I came to the decision to buy one after doing my homework as I took what was important to me into consideration, contrary to your first post, 'ooh shiny' was at the bottom of the list but interface, practicality, sound, and hard drive player were at the top. I don't regret it even my battery did crap out.
Oh yeah we all know MP3 and AAC are gonna DIE just because Apple one day decides to pull a cruel prank on everyone and activate that self-destruct program that destroys all AAC, MP3, AIFF, and every Apple supported codec on every internet enabled computer which thereby results in causing your original source CDs to spontaneously combust into flames thereby burning down your house, and of course OGG and FLAC are immune to the program that targets all music files just because they're OGG and FLAC. Talk about the tinfoil hat. Apple may want to make money (as they should, especially when they have employees to pay, bills, and deals to make with other companies), but I really doubt that they and all other companies exist purely to cruelly screw everyone over.
Why should they introduce FLAC? Maybe they don't want to, maybe they think their codec is better, maybe Lossless is designed with their hardware in mind for optimal playback, or perhaps it's too much trouble for them, who cares, if I developed a jukebox program I have no obligation to take the time to support FLAC or OGG especially when the average consumer doesn't know what the fuck they are.
Sane criticism my ass, why aren't you bitching about other companies not supporting standard AAC on their portable players?
Oh I know because you're just another anti-corporation nut who thinks anybody who is trying to compete in the already unfair market place is out to steal your wallet.
If you're so bitter about not being able to play OGG files on your iPod then sell it and buy a player that does and quick before Jobs approaches you with a gun and forces you to buy more Apple products!
I use AIFF for songs that I had to convert from a format that won't play on the iPod (such as windows media) to reduce the amount of quality damage done from recompressing into an MP3 or AAC file.
I wish people like you would stfu with the damn OGG and FLAC, if you want the formats so badly then don't by an iPod dumbass, the codecs apple offers really aren't so god horrible that you can really complain that they don't support OGG and FLAC.
Except some people actually like cut-scenes. You can't really create the same effect in Metal Gear Solid without having them, the game is meant to have a cinematic feel to it. You can't have a cinematic feel to it if the camera angles are all optimized for game-play and all the music is loop music. If you don't like it than don't play it, the game designers are targeting the people who do like it, and obviously a lot of people do like it.
Some people need to learn to count (the right side). Those are only the games that Apple has listed, there are still many others.
Macs don't have nearly as many games available for them as PCs and usually doesn't get them released at the same time (some companies are starting to develop simultaneously), but they sure as hell have more than '6' games.
Also I think the idea of Apple developing something like that might encourage game developers to start developing for their hardware/OS more seriously.
The modern japanese 'alphabet' includes roman characters. Officially there are three character sets: hiragana, katakana, kanji. sound based characters for official japanese words, sound based characters for foreign words, chinese characters respectively. However if you go to any Japanese site you're likely to see roman characters somewhere, often used for modern terminology, titles of some things, and many times company or organizational names, ex. FTC.
That's because all the other benefits they get outweigh having to put their computer in a box that both gets delivered to them and sent from their doorstep for no charge and in most cases only having about 48 hours to go without their computer.
Also, the iBook is the only computer that has had the logic board problem.
A company is entitled to mistakes as long as they try to make up for it with reasonable compensation.
I know of problems that have afflicted IBM and Sony laptops, changing brands doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to run into problems. At least none of Apple's recent major problems are safety issues. That's more than I can say for some other hardware companies out there.
What 'cracks me up' is how people can ask how you can stick with Apple when they have "all these problems" when their favorite brands have had twice the problems within the past 5 years than Apple has had since the company was first founded.
Want a company that is worth dropping after experiencing their products, try Compaq.
Psst...guess what...Often when talking to AppleCare tech support and you get into the topic of upgrading your ram...
They suggest buying 3rd party and installing it yourself since it's cheeper and completely user accessible, in fact they put instructions on how to do it on the inside of the computer case.
I sent my iBook in for the logic board issue a year ago, it had 3rd Party RAM installed, they sent it back to me in working condition. No bitching, no delays, just a working iBook after a friendly call to AppleCare.
The Powerbook and towers are both designed to allow you to upgrade your hard drive, the tower is *designed* so you can upgrade pretty much anything compatible with Mac OS X. They even advertise it, the lack of cables running in every direction is for both aesthetic purposes and ease of upgrade.
If you're being rejected for service because you have a 3rd party disk drive then complain or, even better, put the old hardware back in the G5.
Of course if Apple set it up so both were the default browser then users would bitch about having two programs start and open windows to the same site every time they click on a damn link.
