On 07/11/2008, Rachel wrote:
> Here is a long summary of all the
> information and suggestions, often contradictory, that I
> received. This has been very helpful for me, and I hope
> it will be for you, too.

Thanks for the summary!

I'm late on this, and I'm not a real birder (I usually go for twice as many wings and a lot more legs) but I've had several iPods and recently got a second generation iPod Touch (aka iT--always saving energy!)

I'm going to put in a strong vote for the iT over the nano even though it's about 50% more expensive than a nano with the same capacity. You'll likely get a lot more than 50% more use out of it.

The iT has some non-playback features that should be very useful in the field: It runs third party software and has a larger, very sharp, display. The display works pretty well even in bright daylight (not great, but much better than other handhelds I've used.) Font size is adjustable for most apps, which is very helpful. It's an excellent book reader, and generic database apps are already starting to show up for it--think checklists, and eventually maybe expert systems for identification. It's already possible to scrape entire web sites and repackage them for off line access, including images, with some of the apps such as iSilo. Reading text in many formats, including iWorks, Word docs, Excel, pdfs, html, and more is reasonably straightforward (you do need wi-fi access for data transfer). Even though the text entry is somewhat awkward, it's adequate for brief note taking even in the rain (a small ziplock bag makes a good rain coat.)

It's still very early days for developers, so nothing bird specific has shown up yet as far as I can tell, but there's already a selection of generic software that would work for setting up checklists and carrying other reference material. Considering how much birdy-specific software there is for palm pilots, it's only a matter of time before it (and better) shows up on the iT--a lot of palm developers are already making their presence felt on the iT/iPhone.

The lock-in to the Apple store is a drawback, but mostly for us curmudgeons who hate any sort of lock-in on principle. In actual use, the App Store is working out much better than I expected. [And it isn't a total lock-in anyway: jailbreak is easy, with no drawbacks so far, and opens up some utilities/apps that apple currently blocks. But most people wouldn't need to.] And because of the DRM on applications, there's a better chance that we could be seeing full versions of field guides distributed for the iT--nag those publishers!


A note on capacity:

It depends on how you rip your originals--number of 'songs' is meaningless. You'll want to do some experimenting to see how much compression you can use before you start noticing degraded sound quality. MP3 and AAC compression intentionally throws away information (lossy), and the more you compress, the more gets tossed out. Some people think that 192kbps sounds fine (I don't, even with aging ears), some think that lossless is essential. On average, a longish CD takes up about 700 MB before compression. As a rough guide, for 60 minutes of stereo sound:

apple lossless: 300 MB -> 3+ hours per gigabyte
320kbps vbr MP3: 144 MB -> 7 hours/GB
192kbps vbr MP3: 80 MB -> 12+ hours/GB

Mileage will vary--how squishy things are depends on detailed characteristics of the sound. But as the bit rate goes down, so does the quality. AAC is somewhat better than MP3 at a given bit rate, but MP3 is more portable and will play on more devices. My own compromise for music has been 320kbps MP3, but I'm gradually reripping my CDs to lossless (for much classical music, it makes a noticeable difference.)

Have fun with whatever you end up with.
--
Allyn Weaks allyn at tardigrade.net Seattle, WA Sunset zone 5
Pacific NW Native Wildlife Gardening: http://www.tardigrade.org/natives/
Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for Bee.