iPods Around the World

Joey Patterson writes "Did you ever notice how well the Apple iPod always fits in with the local scenery, no matter where you take it? Well, ipodlounge.com has a photo gallery featuring 800+ photos of people and their iPods in various places around the world. Some of these pics are very cool (like this one, taken by the Kuwait water towers), while others are downright odd (such as this pic from Sierra Leone, Africa)." I just want a picture of an iPod on my desk. I have a camera ...

Make a choice

[Virus1984]

I just want a picture of an iPod on my desk. I have a camera ...

You have two options:

- Print a picture from the linked site, you have a picture of an iPod on your desk but you don't have any real iPod.
- Sell the camera, buy an iPod, you get a real iPod standing proud on your desk but can't make a picture of it to share your happiness.


I know, life sucks...

Here

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is my iPod and me on new year's eve

Here's my iPod and me on vacation to rome

Here's my iPod and me doing shower

Doing shower? nooooooooooooooooooooooooo
oooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooo

iPod nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Re:Here

[Adam Booth]

Exactly. What a waste of time, not to mention bandwidth. I don't want to see nerdy thirteen year olds making out with their iPods in public places! w00t! Sounds like a blast! Oh wait. No, no it doesn't.

Does Billy have one?

[dnahelix]

I'd like to see a pic of one on Bill Gates desk!

Re:Does Billy have one?

[MonTemplar]

More to the point, how about a pic of one on Hillary Rosen's desk? :)

Re:Does Billy have one?

[Chris Brewer]

You mean like this one [wired.com]? I know it's not on her desk, but it's in her hands.

Taken from this article [wired.com] in Feb's Wired magazine.

Re:Does Billy have one?

[discstickers]

Does anyone else find that picture highly disturbing?

Re:Does Billy have one?

[b_pretender]

I think that people could be a bit more creative with their pictures.

I looked at quite a few, yet didn't see anything similar to the following:
- Ipod underwater off the coast of Florida
- Ipod tossed into air at Harvard Law Graduation Commencments
- Ipod underneath the left rear wheel of a London DoubleDecker bus
- Ipod *just* out of reach under Chinatown NYC Canal Street storm grate.
- Highspeed photography of a bullet passing through an iPod at Eastman-Kodak photography research lab, NC USA.
- mostly melted iPod inside one of Michigan State U's diamond growth microwave ovens.
- iPod being a sledge-a-matic victim at an *actual* Gallagher standup comedy show.

You have to admit that 1000s of pictures of a hand holding an iPod in front of a monument is rather boring.

Re:Does Billy have one?

[MonTemplar]

Or perhaps some brave (or foolhardy) soul could take a date-marked photo of their iPod playing a track off a CD that hasn't gone on sale yet... along with a post-it note saying 'Yo! RIAA! Think Different!' :)

Re:Does Billy have one?

[davesag]

I agree. Here is a photo of what was left of my iPod [davesag.com] after I slammed into a tourist on my bike in amsterdam and landed on my right ear. note the rather severe scraping on the ear piece. Was quite surreal sitting there in a pool of my own blood listening to "psycho candy" by the jesus and mary chain.

Re:Does Billy have one?

[jcsehak]

Hmmm, listening to music at full blast while riding a bike, followed by a crash...

Crap! I left my bag of i-told-you-so's at home.

And the ear buds...

[mtec]

stayed in?? Mine fall out when I chew. It's a great diet aid.

Re:Does Billy have one?

[cioxx]

bwahahahaha. I can't stop laughing. If you take the personal pain and the iPod wreckage, it's pretty damn funny. Was it "You Trip me Up" by JMC?

That's a funny story, good sir.

Re:Does Billy have one?

[sambira]

I like the bullet picture idea. What we need now is an iPod taped to an F-16 as it takes off (If you break the sound barrier, can you hear the music?)

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[Virus1984]

And can ipod even double up as a portable HD.

Yes, you can use your iPod as a (very) portable Firewire HD.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[NotoriousQ]

Good. That makes them even. The only reason I mentioned is something about not being able to move something from ipod to HD. (Some kind of copy protection). Good to know I am wrong. Still wondering about price difference, though.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[qengho]

something about not being able to move something from ipod to HD

Apple's iTunes won't let you tranfer or sync your MP3s to any computer other than your own, but that's the extent of the "copy protection", and it's simply software and hidden files. Third-party apps allowing you to do that were out within days of the iPod's release.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[KludgeGrrl]

Third-party apps allowing you to do that were out within days of the iPod's release.

