Notes and Tips: Shuffle Squeeze. Why is Apple forcing iPod Shuffle customers to use iTunes for all AAC encoding? [MacInTouch]

This comes from a fairly common misunderstanding of the AAC standar (and it is an standard, not something invented by Apple, unlike wma which is completely in control of Micro$ucks). It is more a family of formats than a format in and of itself. Hence, different programs use different levels of the format, not all of these are supported by Quicktime (which is the real media manager, available in Mac and Windows, inlike wma that... you know the drill). So, a warning by Apple that attempts to say "Not all AAC are created equal" gets construed into a manipulation by Apple. But no, iTunes is free and that's the only manipulation one needs to buy an iPod...

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Mac mini: Apples to Oranges .
[johep's blog]

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Review: iPod Shuffle [MacCentral News]

Got my iPod shuffle yesterday it's a 512MB model, and I may keep that instead of buying a 1GB model as I thought before. Here is why: My reasoning for buying a 1GB model was to have 512 for songs and 512 for data instead of carrying my thumb drive, but it isn't really necessary. You can actually and dynamically change the allocation, and, since the music files are disposable (the originals are in your iTunes collection), you can really change it as needed. So, a 512MB iPod shuffle can be both a 512MB music player and a 512MB data holder. That's cool.

I haven't seen it elsewhere, but the shuffle doesn't play lossless formats (AIFF or Apple Lossless) other than wav, so it has an option of transforming your files into AAC 128 if the bit rate is higher. This is also cool because then more songs fit into the shuffle.

Finally, while it is a great little thing (is not much bigger than a thumb drive) it isn't for everyone. If you have a large collection of music and you don't like to play it randomly, the shuffle is probably not for you. Though you can use it in a manual mode, it is hard and time consuming to manage. Just like the magic of the other iPods is the synchronization mode, the magic of the shuffle is the random-fill-it-anew-everytime mode. Think of it as a Party Shuffle "To go".

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