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i pod OR pea pod for the pea brain
The ipod has become an almost necessity. With endless master classes, repertoire collection and rehearsals, the ipod comes in handy to the musical pro. I record live piano accompaniments, upload the ipod to my iMAC and create sound files with ease.
Here's what doesn't work.
1) APPLE does not manufacture microphones for their i-POD.
2) You have to by peripherals made and designed by other companies.So I bought a GRIFFIN i-talk which is not so good either. I have to connect yet another microphone into the top of the i-talk to get rid of static and clicking.
3) The GENIUS bar in the APPLE store runs away with an allergy when stuff doesn't work and then parrots the beloved phrase.."APPLE doesn't support other products"
4) APPLE doesn't support other products but doesn't mind selling them in their stores to make the APPLE product more practical and functional.
5) The APPLE battery racket is shameful. SONY and OLYMPUS etc. mp3 players can have a battery replacement in a flash.
6) APPLE forces you to send in the iPOD for a battery, and wait for it's return by mail
7) WORSE than that, APPLE has the slimy gaul to offer you 10% off your dead iPOD on a new one in the store so you don't have to wait for a battery.
8) APPLE gets away with a lot of stuff because it's name recognition is remarkably placed but it's heart isn't in the right place.....SOOOO
9) I am soon to change computers and mp3 players and not deal with the SAFARI browser either which is a total drag.

Don't get hard drive
The hard drive i-pod I purchased for almost $400 died in 17 months. The drive as well as the battery. I was told to go with a Flash 'drive'. I was so disgusted with the Apple merchandizing mentality, I researched and now own an i-River Clix and I love it. Check it out before becoming chained to i-pod and i-music.

Still Going
I bought this IPOD three years ago in August of 2004. It's been with me from Hawaii to the mainland and even to Korea. I mostly use it in my car through my auxilary jack. Although now outdated, it's proved tough as nails. It's been accidentally dropped on solid asphalt from four feet and still works. I haven't had to replace the battery or anything. It's pretty banged up, but keep chugging along. It even outlived my wife's IPOD Mini!

Great to use, but not made to last
The iPod's pretty decent when it's working correctly. It play mp3s fine and by my ear the sound is as good as any other portable device. The included software, iTunes, however, leaves a lot to be desired. My major complaint is that you can't take your music off your iPod with iTunes. The remainder of the problems I have with it are largely that the program tries to do a bit too much automatically, which can be irritating.

The big weakness, and the reason not to buy it, is because the iPod itself is rather poorly designed. Despite being hard drive based, there is little protection for the hard drive in the event the iPod is dropped. The protection consists of a small, blue, rubber enclosure internal to the iPod. While this provides some protection, it does not afford nearly enough for a portable device that will, eventually, be dropped on accident. This typically results in physical damage to the hard drive from even a small drop, meaning you either have to replace the hard drive itself, now a $60, or buy a new iPod if you're not mechanically inclined. Another big weakness is the headphone jack and its connection to the iPod's motherboard. The connection between the headphone jack and the motherboard itself consists only of a small jack which is secured to the motherboard with only a few solder joints. The connector on the motherboard often will develop failures of these solder joints, leaving you with again a non-functional iPod unless you can manage to resolder the joints. The actual headphone jack itself also wears out quickly. Over time, the small metal pieces that are within the jack that provide the electrical connection to the headphones and also hold the mini-plug in the jack wear out and loosen. This only took a couple years for me, meaning the entire headphone jack had to be replaced, which is not a cheap repair since the jack itself is proprietary.

The biggest weakness, however, is the (as-designed) unreplaceable lithium ion battery. Like any battery, lifetime decays with continued use, and with a device intended for daily use that will see frequent charging, the battery only lasts a year or two before the length of time the battery will run the iPod diminishes significantly. This would have been no problem, had Apple designed the iPod to have a user-replacable battery. However, they did not. So, you can either run the risk of a do-it-yourself battery change, send it back to apple to have the battery replaced (a costly repair at $99), or deal with the significantly diminished time. Either way, it's an annoyance that could have been avoided had Apple designed the iPod intelligently, but, unfortunately they did not.

The case and screen are also extremely susceptible to scratching, which, while it may not affect function of the device, detract significantly from the iPod's appearance and harms resale value of the iPod should you ever decide you want to rid yourself of the poorly designed contraption. Again, the only solution here is to buy a third party sleeve to protect the screen and case - something that could have been avoided by proper design.

The iPod itself is nice, while it works. The bottom line is, other manufacturers provide hard drive based mp3 players that provide every feature that the iPod provides, but with a lot less of the problems from poor design. The iPod is little more than an expensive mp3 player designed in a manner you would expect a throw-away device to be designed. You'd be better off buying another product from a manufacturer that's designed to last, unlike the iPod.

Versatile Hard Drive
I've had a 3G for about 3 years. The battery life is poor, 4-5 hours (at this point), much worse in the cold weather (don't leave it in your car, or you should buy a car recharger).

But it is very versatile. I back up GB's of pictures on the Ipod using Windows "SyncToy" (free). I back up my Palm Desktop using another sync program. I still have GB's of memory for medical lectures and "Teaching Company" lectures.

One weakness of the design is that the touch wheels are very "touchy", a glancing movement of your finger can increase the volume or change the program you are listening to accidently.

The click wheel failed the other day. Forget about repairing one of these yourself. I wish Ipods just had a simple, analog on/off button and volume/tuning knob. They wouldn't be as stylish, but they would last longer. Without the click wheel, it is unusable and I sent it off for service.

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