See this site [methodshop.com] for links.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[pizza_milkshake]

i agree, ipods are currently too expensive for my taste. why spend $499 for a 20GB ipod [apple.com] when i can get a new laptop for a few hundred more?

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

last time I checked, laptop won't fit in a shirt pocket:-)

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[NotoriousQ]

I do not know. Those Sony picturebooks can almost fit into my pockets. At least if you skip the extended battery....

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[commodoresloat]

Yeah, why buy an iPod when you can buy a refrigerator? Come on, the one thing has nothing to do with the other, if you want a laptop, get one, if you want an ipod, get one, if you can't afford both, choose which you want more.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[KludgeGrrl]

Good question. I have one, and love it, *but* it was a present. Would I shell out hundreds of bucks for it? Probably not.

But the iPod is a "must-have" object. You see it. You want it. It would appear that Mac is following this strategy in product placement, since their TiBooks have been marketed in the same sexy fashion.

And in a sick way, the high price tag only makes it that much more desirable, that much more lusted after.

Frustrated desire can be the greatest aphrodesiac, and that applies to much more than sex.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[sameb]

I bought myself an Archos Jukebox, and then returned it to get an iPod. To be honest, the Archos kinda sucked.

There's no 'hold' on it to prevent you from accidentally turning it off -- the hold is like a 'soft hold' of sorts that works only for not changing the song that's playing. You can still turn it off or change the volume while it's on hold. And, the hold is set/unset by just pressing and holding the 'on' button, which can easily happen accidentally.

The controls for it are not very well-thought out ... I like listening to my music on random (so I can eventually hear everything rather than focusing on a few albums over and over).Sometimes when I hear a song I want to restart that particular song to hear the beginning again -- but when the Archos is set to shuffle, hitting 'back' will move to a new song, and then hitting 'forward' will move to a completely new song -- there's no consistency in the shuffle algorithm.

The manual for the Archos is awful -- it doesn't explain what anything on the screen means. While charging it, I had absolutely no clue what the random XX:YY numbers were while charging -- were they hours:minutes, or minutes:seconds, or just random numbers? And why would it sometimes say 'Batteries Fully Charged' and then 5 minutes later go back to charging for another hour or two.

It would turn off occasionally, too. And it would skip on songs that play fine on my computer, or randomly get stuck on songs and repeat them forever.

In all, the Archos just seemed to be a very flaky mp3 player. Luckily, Circuit City let me return it for the full price 33 days after I bought it.

I don't have my iPod yet (it should be arriving in the next few days), but I am very much looking forward to it. Everything I've read, and everyone I know who has one absolutely loves it.

Used to have 'another brand' too...

[mtec]

*begin haiku*

my iPod contains,
songs and books-on-tape on tap,
sweet listening pleasure.

*end haiku*

(the only gadget I'm still using 6 months later)

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

IMO yes it is worth every penny. i had a hango PJB100 which was also 20 gig.

first off, the music management app was crap! iTunes is VERY straight forward.

second, USB when talking about collections of this size is a nightmare. the pain of waiting literally hours for progress bars was just too much! firewire makes the process so fast, you hardly notice.

thirdly, the ipod uses a 1.8 inch HD and as such, is about the same size as a pack of ciggys and is light enough for its presence to not be felt in a pocket. any other portable MP3 player that has anywhere near a decent amount of storage space uses 2.5 inch disks and are bricks in your pocket!

fourthly, the ipod acts as a 20gig portable firewire HD

lastly, contacts and calendars are synched to it as well

each to their own though i guess....

Yes.