What do you want them to do? Choose the slower, no longer updated browser as the default one? "Illusion of choice" What the hell kind of argument is that?
All we need now are people to suggest that OS developers include every single browser developed for the OS from the beginning so users have a 'choice' Despite the fact that that's a waste of time.
I'm not pro Microsoft or anything but people need to stfu and realize that NOTHING they do will make everyone happy, even if they announced they were closing up their business, demolished their HQ and donated all their money to charities people would be bitching about the fact that they no longer have support on their software products.
Doesn't use the right mouse button? I can right click in iTunes on both Mac OS and Windows XP and I get a context menu.
Unresponsive during iPod updates? I don't know about that, I know in OS X that isn't a problem, I don't use my windows machine to update my iPod, as it would as you say make me delete everything before putting something on it (that's to discourage people from downloading music from other people's collections onto their iPods since the RIAA would probably get on Apple's ass if they allowed it.
Want to make a new playlist, there's a + button on the lower left corner of the window, you don't need menus, you can also use a keyboard combination.
Hourglass? Well I've seen it but it's rare because the program can multitask. For example I've imported songs while playing another and browsing the music store at the same time. I've also updated my iPod while listening to my library while creating a playlist.
Oh btw, my windows Machine is a PII 400, 256 megs of ram running XP and several other tasks at the same time (home file server, bitorrent downloads, etc.) Makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with your computer to make iTunes so bad. I do know people (running windows, who have tried just about every other program out there) who now use iTunes exclusively.
It only works if you haven't already downloaded that song before (meaning you purchased it and didn't download it). Go ahead and try it, it'll say all the music for that account has been downloaded. I even tried it on my other machine to see if it mean't that all the music that you own is already in your library but nope, still the same message.
I personally like iTunes. It's a great media jukebox even for those who don't purchase from the store. I don't buy music off the internet because I don't listen to the music offered in the store, for a copy that can actually be copied to any computer but only simultaneously used on three, which can be played off the computer I bought them on in the first place (why would I need to transfer them to a linux box, just to be cool?, which will play on my very well designed iPod or on any CD player using the iTunes built in CD writing features, and I did want to use $400 on a product that hold all my MP3s, acts as a backup hard drive for all my major files, and even has enough space left over to edit home movies off of.
That said, I have to agree wholeheartedly with your comment about the head unit. I think it would be safer to have the info on the head unit, as a portable player (like an MP3-CD Player) can shift around and you don't know exactly where to look at it for 2 seconds as you make sure of what the current song is titled, etc. Fortunately the iPod is becoming more and more popular and gaining all kinds of new 3rd party features. Plus, I like the UI. The same with all Apple UIs. The things Apple makes that I like without a single caveat is their large widescreen LCD displays, powerbooks, towers, iPod, Airport with airtunes, even their consumer level products like iMac and iBook are very nice with the kind of pre-packaged software included (*coughwhenlogicboardisn'tfriedcough*) They are still the most beautiful pieces of technology I've ever seen.
I'm not poor, though I'm not rich. I just think it's a waste of money to repeatedly buy crappy players made by companies like Sony. I only paid $2000 for my current laptop because it's fast enough for what I do with it (music, coding, graphic editing, writing, IM, net browsing, email, divx fansub watching, reading slashdot, sometimes a game, often i have multiple things going on at once). Plus I found that, including the modem and network interfaces (broadband is good), it is compatible with Linux. Oh, and it has one big easy to hit no matter where your hand is on the track pad button is vital to how I use a computer. It allows me to just thumb down the moment I'm over my target and if I need that context menu then I just control click and use my arrow keys to scroll through anyway. I usually have another hand on the keyboard anyway so ctrl click is no big deal. And guess what when I'm home I can plug in a 5 or even a 50 button mouse for all my multi-button mouse needs. You can have your x86 products, but they're too much of a hassle in compatibility and efficiency for someone who wants to get different kinds of stuff done like me. I'll have my Windows box around for when I feel like fighting a virus or something but that's all, it'll never be my primary machine for work. If the iPod was more "reasonably" (in quotes because it's reasonable to me) priced, It would probably be that Sony player that was recently announced.
Sony makes a lot of things that cost more than they're worth. Just pick up a sony brand pair of portable headphones and another brand around the same price (maybe Koss), see which one has the better specs.
The only Sony products I own now are my PS2 and it's accessories.
I hope for your sake that the laptop you want to use as an oversized MP3 player doesn't overheat and catch on fire.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure on Macs it's controlled by the OS, at least while the OS is running (it may turn control over to OS X once it's booted). I closed the lid once when the OS froze and it didn't put itself to sleep. I should try opening the Open Firmware prompt and closing the lid to see if it goes to sleep.
