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friend wants to avoid Apple products

paloftoon

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
My friend is getting really tired of Apple products. She accidentally dropped her ipod touch this morning and it broke. She's very upset! She tried taking it to three or four different repair shops. Each one sent her to a different place because they couldn't fix it. Does anyone have any recommendations for other MP3 players that she can use with Apple file types and also that allows her to make playlists? Even if she can't use Apple music files, playlists are way more important to her. Please offer any suggestions you have. And please don't suggest she use her phone for music. She has a huge music collection that won't all fit on her phone and she doesn't personally like having music on her phone anyway. Thanks everyone in advance.

For my friend, I found this website. Not sure how helpful it is and I'm not good with the playlist thing at all.
https://www.lifewire.com/mp3-players-you-can-use-with... Maybe look up the names of the 9 listed on here?
Astell & Kern AK70 . .
Sony Walkman NWZ-A15

Any thoughts?
 
In most cases MP3 playlists are generally made within operating systems like MacOS and Windows. With Linux Mint they can be generated using an audio program called Rhythmbox. Though I don't bother with playlists. I just create folders for genres, albums and specific artists using basic file manager programs. Works just great with my car's Bose MP3 audio system. I edit all my MP3 files using the freeware app "Audacity" that is available for most major operating systems.

A decent brand name MP3 player with at least 16GB of memory can be quite expensive. (16GB equates to about 2000+ music tracks) This Sony NWA55 allows you to increase that memory with an additional Micro SD card.

 
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This isn't the best answer for everyone, but she can do what most people do nowadays and just subscribe to spotify or something. Not having to worry about a collection, hardware and all of that stuff is really nice.

Nowadays you can also just load MP3s or whatever onto a phone's SD card as well, I forgot that I used to do this for really experimental / indie stuff that isn't on places like Spotify.
 
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Your title says she wants to avoid apple products and yet, the post suggests the opposite.

I use android phone and tablet and like your friend, not keen on having music on my phone, but do, just in case my tablet stops working.

I think I read somewhere that apple is very limited.

If she got a tablet, she can use google play station and down load a fantastic free music app and there are playlists enablers, which Iove.
 
The repair shop bit isnt surprising. If I recall correctly, Apple REALLY doesnt like it when someone other than themselves performs repairs on any of their products (because the money paying for the repair doesnt go to Apple in that case). As in, they'll actively design the things to be nigh-impossible to repair outside of their own places.

It's a pretty good reason to just avoid them. Not to mention how strict they are about a device they freaking sold to you. There's a reason "jailbreaking" is a thing with iPads and iPhones. And it shouldnt need to be a thing.
 
Maybe something Android? My phone is android and it's surviving remarkably long. Previously, I had iPhones, which all broke with 1-2 years.
 
Spotify isn't ideal as she likes some songs that are probably not going to be on Spotify and she probably already knows about Spotify. Plus, she wants to be able to have actual ownership of the songs and not just be able to stream them, but thank you for thinking of that Silhouette.

Suzanne, thanks for your input, but if you think I'm suggesting the opposite of the title of the subject line, then we might not be on the same page unfortunately.

I don't understand the playlist dynamic as I don't use it too much myself, but it's important for my friend. So I mention it in an attempt to find the right type of device for her if there are options.
As a note for using Android, she uses Android now but there are some songs in Apple format that she needs to have in a certain way or something like that apparently.
 
Bad timing in any case considering that Apple has abandoned the iPod altogether. But even Apple recognizes- and pushes the market dominance of a modern multi-faceted cellphone.

Not surprising. But then even if you don't break your cellphone, it becomes obsolete and worthless in short order. So much more profit in manufacturing something- anything with a deliberately short lifespan. Making just about any old and reliable device painful when it dies or cannot be used with other equipment.

