On the USB connector in my car, is there a reason for me to prefer an iPod to a much cheaper USB flash drive?

Does the iPod give any kind of advantage to be worth the price difference?

Are iTunes purchases easily moved to a flash drive?

All you younger people probably know this, but it's all new stuff to me. :-)

 

yes you can move itunes purchases to a flash drive but you have to go into the folders manually to extract song files...personally i prefer the usb because you can set up folders easily in a usb a section off your music. I personally use usb/palm pre for my music and alpine cda-105

 

I would get the usb drive. I have a sd card reader + sd card, now it's probably just cheaper to get a thumb drive.
Note: external hard drives do not work as there is not enough power to get them spinning.

 

I prefer iPods. Its easier to browse through the iPod menus if you have a huge song library than it is to browse almost any in dash on the market if you plug a USB in. iPods usually hold more as well. I recommend if you've got over 500 songs go with the iPod.
EDIT:

If you have a solid state external drive it will work fine. Older/larger externals can be used if they have an AC in and you have a cig lighter adapter.

 

Well. An iPod Nano 16gb with a malfunctioning screen has fallen into my lap so I'll give that a try for a time.

Although the iPod's screen is broken, the menu system works just fine on the car's display. I see what you mean about it being better to organise.

The internal hard drive on the car is also 16gb, but it seems to be limited to ripping CD at 128k. There doesn't seem to be any way to move iTunes or other files onto the hard drive unless you want to download them, then put them on a CD, then rip them to the internal hard drive...but then you lose a little bit because they're only ripped at 128k.

There's a lot of music where I don't really notice or care that it's at 128K. But I can tell the difference with some things. What got me going in this direction was I noticed a loss in fidelity when I moved some Rachmaninoff to the car's hard drive. It was fine, but I could tell the difference perhaps because I had heard it the day before on the 256K version playing from the iPhone.

When you add that to the trouble and extra expense you have to go through whenever you want to move files from your computer to a CD just so you can move the files onto your car's HDD, it is just a lot of trouble. :-)

My iPhone is also 16gb, and it will play using Bluetooth or the iPod menu (if you hook it up using the USB connector).

This is all new stuff to me. So I guess I'm covered until it's time to move on to the next stage of audio. :-)

Thank you all for your help.

 

No worries. Enjoy your music!

 

I typically download most of my music from either torrents or Amazon, unlike iTunes, Amazon files are MP3's and are not digitally protected.

 

Only us apple if you enjoy a company telling you how you can and can't use the music you have purchased. I have an Iphone but I keep 0 music on it. It really earks me that I can only put music on my iphone from 1 stinking computer. I would use a flash drive that doesn't have any use restrictions.

 

This part only depends on your radio, really. If you can control your ipod with the radio head unit -- Ipod is the way to go.


Itunes is easy- for ipod use, a pain for flash drives because of the mp4 formating .

There is a way-- When you play a mp3 file into itunes, it reformats it to mp4. To turn an mp4 file into an mp3 file (say you bought the song on itunes - also mp4) you need to set up a folder /file in itunes and burn a disc in mp3 format. It seems to be a hassle BUT now you also have a hardcopy and backup of you tunes too. From the disc you should be able to install onto a flash drive.

An ipod - any flavour, is just a glorified flash drive anyway. The software is what makes it work,the styling and simplicity is what makes it cool.

 

I have an older version of itunes and it does not automatically do mp4 formatting. I have it set to mp3, and the standard is aac. You can also convert audio files to mp3 using itunes. You can go to edit: preferences: advanced: and see your options for importing and burning. In order to convert to mp3 you highlight your selection and (when you are in mp3 burning mode) you can right click and say convert selection to mp3. This makes an mp3 formatted copy of the song.