Product Description

Includes: earbud headphones, AC adapter, & USB 2.0 cable. Apple 30GB iPod Photo - The iPod Photo combines the amazing digital audio features you've come to love, with new photo options that make your multimedia experience that much better! Enjoy thousands of photos on the new 2 inch, 220x176-pixel resolution display; that features backlighting and the new, clear, Myriad typeface. Play slideshows made in iPhoto, Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0, or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0. You can even output audio at the same time for a more enjoyable presentation! When outputing to a TV, the iPod Photo automatically optimizes your photos for 4 - 3 and 16 - 9 televisions Up to 15 hours of battery life (for audio only) Up to 17 minutes of skip protection Create & save multiple on-the-go playlists Adjust audiobooks read speed Synch and charge the iPod Photo through a (optional) FireWire or (included) USB 2.0 cable Alarm Clock/Sleep Timer Organizer Functions - Contacts, Calendar, & To-Do Lists Ports - dock connector, remote connector, stereo headphone jack, composite video & audio through headphone jack, FireWire 400 & USB 2.0 Audio Support - AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Apple Lossless, WAV, AIFF, & Audible Photo Support - JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, & PNG Unit Dimensions - 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.63' Unit Weight - 6.4 oz.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15608 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: White
• Brand: Apple
• Model: M9829LL/A
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 6.00" h x 6.80" w x 4.70" l, 1.00 pounds

Features

• 30 GB model holds up to 7,500 songs; supports AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV
• Holds 25,000 photos and displays them on a 2-inch diagonal 65,536-color LCD screen with LED backlight
• Up to 15 hours battery life when fully charged (which typically takes 5 hours); fast-charge in as little as 3 hours
• Compatible with Mac OS X v10.2.8 or v10.3.4 or later; or Windows 2000 with SP4 and XP with SP2; FireWire and USB 2.0
• Comes with earbud headphones, AC adapter, and USB 2.0 cable

From the Manufacturer
From the Manufacturer Remember the 64-color pack of crayons? Meet the 65,536-color pack. Everything looks better in color. With iPod photo, everything sounds better, too. Carry an entire library of music—thousands of songs and full-color album cover art—or tens of thousands of photos in your pocket.¹ The original iPod changed the way you listen to music by putting thousands of songs in your pocket. Now iPod photo changes the way you see your music, with a crisp color screen.

Picture Your Music
Browse your playlists via vivid menus, thumb through album and audiobook cover art on the go, even play games and view your calendars in color. Of course, iPod photo also lets you carry memories along with your music. Upload photos from your Mac or PC and view them in color, anywhere, complete with built-in backlighting. Your personal, portable entertainment library, iPod photo looks as good as it sounds.

Take Your Photos for a Spin
Like its famous siblings, iPod photo features the touch-sensitive Apple Click Wheel that's the envy of the industry. Use it to navigate your music and photos in 65,536 colors. Easier to read than ever, the iPod photo's display boasts 220-by-176-pixel resolution. Spin the wheel to Music and scroll effortlessly through dozens of playlists, hundreds of albums, or thousand of songs.

Or highlight photos. iPod photo displays 25 full-color thumbnails at a time. And you can scroll through them the same way you scroll through song titles. Quickly. Just spin the wheel to see more. And when you see a photo you'd like displayed all by its lonesome, just click the center button and voilà. No one will have to say "cheese" as long as you have iPod photo around. Whether you're listening to tunes or checking out photos, you're sure to be all smiles.

Get Brownie Points for Sharing
If you'd like everyone else to smile right along with you, iPod photo makes it easy. Sure, you could let them take the Click Wheel for a spin themselves, but here's a way to get extra points for style. Use an optional AV cable to connect iPod photo to a projector or TV. You can mesmerize friends and family with a glorious multimedia experience, offering them a breathtaking slideshow accompanied by the music you already have on your iPod photo. Of course, you get to choose the songs, albums, or playlists. And talk about smart, iPod photo optimizes your photos to fit on a standard (4:3) or widescreen (16:9) TV.

