Review: Apple iPod

Out of the box the iPod comes with a Firewire-to-Dock cable, but does not include the USB2-to-Dock cable even though it supports USB2.  However, Apple is selling this USB2 cable seperately, which currently costs £15.00.  The iPods come with v2.0 of the firmware and this supports AAC which is MPEG-4 audio, On-the-Go playlists, the regular game, Brick, along with two new ones being Solitaire and Parachute, and an Alarm Clock that can play any playlist or beep.

To test the advantage of AAC I coded the 'Daredevil OST Album' in MP3 and AAC at 160Kbps, and the AAC equivalent was 10MB smaller.  Testing of the Firewire performance was conducted on my 15-inch Powerbook G4 and the results are as follows:

Test File Size	# of Files	Time Taken	Speed
2918MB	4 DivXs	185s	15.8MBps
735MB	1 DivX	45s	16.3MBps
604MB	99 files	47s	12.9MBps

Average Speed: 15MBps (ATA-66 4200rpm HDD)

The earphone jack is of the basic 3.5mm phono plug, and the included remote fits into the same socket.  The hold button helps to prevent accidental touches of the buttons, and is used to cause a hard-reset.