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No shit. My Vista Ultimate system uses nearly 1GB RAM at startup, and I don't have many services running or apps installed, since nothing I have works on Vista yet..

At work we decided that having a couple of developers running Vista from day one would the best way to ensure our compatibility. Sounded like a great idea till I drew that particular short straw...

- You have to stop everything on Mac OS (Linux, BSD, whatever) to get into Windows and vice versa.

True.

- Data exchange between systems is horrible (common FAT32/ext2 partition? yikes!)

Not necessarily. Windows can read/write HFS+ with some third party software.

Stop complaining about being *required* to use iTunes; Apple can't make it mass-storage compatible, because of the record labels*. (pure conjecture) There are lots of apps that will make your iPod show up in dev/mnt, My Computer etc.

See http://www.google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q =ipod+transfer&sourceid=opera&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

Some of the more popular ones include:
www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod (Anapod Explorer) [Windows]
EphPod for Windows and Linux --open source
http://www.ephpod.com/
*and* the original iPod utility for Windows:
Xplay (http://www.macdrive.com/products/xplay/) [recommended by CNET and others]; I have a special place in my heart for these people.

I already dual-boot multiple OSes on my PC and on my Mac, I'd love the flexibility of adding MacOSX to the list on the PC, and MS-Windows to the Mac, without messing w/ emulation environments. Of course, the partition table issue will have to be addressed. Thankfully, PCs can read and write Mac filesystems w/ 3rd-party software, and Macs can read and write FAT. Anyone know if they can read NTFS and FAT32?

Speaking of emulation environments, giving PearPC a whirl is on my to-do list. Anyone have any experience w/ this w/ either OS X or classic MacOS?

The hardware problem w/ the Macs isn't so much the price-performance issue anymore, but the lack of low-end hardware. Cheapest new Mac Apple has is USD$799, and low-end new Intel/Athlon boxes WITH MS-Windows preinstalled start at well under USD$300.

As far as drivers, it'll be not much worse than Windows NT was in the early days. You'll have a lot of things not working at all, but many devices that currently work w/ Mac should work just fine on Intel. For most that don't, it should be just a matter of a little software tweaking by the manufacturer. As far as Apps, I'd hope that Apple would be smart enough to 1) make it relatively painless for software vendors to recompile and work out the inevitable kinks, and 2) include a basic PPC emulation mode for existing apps, similar to the old 68000 emulation mode.

With all due respect, the iPod takes the cake as far as MP3 players go. It's small, lightweight, got a huge capacity, looks cool (yeah, stupid reason), and now, it's reasonably priced.

I've owned Rios of all flavors, Nomad I and Nomad II. My biggest complaint with any MP3 player that uses Smartmedia, CompactFlash, or any other type of flash card memory is that it's just NOT ENOUGH storage. The most I've had was 128megs in my Nomad II (and a couple years ago, 128megs cost a lot more than it does now). 128megs is just enough to hold your average cd at 192k/sec. Yes, yes, you can downsample. But at 128k/sec you maybe able to squeeze in two albums.

Whereas with the iPod, with the 5gig minimum, you have plenty of room to breathe. I don't have to worry about downsampling my collection just to fit an album or two on a Rio or Nomad.

All in all, I just don't think flash card based MP3 players are worthwhile. Personally, I found it easier to use my Sony Discman (and that's why I eventually sold my Nomad II; my last flash card based player).

I bought a 10gig a few months after it was released and when the new 20s were announced, I sold my 10 and ordered the 20.

I have an Aiwa CD/MP3 deck in my car (the first generation) and ever since I bought my iPod, I've been using that in the car via the mini-in, instead of CDs with MP3s burned on them.

I've also been using the iPod as a portable HD. A great tool for backing mail files and transporting large movie files from the office to home.

Overall, I'm a big iPod fan and I recommend them to PC and Mac users alike.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's *nix tools to use the iPod in a *nix environment. There are a couple of sites on the web by people who want to use the iPod in Linux, but it doesn't look like they're going to get it working anytime soon.

I'm strictly a PC user (Windows 9x/NT/2K/XP, Linux, FreeBSD; more FreeBSD than Linux). I own a newer iBook and have become an OS X fan. But I use my iPod in Windows using Ephpod and MacDrive. I found that iTunes just wasn't for me, especially since Ephpod will import Winamp playlists.

Good luck in your quest for an MP3 player.

While it might not be a "milestone" of anything, it does all of those better than anything else I've seen. Plus, you can play breakout on it.

I believe users of a lesser platform can get a firewire card for arounf 30 bucks. Also, you can use the iPod with Windows. Doesn't look like their is a linux solution yet, but you're probably used to that :-)

Try using a fucking product, or at least read up of it before you decide to comment on it. It makes you look like less of an idiot/asshole.

windows can read hfs+ with the use of macdrive.

now someone run along and get macdrive and an ipod, and see if the two play nice with each other.