MacMost Now 73: Ten iPod Uses Other Than Playing Music

Gary Rosenzweig looks at 10 things you can do with your standard 5G, 5.5G or iPod Classic other than playing music.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary Rosenzweig with another episode of MacMost Now. You know the other day somebody mentioned the iPod and said It was just an MP3 Player. Well, actually iPod is so much more. Here is my 5th generation iPod and it does a lot of little things that make it so much more useful than just an MP3 Player. Let's go take a look at the top 10 things that the iPod does that makes it a cool gadget.
[Interlude Music]
The list of my favorite top ten things that my iPod does for me doesn't include playing music. So number one in that list has to be an alarm clock. In an iPod you can actually set different clocks so you can set different clocks for different zones, so if I travel from Colorado to California,I can make it California clock set to specific time and set an alarm there .The problem is, I have to make sure that my headphones or small speaker system are plugged in ,so I would be able to hear the alarm. But I like using it rather than trusting the alarm clock in hotels .Too many times those things are set to A.M when they should be P.M and vice-versa. Another thing I like is that I've got all my calendar events synched on my iPod and it'll give me alarms for those too. So if you don't have a cell phone like an I- Phone that synchs with your Mac, you can still carry your alarms and events with you. Likewise, you also have your contacts with you, so with your need to get in touch with somebody and you don't have your laptop with you at the moment, you know you've got a backup of all your contact information on your iPod, it could be a lifesaver. One of my favorite things though, the iPod does that it carries the copies of all my photos on it. So when somebody whips out a picture of their kid, I can take out my iPod and show them fonder pictures of mine. 
Now games on the iPod aren't that great, I mean you have to play with little scroll wheel. Ones that come with it aren't any special and even the ones that you buy aren't too great. But they really are great when you need to kill some time. When you've got couple of hours in the airport between flights or you've got some down time or you just don't have anything else to do. It's great to be able to play a game on the iPod. I like Texas Hold Em', it's my favorite.
Another thing that I like to do with my iPod is I like to be able to listen to podcast. Now it's good with that saying, course you are watching the podcast, so you know all about that but it's so much more than just music . I am amazed how many people have iPod who listen to tons of music and still don't know anything about podcasts. Even if you just like music and you don't want to hear people talk ,there is some great podcast out there that have music. 
Another thing t people like to do with their iPod is that something don't particularly I like is using it to read books . Now you can use some programs out there that convert books, text file that is, to notes and read them as a series of notes on your iPod. Now, it's a tiny little screen, it's not like the iPhone or IPod touch but still, I can see it being useful. Little more useful than that is Audio-books. Now you can go ahead and download an audio book from various sources, there are some free audio books out there. You can also go to a service like audible.com and download Audio-books to iPod. This is so much more convenient than the old days when they used cassette tapes and even now the Cd's, We had had whole stack of them and listen to them, you can put tons of books on your i Pod. Likewise, you can also use an iPod for training education. So your company, you can possibly put out a training course or education course in audio files or even video and you can watch it on your i Pod. Likewise, you can also do the same thing using the i Tunes-u. I Tunes-u is something that get you through i Tunes and there are tons and tons of lectures that are available a lot for free, you can listen to them on your i Pods. So instead of listening to music you can learn something.
And of course there is always video. Now video of course is a thing a lot of people forget about. You can get TV-shows, you can get movies, and you can also rip your own collection of DVDs or TV-shows to your i Pod and watch them. It's a lot more convenient than try to bring those along and watch them on your laptop and the battery life is a lot better. 
Now there are some functions that the i Pod is missing ,other Mp3 players bring, such as FM tuners, now I hate FM radio because there is way too may commercials , but I can see an AM tuner being useful , I mean , I can listen to baseball games. More useful, would probably be a microphone and ability to record voice memos or just record the audio from a meeting or something. This is something, it's in the lot of mp3 players and I love to see the i Pod release the i phone since it already has all the necessary hardware. What would you like to do with your standard i Pod that doesn't involve playing music, let me know? Leave a comment to this video at MacMost.com. Till next time this I Gary Rosenzweig at MacMost Now.

Comments: 5 Responses to “MacMost Now 73: Ten iPod Uses Other Than Playing Music”

Topopardo

17 years ago

Well, there is still another thing involving music for a different purpose: running!

The new Nanos are just great for this task. The rubber bracelet fits great, and you can even plug the Nike+ receiver to keep track of the distances and get audio feedback from the route.

seff

Use as a hard disk!

Kasper Villum

You can search for hotspots with the iPod:

http://anchorfree.com/downloads/wipod/

Travis Reynolds

This was so good I had to blog about it :-)

http://travisreynolds.com/apple/10-reasons-why-the-ipod-is-more-than-an-mp3-player/

Dennis

16 years ago

I use mine to sync with my Delicious Library so when I go to rent/purchase movies I know what I already have.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 73: Ten iPod Uses Other Than Playing Music

Comments: 5 Responses to “MacMost Now 73: Ten iPod Uses Other Than Playing Music”

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