[Anonymous Coward]

Several reasons.
1) Yes. Firewire is worth it. Fililng 20 GB at 1.5 (theoretical) MB/sec will take a bit longer than at 50 MB/sec (theoretical). We're talking minutes instead of hours here.
[Apparently the newest Jukebox support USB 2.0. I stand corrected.]
2) Dimensions. The Archos Jukebox looks and feels like a brick. An iPod will fit in your pocket, an Archos will not.
Archos [archos.com]
Dimensions: 115x83x34 mm. (4.5"x3.2"x1.3")
Weight: 350 g (12.3 oz.)
iPod [apple.com]
Size and weight (20GB model)
Height: 4.0 in
Width: 2.4 in
Depth: 0.84 in
Weight: 7.2 oz (204 g)
In every category, the iPod is at least half an inch smaller. Not to mention an archos has those huge rubber feet things. By weight, an iPod is 66% of an Archos. 66%!
3) Batteries. An archos runs off 4 AAs, an iPod has an internal rechargeable battery, which charges fully in 3 hours.
4) Interface.
Having used my roommate's Archos (before it broke for no apparent reason) -- the user interface is abysmal. The screen is small, poorly lit, and it's difficult to tell what you're doing, what song you're playing, etc. The buttons are small and poorly designed.
None of these are problems with the iPod.
The iPod has large, easy to use buttons. The scroll wheel is a marvel, letting you get from one song to another in seconds. The screen is huge and well backlit. (160-by-128 pixels for the iPod, "Up to 8 lines" for the Jukebox).
4) Internal memory. The iPod has a 32MB internal buffer, the Jukebox 2. More memory means less hard-drive reads, and more continuous music.

Seriously, they don't even compare. You definitely get what you pay for.

I disagree.

[piznut]

iPod
Size and weight (20GB model)
Height: 4.0 in
Width: 2.4 in
Depth: 0.84 in
Weight: 7.2 oz (204 g)
Playtime: 10 hours
Interface: 1394 Only
Recording Capability: No
Supported Formats: MP3 Only
Price: $499

Creative Nomad Zen
Size and weight (20gb model)
Height: 4.43 in
width : 2.99 in
Depth : 0.95 in
Interface: 1394 and/or USB 2.0 (depend. on model)
Weight: 9.5 oz
Recording Capability: Yes
Playtime : 12 to 14 hours (depend. on model)
Supported Formats: MP3, WMA, WAV
Price: $299 - $349 (depend. on model)

Im honestly just curious about how people can justify the insane price difference when much better can be had for less. The Nomad is barely larger or heavier, and pretty much spanks the iPod in the feature and performance vs. price department. The question you have to ask is, Why would you buy the iPod instead? Are you willing to pay $150 - $200 more for features that can be had in one of those cheapo PDA address books for under $100? Is this an MP3 player for people who are willing to pay a premium just because of the brand name?

Is this just an extension of the same logo-whore philosophy that marketing drones already apply to cars and clothes?

Re:I disagree.

[JonathanBoyd]

Well, for a start, you've got a few of your facts wrong. The iPod can play more than just MP3s. It can play WAV and I think AIFF files. The battery life is officially 10 hours, but in practice turns out to be more (12-14 hour range typically) and recharges faster than the Nomad's. The only two feature advantages the Nomad has are USB2, which doesn't matter since Firewire has a better sustained rate anyway, and the ability to record stuff, which I really couldn't care less about. If you read the rest of the comments you'll find a lot of comments about size, weight (yes, that extra bit does make a lot of difference), interface, integration with iTunes, calendar and contact integration, etc. Though they don't mention the iPod's kiler feature - a game of breakout! For a PC owner, there is an argument for the Nomad. Any Mac owner though is far better off with an iPod.

Re:I disagree.

[weave]

Though they don't mention the iPod's kiler feature - a game of breakout!

Ha, fitting. Ever see the DrunkGamers.com switch parody? [ionvideogames.com]

Ahhhh! Chicks just don't....

[mtec]

...dig the Zen man.

But whip out your iPod and... bingo! Girls! Girls! Girls! All wanting to swirl their red-enameled fingers on my wheel! Wheeeee! Calm down girls - you'll all get a chance!!

*snorful - skriitch!* Wha' ? Musta fell asleep on the bus listening to my iPod again. Where am I... - Hey driver!! Where the hell am I!!? Hey!!