Sync, Look, and Listen
iTunes lets you import your images directly into iPod photo from a folder on the hard drive of your Mac or PC. Spent time organizing your photos using iPhoto on a Mac or either Adobe Album 2.0 or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 on a PC? iTunes rewards your diligence by importing the photo albums you've created in iPhoto or collections created in Album or Photoshop Elements. You'll be able to choose them from the Photos menu on iPod photo.

iPod photo also features even more robust Auto-Sync capabilities. Now, in addition to offering the industry's best music syncing, iTunes offers stellar photo syncing, as well. Update your photo collection by adding images or creating new albums, and the next time you connect iPod photo to your Mac or PC using the included USB 2.0 or optional FireWire cable, iTunes will automatically synchronize your photo collection. And did we mention that iTunes 4.7.1 also autosyncs album cover art? It's true. The cover art downloaded when you purchase music from the iTunes Music Store is transferred to iPod photo along with the music. So while iPod photo plays your tunes, you can enjoy the album art—in color, of course—on the Now Playing screen.

Enjoy Improved Battery Life
Whether you're on a transcontinental flight or an extra-long hike, if you plan to listen to music for hours and hours, iPod photo has you covered. Fully charged, it lets you enjoy up to 15 hours of continuous music; or up to 5 hours of continuous slideshows with music.² Use the included USB 2.0 cable, optional FireWire cable, or optional handy iPod photo Dock to quickly charge the batteries.

The Perfect Digital Camera Companion
Coming soon, new downloadable iPod photo software will offer multiple slideshow transitions and direct camera connectivity. Plus, Apple's iPod Camera Connector (sold separately) will let you connect a camera to iPod photo for quick import and viewing on the go.

Now you can take your entire music collection and all your memories everywhere you go. With iPod photo, easily relive all your favorite experiences and share them with family and friends. That, plus industry-leading ease of use and seamless integration with iTunes and the iTunes Music Store, make it a breeze to autosync your music and photos and makes sharing your memories as easy as finding the perfect song.

What's in the Box
iPod photo, earbud headphones, AC adapter, USB 2.0 cable, CD-ROM with iTunes for Mac and Windows, electronic documentation, and a getting started guide

¹Music capacity is based on 4 minutes per song and 128 Kbps AAC encoding; photo capacity is based on iPod-viewable photos transferred from iTunes. ²Rechargeable batteries have a limited number of charge cycles and may eventually need to be replaced. Battery life and number of charge cycles vary by use and settings. See www.apple.com/batteries for more information.

See a comparison of the different iPod music players

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Customer Reviews

30gig color VS. 20gig B&W
SCOPE: Because of the price drop on the color models, this review will be targeted to those struggling over a 20gig b&w screen vs. the 30gig color iPod decision.

BACKGROUND: I own both the 40gig iPod Photo and the new 30gig iPod Photo, and have owned a 15gig regular 4G iPod in the past and I also own a 512mb Shuffle. I use both PC and Mac formats. Note, I am not recommending the 60gig variety.

1) BOTTOM LINE: The new 30gig iPod Photo @ $349 is, in my opinion, the *perfect* iPod. My main complaint with the 40gig iPod photo was its price and size/weight (i gave it 4 stars). The new 30gig is roughly the same size/weight as the b&w 20gig and has all the features of the Photo family --> and for just $50 more, you get another 10 gigs, 3 more hours of battery time and a color screen!!! This price/feature tradeoff is one of the best you'll find anywhere in the Apple product suite. Frankly, the 20gig b&w is currently mis-priced @ $299, i would expect this price to drop very soon.

NOTE:
30gig iPod Photo = $11.63 /per gig -- $23.26 /per hour battery time
20gig iPod b&w = $14.95 /per gig -- $24.91 /per hour battery time

2) PHOTO QUALITY: Good to "pretty good".. but not excellent (no improvement since the first iPod Photos were released in 10/04)... I do realize the size of the screen is only 2 inches, but photos tend to be slightly pixilated, even the full resolution ones that are over 2mb (though you stop noticing after a minute) and color reproduction is not all that great on skin tones and deep reds, but very good w/ greens&blues... which make pics of landscapes quite nice!

