The Classic can also double as a USB hard drive in a pinch. We're happy to see that despite the iPhone's unique file management requirements, the iPod Classic allows for manually adding and deleting music and video files without the hassles of playlist syncing. Copy-protected AAC files purchased through iTunes are supported, of course, as well as MP3, Apple lossless, AIFF, WAV, and Audible files. We're also happy to see that Apple has bundled three video games into both the iPod Classic and the Nano, giving us yet another way to stay distracted.Īpple's audio file format support remains the same. By placing the shuffle setting options (Shuffle Song, Shuffle Album, or Shuffle Off) in a song's Now Playing window, Apple is effectively giving you the ability to randomize songs until you find an artist you like-a lazy listener's dream come true. Apple's music shuffle function, for instance, has made a subtle evolution, now letting you easily engage and disengage the shuffle function on the fly, with just a few clicks of the scroll wheel's center button.
Looking past the obvious big-ticket improvements, the new Classic includes some small touches that are easy to miss. Support for video and music playback, as well as photos, podcasts, and video games, are virtually unchanged. The iPod Classic has very few new features to talk about. That said, Cover Flow makes for a scenic and engaging, if slow, way to browse your music. Users with large music collections to sort through will prefer browsing using the list mode or search function. We also found a noticeable amount of lag using Cover Flow. The Cover Flow system, for browsing your music collection with an emphasis on album artwork, finally makes its Classic debut, although Cover Flow does lose some appeal when not on a touch-screen device such as the iPhone. Some might write off this split-screen effect as pure novelty, but the end result is quite beautiful. This same effect accompanies menu items such as movies, podcasts, and photos. For example, highlight the Music selection on the main menu, and the right half of the screen displays a random, drifting close-up of cover artwork from your music library. One of the most striking changes is a split-screen main menu that displays the selections on the right half of the screen and a picture related to the selection on the left. The Classic's most impressive design improvement is its dramatically overhauled menu system.
The iPod Nano (left) now shares all iPod Classic's capabilities, but in a much smaller format. The iPod Classic is nearly identical to the 30GB fifth-generation iPod (right).
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