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[chipset]

I agree with what many people said here. However, I think there is more to it. I had a Creative Nomad Jukebox 3 and enjoyed it, but it had several fatal flaws the iPod doesn't: Size. The size of the Creative unit was like a like a CD Player on steriods. I have an MP3 CD player that was much smaller. Navigation (interface). The interface makes or breaks the device. On the Jukebox (archos or creative), the user interface is sometimes counter intuitive. If you want to find just a group or album, there's a lot of work. On my iPod, I can get to any album or artist quickly. Screen updates are fast, whereas the NJB3 (the one I used most prior to the iPod) was a dog as I waited forever for the menu options and kludgy layout. For me, I have a large MP3 collection mainly from my CDs, navigation of the screen makes or breaks the device. I liked my NJB3 (two replaceable batteries) and I used it often (especially in the TankBag on my motorcycle), but the iPod is all that and more. The Archos jukebox can be used as a harddrive, whereas the Nomad JB3 couldn't. However, neither of them compare to the iPod for simplicity, easy of use, and size. It's that simple.

Yes, an iPod is worth it. Check this link

[djupedal]

Check my iPod feature comparision site [kentidwell.com] for details...needs a bit of updating, but you can use the comprehensive chart to compare with other HD based players.

It is smaller than most...doubles as a portable HD...works beautifully and of course, FireWire makes a difference. Do you have 15 hours to move 10's of gb's of music files via USB? There are no cons to owning one, and I'm sorry if the price hurts your wallet...it doesn't bother mine.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[JonathanBoyd]

I have MacOS 9 installed on my iPod and use it as an emergency repair drive.

Someone mentioned concerns about not being able to copy stuff off it - the music is stored in an invisible folder that would be trivial to access for anyone on Slashdot and in all other respects, it functions as a hard drive.

Firewire isn't just great for the frist big upload batch either. Being able to stick a new album on in a matter of seconds, rather than waiting several minutes with USB is handy if you're in a hurry, or if you're using the iPod for file transfer. By itself, it wouldn't be worth the extra cost, but it's something you greatly come to appreciate. The idea of booting a computer off a USB device isn't too appealing either. Well, apart from USB 2.

Aside from that, I think the only other things that haven't been mentioned by other people already are that it doubles up as a hnady mirror, with that slick metal back or a torch, with that incredible backlight. I'm a relatively impoverished student, but still saw a great deal of value in one as oppossed to an Archos.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[Cadre]

Just answer the question.

The iPod is smaller... No, the Archos doesn't discretely in your pants pocket; well perhaps it discretely fits in the pocket of pants that have a waist of 45+ (US).

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[sebi]

Another poster pointed out possible shortcomings of the Archos Jukebox, but that is not really the point, is it? You want us to explain why you would prefer one product over another? That's not really possible. Looking at the sheer amount of pictures posted to iPod around the world gallery show that some consider it a viable product.

A friend of mine (a windows using friend at that) looked at a lot of available mp3 players around christmas and he got an iPod. It is the best portable music player on the market right now. If you are willing to settle for anything less then it is not my business to set you straight.

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[JJSpreij]

It can be more than a portable HD: you can even startup your computer (Mac) from the iPod, either in OS 9 or OS X.

I fix Mac for clients; it's fun to walk in the door using the iPod as an MP3-player, then attach FireWire and boot & fix their system from the iPod. And make an emergency backup to the iPod if necessary.

And iPods cans also double, euh triple as (readonly) PDA's

Re:Is Ipod worth it?

[Anonymous Coward]

We've been Slashdotted!
I want to thank SlashDot for mentioning iPodlounge and the iPods Around the World photo Gallery.

Dennis Lloyd
iPodlounge.com

Re:that sucks

[jlower]

Sucks hell, where do I get a job doing that?

Why..

[Anonymous Coward]

why is ipodlounge.com running on IIS/5.0?

Re:Why..

[discstickers]

They probably aren't hosting it themselves. My site is (unfortunately) hosted on IIS, but I don't have the money/time/knowledge to handle my own web/dns/mail servers.

Re:Just great looking!

[qengho]

These things are blank looking, with a few sparse buttons....They all look equally boring.

I think the term you're searching for is elegant [reference.com]:

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."

Elegant iPods

[voidmstr]

For more elegant photos from the very same Kuwait photo shoot

go to and see photos of an alien space brother visiting Kuwait [spacebrothers.com].

Also another iPod was part of another adventure - a sinister one - @
[spacebrothers.com]
"I Was An Alien Lab Rat"

Enjoy!

VOIDMSTR AKA SpaceBrother Number One

thats me and my friend!!

[interdigitate]

that was shot the same night we shot the ipod!!!! now we will be more famous!!!!!!!!

