Cheap iPod - Cheap iPod Deals, Bargains and Sales

Find where to Buy Cheap Apple iPods including Cheap iPod Shuffle, Cheap iPod Nano, Cheap iPod Mini, Cheap iPod photo, and Cheap iPod Video (Video iPod). Listing Cheap iPod accessories including car connection kits, speakers, and cases / covers.

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iPod Information:

The iPod is a brand of portable media players designed and marketed by Apple Computer. Devices in the iPod family are designed around a central scroll wheel (except for the iPod shuffle) and the full-sized model stores media on an internal hard drive, while the smaller iPod nano and iPod shuffle use flash memory. Like many digital audio players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices. The internal hardware and software design was originally based on a reference design created by PortalPlayer. Apple chose to focus its development on the iPod's simple user interface and its ease of use, rather than on technical capability.

As of 2006, the lineup consists of the 5th generation iPod with a video player; the iPod nano with a color screen; and the display-less iPod shuffle. All three models were released in 2005.

The bundled software used for transferring music, photos and videos is called iTunes. As a jukebox application, iTunes stores a comprehensive library of music on the user's computer and can play, burn, and rip music from a CD. The most recent version has photo and video synchronization features.

The iPod is currently the world's best-selling digital audio player, and its worldwide mainstream adoption makes it one of the most popular consumer brands. Some of Apple's design choices and proprietary actions have, however, led to criticism and legal battles.

User interface

The display screen of a 5th generation iPod, playing Feel Good Inc. by GorillazThe iPods with displays use high quality anti-aliased graphics and text, with sliding animations. These iPods have five buttons and newer generations have the buttons integrated underneath the scroll wheel, an innovation which confers an uncluttered, minimalistic interface. The buttons are:

Menu — to traverse backwards through the menus, and toggle the backlight on older iPods
Center — to select a menu item
Play / Pause — this doubles as an off switch when held
Fast Forward / Skip Forward
Fast Reverse / Skip Backwards
The other operations such as scrolling through menu items and controlling the volume are handled by the scroll wheel in a rotational manner. A Hold switch on the top of the unit prevents accidental button presses.

The iPod shuffle has five buttons that function differently to the larger models. It has a Play / Pause button in the center, surrounded by four buttons: Volume Up / Down and Skip Forward / Backwards.

Newer iPods automatically pause playback when the headphones are unplugged from the headphone jack, but playback does not resume when the headphones are re-inserted. An iPod that has crashed or frozen can be reset by holding Menu and Center (Menu and Play on the 3G iPod) for 6 seconds.

Software
The iPod can play MP3, M4A/AAC, Protected AAC, AIFF, WAV, Audible audiobook, and Apple Lossless audio file formats. The 5th generation iPod can also play MPEG-4 (H.264/MPEG-4 AVC), .mp4, .m4v and .mov video file formats, with restrictions on video dimensions, encoding techniques and bitrates. Apple does not support Microsoft's WMA audio format – unlike many other media players – but a converter for non-DRM WMA files is provided with the Windows version of iTunes. MIDI files cannot be played, but can be converted to audio files using the "Advanced" menu on iTunes. Alternative open-source audio formats, such as Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, are not supported, possibly because they were not developed by media standards bodies (such as the MPEG group) of which Apple is a member.

Each time an iPod connects to its host computer, iTunes can synchronize music playlists or entire music libraries and the user can choose for automatic or manual synchronization. Song ratings can be set on the iPod and synchronized later with the iTunes library. Alternately, the iPod's song list can be managed manually.

iTunes Store
The iTunes Store (formerly iTunes Music Store) is an online media store run by Apple and accessed via iTunes. It was introduced on 28 April 2003 and it sells individual songs relatively easily and cheaply – for example US$0.99, EU€0.99, or GB£0.79 per song – but iPods are the only portable music players that can play the purchased music. The store became the market leader a few years after its launch and Apple announced the sale of videos through the iTunes Store on 12 October 2005. Full-length movies became available from 12 September 2006.

Purchased audio files use the AAC format with added encryption. The encryption is based on the controversial FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) system. Up to five authorized computers and an unlimited number of iPods can play the files. Burning the files onto an audio CD removes the DRM, at a cost of reduced quality when re-compressed from one lossy format to another.

iPods cannot play music files from other competing music stores such as Napster or MSN Music which use rival DRM technologies like Microsoft's protected WMA or RealNetworks' Helix DRM. RealNetworks claims that Apple is creating problems for itself, by using FairPlay to lock users into using the iTunes Store. Steve Jobs has stated that Apple makes very little profit from song sales, but Apple uses the store to promote iPod sales.

File storage
All iPods can function as mass storage devices to store data files. If the iPod is formatted on a Mac OS X computer it uses the HFS Plus file system format. If it is formatted on Windows, the FAT32 format is used because Windows cannot access HFS filesystems. The user must still use iTunes or a compatible third-party software to load audio, videos, and photos in such a way that they are playable and viewable on the iPod. Simply copying files to the drive will not allow the iPod to properly access them.

An iPod formatted as HFS Plus is able to serve as a boot disk for a Mac computer, allowing one to have a portable operating system installed. The older iPods with FireWire ports could additionally function in FireWire Disk Mode. With the advent of the Windows-compatible iPod, the iPod's default file system was switched from HFS Plus to FAT32, although they could be reformatted to either filesystem (excluding the iPod shuffle which is strictly FAT32).

iTunes cannot transfer songs or videos from device to computer, unless they were purchased from the iTunes Store and authorized for use on that computer. The media files are stored in a hidden folder together with a proprietary database on the iPod. While the hidden content can be accessed through the host operating system, practical recovery of the audio with correct file names, tag meta-data, and playlists requires the use of third-party software.

Connectivity
Originally, a FireWire connection to the host computer was used to update songs or recharge the battery. The battery could also be charged with a power adapter that was included with the first 4 generations. The 3rd generation included a dock connector allowing for FireWire or USB connectivity, although the device could not be charged via USB. The USB connectivity provided better compatibility with PCs, as most of them did not have FireWire ports at the time. The FireWire cables were nonetheless needed to connect to the AC adaptor. The dock connector also brought an opportunity to exchange data, sound and power with an iPod, which ultimately created a large market of accessories, manufactured by third parties such as Belkin and Griffin.

The 4th generation iPod allowed recharging via USB and eventually Apple started shipping iPods with USB cables instead of FireWire. Later generations continued to lessen the reliance on FireWire. For example the iPod shuffle plugs directly into a USB port and has no FireWire support. The transition from FireWire to USB meant that older Macs were limited to slow data transfers, since FireWire was a standard feature on Apple Macs for many years, while USB 2.0 support was only added in October 2003. Previously, all Macs had USB 1.1 ports, which had a transfer speed of 12 Mbit/s, as opposed to FireWire's 400 Mbit/s or USB 2.0's 480 Mbit/s.