My Apple boycott has left me ignorant - what do you do with an ipod nano?

April 8, 2011 3:27 PM

What can you do with a third generation ipod nano? Don't use itunes or any other Apple products.

My mom won a third generation Ipod Nano. We don't really buy songs in our household. We use Pandora and Rhapsody to stream whatever we want to hear (or cds and old records). So my mom doesn't have some extensive library of songs and I really do not look forward to buying/downloading a bunch of songs just to get some use out of this device.

So what else can I do with it? I know you can get movies through itunes, but this screen is very small.

posted by Danila to Technology (11 answers total)

Best answer: You could use it as a portable drive - that does, however, require iTunes. If you're not willing to use iTunes, you're probably better off just giving it to someone as a gift.
posted by pdb at 3:33 PM on April 8, 2011

Not to be condescending, but you're more than able to rip your old cds with iTunes.
posted by Oktober at 3:35 PM on April 8, 2011

Response by poster: I'm willing to use Itunes, just not to buy/store songs. Portable drive sounds interesting.
posted by Danila at 3:37 PM on April 8, 2011

Sign up for audible.com and listen to books. Totally wonderful. I am so hooked I listen whenever I have a minute -- in line, walking to the car, when alone in the car, when taking a stroll with the pup. It's different from reading -- portable and also more like hearing a play in your ear.
posted by bearwife at 3:37 PM on April 8, 2011

What about podcasts? There are so many good podcasts available, there has to be something that would catch your mom's interest.
posted by cgg at 3:40 PM on April 8, 2011

Best answer: Also, though I hate Itunes muchly, there are a huge number of free podcasts availabe through it. (Including the MetaFilter podcast.) And you can also create a playlist of MetaFilter music and listen to all of that for free via Itunes. You need not spend a dime to use Itunes.
posted by bearwife at 3:40 PM on April 8, 2011 [2 favorites]

Or, you could borrow CDs from the library or someplace else and rip those.
posted by ZeusHumms at 3:43 PM on April 8, 2011

If ripping all of her CDs/dealing with iTunes is too much work, you could always sell it on ebay or craigslist. If you can live without the ~$60 you'll get for it, you could do what I do and give it away in exchange for some community service hours. Does your mom have a favorite charity? A local soup kitchen? Children's hospital? VA? Nursing home?

List it for free on craigslist and in the body of your listing request that they do 4-6 hours of community service at an approved organization. You and your mom can also do some hours with the recipient if you want... it's a good way to share new experiences with interesting people!
posted by covercash at 3:49 PM on April 8, 2011

Speaking of movies, you can rip DVDs you own with HandBrake.
posted by schmod at 4:04 PM on April 8, 2011

ripping CDs is super easy, also you always have a good backup (which is why I still buy on CD).

But make sure you change the default settings in ITunes from AAC to MP3 so that your newly ripped music files can be played on non-apple devices. Or download the open source program CDex, which is a great ripping program. Set your MP3 bitrate to 128 for regular headphone use, 196 or higher if you want to play over better speakers or something.

If you don't want to use iTunes at all, there are third party programs that work - sorry, don't know a specific one for windows.
posted by jb at 10:07 PM on April 8, 2011

Ripping should take about 2 min/CD - iTunes and CDex will pull artist/song names from the Internet databases for you.
posted by jb at 10:09 PM on April 8, 2011