Who knows about ipods and MP3's etc?

Despite growing up in the age of the techno explosion that was ipods etc, I don't know a thing about them.
Music to me is still CD's on a decent system.

I have come to the conclusion I would like an ipod or mp3 device to listen to music while I am out on my bike.

Do you have to download music from apple onto an ipod? can I download music straight to an mp3 from a computer? (the wife has 23 days of continues music on her comp, a first gen MacBook?)

Any other recommendations greatly received, I don't want to be buying music I already own from an online source if I can help it.

Thanks guys and girls.

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If you use an Apple product, I think you have to use iTunes and I don't know much about those.

With pretty much anything else, smartphones, mp3 players etc., you can drag and drop with Windows explorer. I have all my CDs ripped, uncompressed as .wav files to a hard drive, so I can connect my phone to the PC with a USB cable, drag the files to it and that's pretty much it. Or, I can use something, there's dozens of free media players and tools for Windows, to compress them to MP3 or some other format, if I'm not bothered about sound quality and want smaller file sizes.

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With an iPod you need to use iTunes on your PC or Mac but you can use any mp3s you already have by syncing the tracks you have onto the iPod using iTunes.

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Sansa Clip.
Small, cheap, bullet proof, VG sound quality, lasts for ages.
Just copy files to it like any other USB stick.

If you do fancy apple, I have a iPod touch 2nd 8gb you can have for £30

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Thanks for the help and advice guy's.
Im going to have a look at a couple of different mp3's and probably get one to try out.

The iPod shuffle is a good option if you don't mind having your music on shuffle and if you're after a reasonable amount of songs. Like Bert said, you can rip cd's onto iTunes. The shuffle is also only 40 quid plus if you buy from apple directly you can have the back engraved, handy to put your phone number or postcode if it gets lost. It also has a handy little clip on the back.

I have been using itunes since around 2004 and its ok as long as you are happy with Apple. Its the only apple product I use and can be hair pulling at times.For instance You cant stream itunes onto a smart tv without an apple tv box.

You can convert existing MP3 file to itunes but you cant play itunes downloads/cd rips onto something from windows. There is bits of software to faff about with but it is a faff if you are not used to it.

However, on an Android phone/ product you just drag and drop everything and anything and it will play without fuss. So, a good android phone would be a more practical choice these days.

As for sound quality, the higher the rip/ download quality, the more memory required so the larger the ipod/ memory card

.''...The highest quality MP3 has a bitrate of 320kbps, whereas a 24-bit/192kHz file is transferred at a rate of 9216kbps. Music CDs are transferred at 1411kbps...''

So, sound is a little naff if you are into quality but riding along with a decent set of headphones should be ok but not in traffic!

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If you are getting an MP3 player for your bike, I highly recommend the sony NWZW273B
I used to have an old MP3 player with some headphones, but they fell out of my ear and wrapped round the wheel.
So having an MP3 with integrated headphones makes so much sense. Plus with it being waterproof. You can also go swimming with it. Which was a big bonus on my holiday last year.
Plus it has the ease of just drag & dropping songs. No faffing with i tunes.

Also, do you have a phone made in the last 10 years? as that will do the job as well.