo, or any music-playing equipment, so it’s a pointless issue for me. This always seems to shock people, since they claim they would die if they couldn’t play music in their car (I suspect some hyperbole). But the engine would interfere with the music, and I will not raise the music level high enough to drown out the engine noise (which is also very dangerous for the ears - car stereos are another major cause of hearing loss, since the volume has to be high to be clearly audible over traffic and engine noise). So even if I did have a music player in the car, I would probably never use it. I do sometimes sing to myself when I’m driving on the freeway, but that’s about it.
Even when I’m talking to passengers, I’ll often drop out of the conversation for a moment if I have to do something complex and/or risky.
Regarding volume levels, headphones are actually better for your hearing than speakers provided that you use them intelligently. If you’re listening in situations with lots of ambient noise you need “closed” or noise blocking headphones. Personally, I use Shure E2C, which are “canal” phones that go into the ear and block out almost all external noise. These are safer because you can hear your music at a lower volume. For home listening I use larger “open” headphones since there is no ambient noise, Sennheiser 580.
As long as you listen to your music at a reasonable level you have no risk of hearing loss whether using headphones or not.
Also, if you want music capability without the price of an ipod there are lots of other affordable options. Creative Labs makes some good models.
Many thanks, all, for your responses.
I’ll tell you my dilemma.
I brought this question forward because my sister, dearly generous as she is, bought me an iPod for Christmas. She even had my name engraved on it. Although I thought my feelings on iPods — that I would never want one ever, for some of the reasons mentioned above — were well known to all, apparently not within my family.
I feel deeply embarrassed for my feelings now. So I am desperately seeking to find some personal use for this valuable piece of technology so thoughtfully given to me on Christmas from my beloved sister. I feel terrible. Of course she’ll never know. I still haven’t even registered it or syncked it to my computer.
This will certainly clarify my initial question. Thank you, all, for your thoughts and suggestions.
You can get a base for the iPod, with connections to your regular sound system, and therefore you do not need to use earphones. You just listen to your music library, and to the way you have separated it into your own lists or grouping.
yep, this might be your best use of it. you can load as much music as you could possibly ever need for long nights of language study, then organize it into playlists, etc.
I don’t want to threadjack, but I have an iPod question myself. If you are listening to a file, will the iPod remember where in that file you were when you last stopped it? I had borrowed a friend’s (non-iPod) mp3 player once and I was listening to a long (several hours) lecture that had been stored as a single file. I was trying to listen in 45-ish minute “chunks,” but I found it rather annoying to have to find my place in the middle of the file the next time I wanted to tune in (the mp3 player of my car, for example, always remembers where I am). Anyway, how does an iPod handle that?
As you’d want. A number of my favorite podcasts would be very annoying if it always forgot where I was.
Awesome. That may tip the scales for me and I may end up getting one of these.