[codywalton]

I bought a 10GB iPod earlier this year. It's great, but along with my powerbook, I am considering upgrading.

Is there a difference in functionality between the Mac and Win iPods? Some folks have claimed you can use the Win iPod on a mac just fine, and not notice any difference,...but I would like some confirmation of that before I pop 500 clams for one.

Any one out there have a Win iPod and use it on both Mac and Win? I would most appreciate some comments and feedback on it before I buy one. thanks.

[atomium]

Originally posted by codywalton:
Any one out there have a Win iPod and use it on both Mac and Win? I would most appreciate some comments and feedback on it before I buy one. thanks.

I have a 10 GB Mac iPod and recently had a 20 GB Win iPod at my disposal for a week. The transfer rate for uploading songs to the Win version was terrible.

From a clean iPod, I can fill the 10 GB Mac version to capacity in under an hour. My first attempt at loading the Win version had me stopping the process at the 4 hour mark. The iPod had reached 75% capacity. That's 3.4 GB/hour transfer rate for the Win version compared to 10 GB/hour for Mac version.

I finished filling it the next day and had to wait over an hour for the rest of the transfer.

For reference, I'm loading the music from a Pismo PowerBook.

If you're like me, and like to constantly change the music on your iPod, it might be a consideration.

-atomium

[solvent211]

Unless you've also got PC's, I don't see what the advantage in picking the Win iPod over the Mac would be.

Ultimately, however, you can't really go wrong either way. The only differences between the two are that:

(1) the Win iPod is formatted with FAT32 (used on Windows/PC hard drives) where as the Mac iPod is formated with HFS+.

(2) the Mac iPod comes with iTunes (surprise), whereas the Win iPod comes with some PC software (the name escapes me at the moment; perhaps Multi Magic Media Jukebox?... ).

(3) the Mac iPod can be used with audibles files. (Big deal).

There are programs available from Apple and third-parties that will enable you to convert from one format to another should you wish to do so at a latter time.

Personally, I purchased a Mac iPod to use with my iBook and Windows box. The windows box uses MacDrive + ephpod. Works beautifully.

[Appleman]

So if I connect my Mac iPod to a Windows peecee and format the drive, I have a Windows iPod?

That would mean I can sell my currently 10 GB to a peecee guy and buy the 20 instead !

[enuffles]

My brother bought me a win iPod because it came with free car accessories. I downloaded the iPod software updater (1.2.1) from the Apple site and it was easily reformated to work with my TiBook. Been using iTunes to play around with it ever since. Even went to audible.com and downloaded an interview by Robin Williams with John Lasseter. I can see myself using this feature in the future.

[Anomalous]

Originally posted by solvent211:

(2) the Mac iPod comes with iTunes (surprise), whereas the Win iPod comes with some PC software (the name escapes me at the moment; perhaps Multi Magic Media Jukebox?... ).

I believe it's called MusicMatch Jukebox.

[OreoCookie]

Yeah, there are two differences.

1. The windows software sucks.
2. The iPod4Win uses FAT32 instead of HFS+.

I have copied songs for a friend of my little brother on his Windows iPod (his PC isn't complete yet).

Worked without issues.

The other way around should be more difficult, because PCs have problems with HFS+ (yes, yes, there is software ...).