True. I've not yet seen anything from Apple that could be considered practical.

This is the rants thread so I do need to rant a bit about the iPod for a moment.

All the clueless youth of today are buying into the iPod like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread and the "must have" device of the moment. These people are just dicks in my view. Buying something to look like they are in with everyone else. Pointless and completely pretentious!

People are also raving about the iPod and comparing it to the Sony Walkman, and how it changed the way we listened to music in the 80's.

Except... Sony designed something that revolutionised and did change the way we listen to music. Sony invented the universal control icon system now used worldwide. And Sony invented the portable tape player.

In contrast Apple didn't invent the mp3 format or the first portable mp3 player! They just jumped on the idea and repackaged it. Just as they have for everything they have ever produced. The Mac OS was stolen from Xerox and repackaged, then Apple had the audacity to start suing any other OS maker who tried to use a WIMP like system. And as the Mac progressed, it's unique hardware designs slowly evolved to use more and more PC hardware, until today we now just have a PC running Mac OSX and locked into the hard to expand or upgrade nature of the Apple product design.

And the iPod has huge flaws. Fixed rechargeable battery, so when the battery goes wrong in an iPod you have to junk it or pay a lot for it to be sent back for a new one. And another big flaw is called iTunes. Why should people have to access a device through a proprietary piece of software? Every other manufacturer of mp3 players is, or has, moved to plug and play, drag and drop file management. You connect the device and it appears as a drive, you drag the files to it and can then access and play them on the player. What is wrong with that way of working?

And has anyone actually tried to use iTunes??? It has to be one of the least intuitive pieces of software I've ever tried to use. Simple tasks like renaming a song or album are impossible to work out. Moving or changing song/album ID tags is a mystery, and maintaining a music library is made as difficult as possible. And this coming from Apple, a company that it's iFanatics rave about how usability and intuitiveness are key factors. All I have to say to that is CRAP!