3) PHOTOS ON MY TV: Now this is where this thing shines... this is a really cool feature... however you MUST BUY the mini-plug-to-RCA-out (headphone to 3 pronged yellow/white/red) for another $20, which in my opinion is worth it.. you can scroll through your photos on your big (or at least bigger than your computer screen) TV screen.

4) MUSIC: Biggest change here is you can now see the album art... sounds like a tiny feature, but after you get tired of showing off your photo albums, this is probably the single most useful feature. When before you had no incentive to look down at your ipod screen, now you'll find yourself looking at it all the time... In terms of music playback, it's the same as any click-wheel, 4G iPod.

5) SIZE/WEIGHT: Its great!, I cannot physically tell the difference in size and weight between the 20gig b&w and the 30gig iPod Photo... this was my #1 complaint about the iPod Photo 40gig -> it was simply too big and heavy to be practical... that's why I was forced to buy the Shuffle!

6) COSMETIC CHANGES: None on the outside, still scratches as easily as the rest, but has a color screen w/ a new font and screen looks very dark w/out the backlight.

7) BATTERY LIFE: Conditional based on the user... However, so far it seems to run above spec during mixed use = 16hours.

8) STORAGE: Disk access time for photos do have a lag (on both my 40gig and 30gig), and the unit tends to freeze from time to time, but I would consider the severity and frequency of this event to be insignificant to the overall functionality. In terms of size -> i think audio books, photos, and Podcast Radio programs have made -for the first time- the ridiculous size of the hard drives actually justifiable... in my 40gig photo, i used 15gigs due to my podcasts and audio books and would expect to reach 30gigs in 3-4 years of use... I still feel the 60gig to be not very practical... i suggest you stick with the smaller size.

== SURPRISES OUT OF THE BOX==

A) NEED TO BUY SOFTWARE: In order to enable the cooler features - like syncing albums automatically, etc..., you need to purchase or own iLife (iPhoto specifically) 4.03 or better (if you are the rare few that bought your computer in the last few months w/ 4.0, you still have to download an upgrade to 4.03) ... Now I bought my iMac from the Apple website last Christmas and it still shipped w/ iLife 2.0... so I had to purchase iLife 4.0 (according to several company reps, there is no free upgrade from the jump from 2.0 to 4.0)...which took me an additional day to figure out... Yes, you can assign folders and such to sync to your photos to your iPod, BUT having an album editor enables full control of changes and what changes I'm making, to the entire process. Oh Yeah, you need a high version of iTunes as well; my pod came w/ ver. 4.7... IMHO, you \need\ the iPhoto upgrade to enjoy this purchase. If you have PC, you have to buy Adobe Photoshop Elements.

B) TRANSITIONS: Only the "wipe" from right-to-left is included, however, I heard a firmware upgrade with more transitions would be out later this year.

C) SLIDESHOWS: You cannot assign multiple music lists in iTunes to specific albums in iPhoto... as of 03/05, you can only assign a SINGLE music list to ALL photo albums when you enable the slideshow feature. Yes, you can change this music list, but need to go back to the menu to do so.

D) COLOR SCREEN: When not backlit, the screen during regular music playback turns \VERY\ dark, much more so than regular B&W iPods... you need a light source reflecting off of the screen in order to see the letters... typeface has changed too, more like "Arial" and slightly smaller. Oh yeah, with the backlight off, the screen still displays in color.

TECHNICAL DETAILS:

A) You cannot adjust the color quality, size, cropping or transitions of the photos when detached from your computer, so don't waste your 1 customer service call credit on it.

B) The 30gig package does not come with the TV-out cable, you have to buy it ($20), and it comes w/ a USB 2.0 based charger, not firewire.

C) If you never upgrade your iTunes due to the hacks you can employ on earlier versions, then you cannot use the photo feature (yes I tried).

D) ALBUM ART: For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, you don't have to purchase a song from iTunes to get album art... just drag and drop an image of the album cover into the window where iTunes usually shows the album art.... plus there are programs out there that auto-download the album art into iTunes if you have the name of the album and the name of the artist...

