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STATE OF THE ART; Apple's Musical Rendition: A Jukebox Fed by the Mac

APPLE doesn't send out greeting cards very often, especially by FedEx. So when the company mailed cards to reporters last week, too soon for Christmas and too rushed for Halloween, some curiosity was understandable. The message inside heralded the imminent unveiling of ''a breakthrough digital device'' that Apple wouldn't identify, except to say that it wasn't a Mac.

What could the new machine be? On the Web, Apple fans and foes whipped themselves into a frenzy of speculation.

What Apple finally unveiled on Tuesday is the iPod, which is to arrive in stores Nov. 10. ''Breakthrough digital device'' might be pushing it. As it turns out, the iPod is basically a portable music player. Still, it may be the finest portable music player ever built.

The first thing you notice about the iPod is, well, that you notice it: you can't flash this thing in public without getting stopped by passers-by. In typical fashion, Apple has designed an absolutely ravishing machine, part mirror-finish stainless steel and part white acrylic, whose shine, fit and finish you can't see in photos. At 4 by 2.4 by 0.8 inches, the iPod nestles in your hand like a deck of cards whose edges have been laser-rounded for your comfort.

Compact size is nothing new for MP3 players, of course. For joggers, gym hounds and anyone else who likes to listen to music or books while mobile, portability is exactly the point.

What is new, however, is the iPod's capacity, given its size. Whereas a typical pager-size player offers a piddling 64 megabytes of storage, the iPod contains a 5-gigabyte hard drive (about 78 times as much room). At standard MP3 quality, 128 kilobits per second, that's enough to hold 66 hours of music, 130 albums or 1,300 songs. Of course, Creative Labs' Nomad and Archos's Jukebox 6000 have that much storage and more, but they're the size of CD players and weigh twice as much as the 6.5-ounce iPod. Don't try jamming one of those players in your pocket unless you're going for the shredded-jeans look.

The other remarkable feature of the iPod is its synergy with a Macintosh. (The iPod can't talk to Windows machines at the moment, but Apple is exploring the possibility.) On the Mac, you use the new 2.0 version of Apple's free, highly regarded iTunes 2.0 software as the loading dock for the iPod. This software not only fills in the names of your songs and albums (by consulting an Internet database), but can also convert the songs in your CD collection to MP3 files, burn them onto new, custom CD's if you like (even the new-style MP3 CD's, which can hold far more than 74 minutes of music) and search, sort and organize your entire music library into subsets called playlists.

Then you simply connect the iPod to the Mac. You don't have to click a single button. The simple act of plugging in the cable starts up the iTunes program, which, Palm Pilot-style, automatically updates the iPod's music library to match its own.

This auto-sync business is remarkable enough, but the real news is how fast it happens. The iPod is the first MP3 player equipped with a high-speed FireWire cable. As a result, the player scarfs down your MP3, AIFF or WAV files about 30 times as fast as other MP3 players, which generally have only U.S.B. connectors. A 100-song collection takes about one minute to transfer. A job that would take five minutes on a typical MP3 player -- say, downloading the ''Lion King'' cast album -- takes nine seconds with the iPod.

Apple's use of FireWire permits the iPod to perform two other tricks that leave other MP3 players slack-jawed at the starting line. First, the Mac recharges the iPod's built-in lithium-polymer battery over the FireWire cable, avoiding the need for a separate charging cord. The iPod does come with a power adapter for the wall -- but it connects to the iPod's same single FireWire cable. That's a blessing for those who think that life is too full of cables already.

The FireWire cable also permits the iPod's hard drive to show up on the Mac's screen as an icon, exactly as though it's, well, a hard drive. At this point, you can drag data files and folders onto it. In other words, this music player doubles as a very fast, extremely chic-looking backup disk. (A few other jukebox-style MP3 players can also perform this stunt, but only via slow U.S.B. connectors.)

Once the player is loaded up with music, you're ready to listen. The iPod's snow-white pair of detached, free-dangling earpieces known as ear buds sound terrific, although I have never been able to keep ear buds in place without a little duct tape. Fortunately, you can substitute any headphones you like, or even connect the iPod to your stereo system.

The music just keeps going and going. Apple says that the iPod can play music continuously for 10 hours on a charge, but that's not quite accurate: my iPod cruised at full volume for 13 continuous hours, longer than any other hard-drive-based MP3 player. Moreover, the iPod can keep 20 minutes' worth of music in skip-proof memory. Forget about potholes; this player seems built to deliver uninterrupted playback even in rodeos, earthquakes and lines for World Series tickets.

A tuning dial on the iPod's face lets you rapidly navigate your songs by title, playlist, album or performer with one hand. The crisp, six-line, two-inch grayscale screen identifies the current song, the time remaining and so on. (One button press turns on the screen's backlight, which is bright enough for late-night reading under the covers.) All of the usual functions -- rewind, next track, volume, and so on -- are so easy to master that Apple can be forgiven, just this once, for providing only a one-sheet manual.

That Apple's designers have obviously obsessed over the iPod is both good news and bad. As sometimes happens in products built at the altar of coolness, function occasionally suffers. For example, there is no belt clip, which could be an issue for joggers whose sweat pants lack pockets. The chromelike finish looks glamorous and, as a handy bonus, offers one of the world's few socially acceptable ways for men to carry a mirror. Unfortunately, fingerprints and streaks dull its shine faster than you can say, ''Honey, where do we keep the Windex?''

Even among Mac fans whose hearts are pierced by this machine's overwhelming coolness, however, the toughest pill to swallow is likely to be the iPod's price: $400. For that money, you could buy a Creative Labs Nomad with four times the capacity (20 gigabytes instead of 5). Or, if five or six gigs is plenty, you could buy the Archos Jukebox for only $250.

Of course, Apple would say that's like comparing a Lexus to a Yugo. Those rival players have smaller screens, shorter battery life, inferior skip protection and far less refined software. They're huge and heavy, and their slow U.S.B. connectors take forever to suck in music from the PC.

Apple clearly believes that the iPod's advances in size, speed, function and elegance are worth the $150 price premium, but not everyone feels that way. In an informal poll at the Macworld.com Web site, 40 percent of Mac fans indicated that they would not be buying an iPod, and every single one cited the price.

It should also be noted, however, that the remaining 60 percent had either already ordered iPods or were virtually drooling onto their keyboards. They are among the first to succumb to the lure of the most beautiful and cleverly engineered MP3 player ever. But if Apple ever lowers the iPod's price and develops Windows software for it, watch out: the invasion of the iPod people will surely begin in earnest.