Smart Buying
In the iPod Zone
Your guide to the core features of Apple's hottest player.
By Sean O'Neill
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, January 2006
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Versatility
Today's top MP3 players not only let you keep a wide variety of music on hand, but they also let you play it through most stereos.
For example, marketer Peter Evers of Mill Valley, Cal., used to bring CDs in the car with him to amuse his 2-year-old daughter, Caitlin. "If I had to hear 'Wheels on the Bus' one more time," he says, "I was going to scream." Peter and his wife, Emily, now play children's tunes along with their own favorites, thanks to his year-old iPod, which they have stuffed with 6,207 songs.
Peter uses Griffin Technology's iTrip transmitter (recently $30 to $39, depending on compatible iPod model, at www.pcmall.com; for more on this and other iPod accessories, see "iPod to the Max"). The device broadcasts your iPod's songs through an unused FM channel on a radio. The iTrip transmitter lets the Evers family enjoy tons of tunes without the hassle of stacks of discs. Other drivers have an even better alternative: About five million cars this year will be shipped with direct cables for iPods.
Another cool function of MP3 players: They can play music downloads from online stores, making song purchases a snap. Consider high school librarian Steve Davidson of Albany, N.Y., who hasn't bought a CD in four years. On a recent morning, he was reading the news on his laptop while eating his cold cereal. He saw a story about a band named My Morning Jacket, called up a review of its albums at Rollingstone.com, and then bought a song at online music store iTunes.com -- all before heading to work. Culling tunes online isn't just convenient, it's economical, says Davidson, who prefers paying a buck for one song to paying $13 for an entire CD. He laughs at how his family takes digital music for granted. One of his son Max's first words was iPod.
ITunes sells about 1.4 million songs a day and offers personalized recommendations based on what you buy. But one flaw with iTunes is that its songs play only on iPods. If you have another make of MP3 player, you need to buy music from other online stores, such as Napster.com, Rhapsody.com and Walmart.com. Songs cost 99 cents a pop at these Web sites (Walmart.com's are 88 cents), although a sliver of titles are priced higher or lower. The selection at iTunes is typical of all the sites', about two million titles. (To run iTunes you need Windows XP or 2000, or Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later.) But online shopping isn't essential to enjoying an MP3 player. Most iPod owners buy only a dozen or so songs from iTunes and transfer the rest from their existing CD collection.
Another useful feature of MP3 players is that they can store audiobooks. When JetBlue flight attendant Karinne Saint-Louis received a 40-gigabyte iPod as a gift a year ago, she began loading books and music on it. "My life is up in the air -- pun intended -- and I have to condense my belongings because I'm constantly on the go," she says. "It soothes me to have all my books and music with me."
Saint-Louis buys audiobooks by Stephen Hawking and J.K. Rowling on CD and then transfers them to her iPod. But you can also download audiobooks directly from Audible.com to any model iPod and many other MP3 players. Prices for downloads and CDs are comparable. Recently, the bestseller Freakonomics cost $20 as a download from Audible.com -- the same price charged by Amazon.com for the CD version.