Like the computer I'm on which runs great, but no longer not up to Microsoft's standards. Did I mention it still runs great? Off to Linux...and Microsoft loses a longtime customer. Oh well....c'est la vie. And I still don't own a cellphone....LOL. :D

 
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As in, they'll actively design the things to be nigh-impossible to repair outside of their own places.
I had a friend who worked at the Genius Bar some years back. Apparently most of the iPods/iPhones weren't repaired at all. They simply gave the user a replacement device as it was cheaper than paying an Apple tech to try and pry apart their evil glass, metal, plastic, and glue packages. Non-serviceable electronics are hell on the environment and should be banned by law.
 
Or get another Apple iPod Touch and invest in a case for it. That has saved my iphone more than once. Good investment.
 
I had a friend who worked at the Genius Bar some years back. Apparently most of the iPods/iPhones weren't repaired at all. They simply gave the user a replacement device as it was cheaper than paying an Apple tech to try and pry apart their evil glass, metal, plastic, and glue packages. Non-serviceable electronics are hell on the environment and should be banned by law.

Honestly the entire company should just be banned by law. Really nasty group, I'm convinced that pretty much all of the executives should be in prison at this point. Granted, I could say that about a lot of companies.

I'll never understand why everyone is so obsessed with their gizmos. Like, I have an iPhone, which I loathe (given to me by family, because I need a phone as a safety device... never use it otherwise, and they picked Apple instead of Android). And I do have an iPad, a recent one, which I bought thinking "well you know what, it's been like 50 bazillion years since the previous iPad I had... maybe they suck less now. I'll give it a go". Nope. Still sucks. Apple's stupid stranglehold on the thing renders it worthless without a jailbreak (which I cant do yet). So it has exactly two functions: 1, it's a noise machine when I'm sleeping, and 2, I can read random TVTropes entries while I'm lying in bed (helps me fall asleep).

And that's it. That's all it does. It never gets used for anything else because it's bloody worthless. I dont want to use the trashy garbage sold on the App Store (if it's on the App Store, there's something wrong with it, that's the rule I go by) and Crapple wont let me just, you know, do what *I* want with my bloody device, so I cant get apps from anywhere else without jailbreaking it.

Bah. Useless contraption. I dont understand the popularity of any of these things.
 
Bah. Useless contraption. I dont understand the popularity of any of these things.

Good capitalists exploit demand. Great capitalists invent it, even if and when it isn't necessary. Those same great capitalists invented "FOMO" too.

All compounded by proprietary technology and constantly producing newer versions of roughly the same thing which always seems to cost a little more than previous versions. The art of deliberately manufacturing mediocre products in order to sell future mediocre products in a tighter time frame which is closely coordinated with shareholders' quarterly expectations.

I figure those same powers that be will be thrilled when my generation finally dies off. Those of us who can still recall an earlier era when the best manufacturers were the ones selling products intended to last. Enhancing the probability of new customers rather then depending on repeat customers as if they were heroin addicts over much longer periods of time.
 
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I have an iPad and a MacBook Pro. I can’t stand either device and I truly dislike Apple in general. I use an Android based tablet and a PC and they are lightyears ahead of Apple.

In the U.S., less that 20% of smartphones sold are Apple.

The rest are Android based and for good reason.
 
My iPad is very useful for reading books off Scribd, which saves a ton of money and exposes me to a lot of books I wouldn't have found otherwise. It's also useful as sheet music for my teaching.
 
I told someone else today that Google beats Apple, because basically, Apple doesn't like you using third party apps. I don't know about nowadays either, but I had an old iPhone. It was big, black, and felt like a brick. But I remember at the time, everything could only be added and removed via syncing. It was a nuisance. Then if somebody else used iTunes on your computer, it would erase your data because of a rule in place about multiple IDs.

Maybe that doesn't apply anymore. But I prefer phones where you can just get into a folder and drag everything across. Or add everything to use with a SD card.

Some older makes of phones used to have a mounting issue, so that's why I rarely used that option.
 

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