I have had my ipod for about 3 years. Pretty much no problems. I also buy songs from Itunes.

I think Natural Mike forgets 1 key element that is vital to apple's success. Ease of use. Itunes is very easy in my opinion for normal people who don't get involved with the higher end of tech.

But again, what are the competitors offering? Granted, I haven't tried Rhapsody, but emusic and Napster aren't really comparable. Napster, for one, just flat out sucks balls. Emusic, while cheap and mostly doing it right for a pay-for-mp3 service, only offers a large portion of their catalog at 128 kbps. Plus emusic and iTunes have a fairly different inventory so they work pretty well when used in conjunction. Of course whenever I get the opportunity, I grab everything I can from slsk...

And the quality of the few things I've bought at the iTunes store has been fine* so I don't really get what this is about other than DRMing. That's pretty easy to get around, and I think most of us can understand why Apple does that.

*maybe buying on a PC gets you a different file than buying on a Mac?

Better doesn't necessarily mean good, that's where I stand.

As a former cellphone tech, I can unequivocally say that this is NOT the case. Gadgets are supposed to be perfect, bulletproof, waterproof, eternal, pleasant-smelling, and free to replace for any reason.

If someone pushes you into a pool, that's the gadgetmaker's fault, and he/she owes you a new one.

If you keep it in the same pocket as your keys and you scratch the shit out of it, the gadget has failed, and you are owed a new one.

If you get drunk (*actual customer testimony*), steal food out of a fridge at a party, try to walk home and cook it cuz you're drunk and hungry, pass out on the way there on someone's lawn, and your body heat melts the stick of butter in your pocket next to your gadget, filling the gadget with butter and rendering it both useless and disgusting, and you wake up 6 hours later in someone's begonias with shiny, greasy pants and a non-working gadget, you are due a new one.

I absolutely whole heartedly approve of giving such a customer a new phone. That is awesome.

I got it working long enough for him to get some #'s out of it. But as soon as I opened it, I put it down in front of him and demanded to know what that congealed off-white stuff was before I'd touch it again. Eventually he told me.

Fabulous

I just joined Emusic and I thought one of the big draws was that their entire catalog was 192 VBR. I haven't downloaded that much yet, but nothing I've found is below that.

I know of at least 2 things, Albert Ayler - Spiritual Unity & Faust - Tapes, that were only 128 kbps. I know I saw several others.

edit: Actually that Faust album is VBR. That and some of the other VBR things I got do fall well below 192, but I don't know if that matters.

These things are all absolutely 100% true. I am no longer responsible for any of my actions, please refer all other inquiries to Uncle Brian, my massive attorney.

Hey, you could be your own massive attorney if you play your cards right. Giant Matlock realized.

Man who represent self, have fool for client.

Exactly.

I, too, tried my darndest to find something by a competitor that would be a) cheaper, b) similar in 60Gs of storage, and c) easy to use with an easy to use interface......... I spent 2 months researching this and ended up ordering the new 60G 5th generation iPod.
Liked the Samsung, but it just was not cheaper and it's interface was not as easy to use, as iTunes.
Go figure.

My black iPod should be arriving any day now.

audiobill

iRiver and Cowon both offer superior products for (generally) lower prices.

I will admit that my "horrible" comments applied more to the iTunes service than the iPod itself. With that said, hard drive-based iPods appear to have many more battery and hard drive problems than the competition. This is based on my own observations (this board, other boards, and friends who own iPods), along with newspaper and online articles. The flash-based iPods seem to be a step in the right direction, although storage capacity is still a big problem with those.

Having done extensive research on both legal and questionable download sites, it truly does appear as if iTunes offers the lowest bitrates and some of the highest prices. The only stores I saw with higher prices offered lossless file formats. Based on my own listening experiences, iTunes files sound like an AM radio station with a strong signal - tolerable for talk radio, but awful for music of any kind. I know there's at least one other major retailer with 128 kbs files (is it Napster?), but most now offer 160 kbs and above.

I guess I just don't understand why people would pay $9.99 for a DRMed album when they can buy the album in a store, copy it, and sell it on eBay. Assuming there's at least some demand for the title in question, you'll probably make at least $5 (sometimes much more), bringing your end total cost to around $8 (unless you bought it at Sam Goody). You save money and get a lossless copy.

The 128 kbps iTunes files aren't mp3s. They're AAC, supposedly better compression, which is why they are able to use a lower bit rate. I can generally hear the compression in anything below 192 kbps, and I think most people can, which is why that is the standard for mp3.

I'm not saying the iTunes store is great or anything. All your points about the files being DRMed and overpriced I certainly can't argue with. I just don't hear the "AM radio quality".

I knew they were AAC files (I guess I should have mentioned that), but it doesn't make up for the fact that their files are (to my ears) the worst sounding of the major retailers. I've heard the "better compression" argument before, but the lower bitrate (128 vs. 160+ for other stores) does a good job of eliminating any benefits the AAC format may offer.

Hey, Mike.

Superior how? Please elaborate.

Longer life (based on articles and my own observations) and cooler looks.

uh

That last bit is a matter of opinion, obviously.

but just that last bit

? I'm not sure what that last comment is supposed to mean.

That's the only part that's "a matter of opinion".

Everything else you've mentioned is "fact".

No argument here. 8)