Yes, I Made the Upgrade.
My introduction to the iPod world was through the Mini, which I like, but I secretly envied those who own the 20GB or 40GB. After a few weeks, I grew to hate being limited to only 1,000 songs on the Mini and wanted an iPod that was able to store more music. So when Apple launched a new line of iPods, I jumped on the first opportunity to make the upgrade. I didn't quite need an MP3 player that can store photos, but I recommend the 30GB iPod Photo for its color display screen and its ability to save up to 7,500 songs. That's enough to store my entire collection of Miles Davis, Bob Marley, AC/DC, John Coltrane, and Roxy Music, with plenty of extra space for hundreds more CDs. If you purchase music through iTunes, you'll also be able to view the album artwork on the iPod screen (this feature SOMETIMES works for music not purchased on iTunes). Very cool. I didn't buy this player for its photo feature, but I was able to transfer a few family photos just to test the picture quality. The images are fairly clear for an MP3 player, but in no way can they replace a traditional camera. While I'm happy I got the 30GB, I do have one axe to grind with Apple. The headphones, while stylish in their white design, are weak and flimsy. Within a month's worth of use, the right ear started to give out. Of all the headphones I've used in the last 15 years, Apple's are by far the worst. Audio snobs will most likely throw these out the nearest window and get something else. Beyond that, I highly recommend this bad boy. Those who own the Mini or Shuffle and want to upgrade should skip the 20GB and pay just a few dollars more for the 30GB iPod photo.

One final comment: it is absolutely critical that you get a protective case for your iPod, regardless of which model you purchase. The display screen scratches VERY easily. Cases are available on this website, your local Apple store, and at other retailers. Protect your investment. Would you like to see a few hundred dollars of your money go down the drain in a matter of days? I, for one, wouldn't.

iPod Photo: near perfect
I have used three different iPod models since they were released a few years ago. They keep improving with age and iPod Photo is almost flawless. What's great about this model:
1. previously, I had problems with battery life dissipating after a month or so of use (and I use mine hard; it's on at least six hours a day), but that hasn't happened with this one. I find that I get right around 18--eighteen!--hours of battery life on a charge. However, if I go two or more days between use, the battery runs itself down to almost nothing;
2. the vibrant colors are a wonderful change. Compared to the iPod Photo, the old black-and-white models look positively antiquated. The font on the Photo is updated as well;
3. to my untuned ear, I cannot tell the difference between what I hear on my earbuds and the CD the music came from. Sound quality is, as always, excellent;
4. the price drop. I paid $399 for my last 40g model and $349 for this 30g iPod Photo, a superior product; and
5. picture quality on the iPod is quite (surprisingly) good. It's like carrying an entire photo album with me. I have over 2,200 songs and 1,300 photos stored on my machine and it's still more than half empty.

What I'm not crazy about:
1. I'm not sure how the album art is stored; namely, why some have it and others don't. Anything downloaded from iTunes will have it, and some stuff from my own music collection does, too, but I can't figure out a pattern and have been too lazy to research it. Less than half of my music has album art to display;
2. I know that the "random" feature is the result of a complex algorithm and has, in fact, been proven to be truly random, but my iPod has a propensity for picking certain tracks while never playing others;
3. to lower the price, Apple's skimped on the accessories that come included with the iPods. In this model, no dock or case as were provided as when I bought my 40g b-&-w model;
4. the display on iPods scratch ridiculously easily. I recommend picking up an iSkin which is a colorful jacket that fits over the iPod and comes with a screen protector that works really well. Apple sells these for about $30 but they can be had on eBay for a third of the cost; and
5. no way to delete songs directly from the iPod and no way to load photos onto the machine. Both of these things must be done from a computer.

A quick word on Apple's customer service: if you register your iPod with them, you can request repairs or replacement parts for accessories at (usually) no charge within a year of purchase. So when your earbuds begin to fray (and they will), you can get a new pair simply for asking. I've done this four times with no problems, free of charge. They even ship new parts for free via FedEx. Whoa.

I love my iPod Photo and am seldom without it.