Can I use USB with an ipod?

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I want an mp3 player, and I reckon that ipod is the way to go, since the general concensus is that its the dogs danglys. The problem is, my PC has only a USB connection, and no firewire. Will my PC still talk to the ipod? Or can I buy a firewire card for the pc?

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 25 October 2003 09:58 (twenty-two years ago)

nah - there's no USB port on the iPod...also USB suXoRs compared to firewire...so slow!

you can buy a firewire card for your PC (aka 'IEEE 1394' in silly PC-speak)

― geeta (geeta), Saturday, 25 October 2003 11:41 (twenty-two years ago)

My ipod instructions say that yes, you can use USB (if you get some adaptor) but doesn't recommend it, as transfer rates are so slow.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 25 October 2003 11:52 (twenty-two years ago)

should be fine if it's USB2, and it'll still work with USB1

― s1utsky (slutsky), Saturday, 25 October 2003 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

new iPods, you can get an apple usb 2 cable, it works just fine.

― Ed (dali), Saturday, 25 October 2003 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

What Ed sed, but you have to use one of the new iPods that have the compatibility with the dock, and then you have to get the USB 2 dock separately, which means extra $$$.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 25 October 2003 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

And for the record, USB 2.0 is faster than the first revision of FireWire (480 Mbps compared to 400 Mbps), though over prolonged transfers you probably won't find much difference.

You can buy a cheaper iPod compatible with the dock, and get the USB dock separately. Also interesting: USB 2.0 + FireWire cable (syncs via USB, charges via FireWire).

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Saturday, 25 October 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)

you don't need the dock, only the cable, all of the docks are usb2 compatible, only the cables are different. Charging via firewire is not so strange because the power adaptor has a firewire port on it, rather than a more normal power connector.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 26 October 2003 08:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah, thought the dock had some adapter inside it. I knew that you could charge via FireWire, I was actually just surprised that you could do it at the same time that it was using USB for sync. Since the power uses different pins though, shouldn't be that surprising to me.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Sunday, 26 October 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

usb doesn't provide enough power or rather I believe the voltage is too low in usb (also apple has a vested interested in promoting firewire, it created it with Texas Instruments and they split a dollar for every firewire chip sold)

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 26 October 2003 17:15 (twenty-two years ago)

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