Re:Elegant iPods

[interdigitate]

http://www.t20.org/kuwait/ thats the link to all the pics we took that night in kuwait. we started off at the science center and finished the night at the kuwait towers. we tried to see if we could catch any wifi signals from the top of the tower but couldnt find anything strong enough...

Re:Just great looking!

[Erik K. Veland]

*smacks head*

Wow. You. Just. Don't. Get. It.

Hey cool...

[daeley]

Here's my buddy Paul's entry there [ipodlounge.com], outside Area 51. :)

4000 songs doesn't sound very healthy...

[jeeves99]

Certain countries and areas of the world have strict censorship laws. With a 20gb iPod, one of those 4000 songs is bound to break one of those laws and get you killed.

Just a thought...

If you are sufficently scared, please send me your iPod and I'll give it a safe home. :-)

Re:4000 songs doesn't sound very healthy...

[Oculus Habent]

I have 980 Christmas songs, and 20 Doobie Brothers.

And 1 Sheryl Crowe. [apple.com]

Ubiquity

[PetWolverine]

It's amazing how ubiquitous these little things have become. Sometimes, on my way across town on a bus, I see as many as three or four people on one bus using iPods at the same time. It always makes me think that those people could be talking to their fellow passengers. As cool as these things are (and as much as I want one!) they do seem to cause people to dissociate from their environment to a disturbing degree.

Not to be a Luddite or anything...whoo, progress, yay!...

Re:Ubiquity

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, before MP3s everyone was completely chatty at 8:45am on a weekday morning while riding public transportation.

Get real. Our society has been becoming less and less social a long time before portable MP3 players hit the scenes.

To counter-act anything that MP3 players have caused, cell phones have made us able to contact distant friends and relatives when we are doing mundane things like riding the bus.

Re:Ubiquity

[Scrameustache]

God DAMN! I thought that stupid argument died in the 80's...

Listen, I don't talk to people I don't know on the bus, no one sane talks to people they don't know on the bus. If I'm listening to a walkman/discman/iPod while I'm not talking to people, that doesn't mean that the new-fangled evil electromechanical device is rotting my immortal soul and helping the devil turn me into an anti-social goat worshipper. No, it means that I like to listen to music more than I like to listen to the sound of traffic.

And whenever I'm in a gorram bus or subway, I really, really want to dissociate from the environment. The environment in a bus is noise and smelly strangers and boredom and a bit of motion sickness. Anything that helps me escape from that repetitive drudgery is more than wellcomed.

Direct Links to the Chick Pix

[lprimak]

Enjoy, no searching needed.

http://www.ipodlounge.com/assets/galleries/iatw_ ga llery/source/ipods_world528.html

http://www.ipodlounge.com/assets/galleries/iatw_ ga llery/source/ipods_world577.html

The next logical progression

[nizcolas]

Are sites dedicated to home movies of the iPod!

"This is my iPod loading up his first mp3!"

"Here he is at soccer practice."

Of course it would be edited with iMovie and contain all that wonderful grainy footage (a la the Wonder Years)

Technological Juxtapositoin

[jezzball]

Does anyone else find it disturbing to see such amazing technology juxtaposed with such dismal surroundings?

I'm a hypocrite to talk, but as I get older, I get more depressed that the world isn't happier.

Dan

THATS MY HAND AND IPOD!!!!

[interdigitate]

wow!! i got slashdoted!!!!! thats me!! that my hand and my ipod infront of the Kuwait Towers and now its on slashdot!! wooooooooooohooooooooooooooooo i am gonna show this to all my friends!!!

REST OF PICTURES FROM KUWAIT SHOT

[interdigitate]

http://www.t20.org/kuwait/
thats the link to all the pics we took that night in kuwait. we started off at the science center and finished the night off at the kuwait towers. we tried to see if we could catch any wifi signals from the top of the tower but couldnt find anything strong enough... incase of war in kuwait... expect to see more pics up :)

Old news.

[am46n]

This is old news. The iPod gallery has been there for ages.
The /. SNR strikes again.

See also Newtons around the world [dyndns.org].

MY HAND MY FRIENDS IPOD

[interdigitate]

ok turns out this was my friends 10GB ipod and not my 20GB one. But it IS my hand :D