Pre-loading Music on an iPod Shuffle
So as I was browsing through the news in my favorite RSS reader yesterday, I saw a story about a band releasing their first album pre-loaded on an iPod shuffle. That seemed like something worth blogging about. Until I went to the band’s web site… I won’t even bother to name the band, since the two band members look like a couple of freaks just trying to use the popularity of the iPod to get attention.
But there is a point in this non-story: selling music pre-loaded on an iPod is just plain stupid, since you’re not supposed to be able to get the music off the iPod and on to your computer to back it up. Sure, it can be done, but most people won’t be able to. If anyone tries to sell you an iPod with music on it, think twice; the first time you have a problem, the iPod Software Updater erases the iPod. And if you use the shuffle’s AutoFill, and check an option, everything gets erased anyway.
But this band got their fifteen minutes… (On some web sites.)
I thought that too, at first, but then I read on another Web site that they have some instructions for fans on manually updating their Shuffle so as not to erase the album, and also that the songs are also stored in a data folder (remember, the Shuffle is also a USB drive) that could then be dragged to iTunes and added to your library, so they wouldn’t be erased by an Auto Fill. I did not visit the band’s Web site, however, as they didn’t sound like my cup of tea.
So maybe it’s not quite as stupid as it looks at first glance, although it didn’t sound like a band I’d be willing to drop a hundred bucks on to listen to their music, frankly. Now if Bruce Springsteen releases his new album this way, I’m there.
There are ways to access the music on any iPod: see http://www.mcelhearn.com/article.php?story=20050126152346911“>this article on my site. But the real problem is if you need to reset your iPod; that
wipes everything. So if you don’t copy the music from it right away, you’re
stuck. FWIW, several times, when connecting my shuffle to my Mac, I’ve
gotten a message that it could not be read and needed to be restored.
Well, I don’t have a Shuffle, so I’ll defer to your first-hand knowledge about that, which certainly sounds like it could be a real problem.
Another problem I just thought of today is that this seems like a one-shot deal. I mean, who is going to buy another album-on-a-Shuffle (even from another band) if they already have Sexohol’s fine work? How many Shuffles can one person use? Unless you want to buy the albums that way, and then (after copying the album to iTunes) give them away as Christmas presents or something …
Yes, there’s that. I could understand buying, say, a U2 shuffle, with a whole
lot of songs, or a Bruce Springsteen shuffle, with the boss’s complete works.
But, as you say, you’d only do it once.