Those four things alone still cannot make a guided missile. Even then, are you suggesting that Palms and GPSes be banned due to their potential to be used in guided missile? Ridiculous, why not ban electricity and the wires that carry it because they can be used to shock people and light stuff on fire? Or water because it can be used with a high powered hose to kill people.
While the OS that runs game is on every disc that you buy, there still have been several updates for the PS2's built in abilities since it's first release. Examples: Upgraded DVD player software which improves performance and usually fixes problems playing specific discs. Also when you buy the HDD for PS2 you get an upgrade with it that lets you configure keyboard and mouse settings without a disc. Also the new upgrades allow you to use the HDD as the system lets you.
Another addition you'll find with the HDD/FFXI package is that you can get the MAC address of your network adapter through the configuration menus. There may be some other things I forgot but software updates on modern consoles not only already exist but they also have a purpose. Also "the hardware NEVER changes" as I already mentioned the HDD and Network Adapter for the PS2, also if Sony decided to suddenly make a 16 meg memory card that would require a firmware upgrade.
Of course to get these upgrades you have to buy whatever they come with (DVD Player Remote or the $99 HDD/Final Fantasy XI package).
Problem is that if a company owns up to a failure they better have someone to point a finger to unless they want to take the blame. If it is in fact the battery itself, then they could point to Sanyo but then they'd also lose whatever business deal they had with them where as it'd probably be easier to give Sanyo a chance to correct their part of the product, without doing anything to screw up whatever discount they have and simply hope it fades out rather than being stuck with another, "Apple sucks because"
I'm not sure what they're doing about it but I'm sure they're trying to handle it in a way that's best for business rather than what might necessarily be right. The average consumer doesn't realize that the iPod battery is not manufactured by Apple itself, so Apple takes all the fire for this and I doubt Sanyo is going to come out and say, "Sorry we screwed up." Apple pointing the finger to Sanyo would only cause whatever discount they get on buying the batteries from them to go down the drain.
Anyway, I guess I don't have whatever fault you had in your iPod, the only time I feel any heat on my iPod is after I've transfered a large amount of data to or from it (hard drive motor heat).
As I said though, the way hardware is produced today makes it difficult to never have a faulty batch or model, however it would be nice if responsible companies would own up to what they screwed up on.
Maybe, but everyone I know who has an iPod has never had any problems with the battery (about 5 people) and most of them have had theirs longer than I have. Maybe it is Sanyo brand, however by three hours do you mean of inactvity after taking it off the charger or 3 hours of continuous use? Either way is bad but the continuous use isn't nearly as horrible as you make it sound.
I have yet to find out what my iPod's battery life actually is.
Faulty batteries or owner abusing batteries? Batteries don't last long if you let them run till their death after every charge, only charge partially, etc... It's really simple, I haven't noticed a drop in my iPod battery performance, I use my iPod all the time but when I'm at home or in the car it's connected to a charger.
The only reason you hear every little problem about Apple is because their iPods are so popular and they don't have as large a variation in product line models (They have 2 models of laptop, 2 models of tower, and 2 models of all in one machines, and recently 2 models of portable media devices). I can't tell you how many other portable audio players I've had that had shitter quality that you never hear anything about, even if they're made by companies like Sony. I don't hear as many people bitching about the problem with Sony's PS2 failing to read games after a certain amount of time or the early versions failing to work properly after installing the HDD. (You did hear about some catching on fire though). I also remember certain non-apple laptops having problems with screens being destroyed by the joy-stick mouse they put in the keyboard.
There is no company today that can truly claim that everything they build will be flawless, it's something you have to accept knowing that these things are manufactured in mass quantities, some flaws don't show up till you have a few hundred thousand on the market.
So really it's pretty idiotic to act like Apple is being a fuckoff in quality control while ignoring the fact that it happens with all companies with mass produced consumer products.
Hell I've run iTunes on a 400 Mhz P2 and the performance isn't nearly as bad as some people say. Sure visualizations arn't super smooth like on macs or higher end PCs, scrolling through the list is a little jerky, and the launching time is longer than normal, but those are the only things I've noticed and they don't bother me, I've seen much worse performance in media players (such as MusicMatch).
I thought I read somewhere that the OS X Core, Darwin is actually based off of the mach kernal from NeXT with FreeBSD as an extension to it. I read this from a Cocoa programming book in the part discussing the structure of OS X. However I might be wrong.
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I came to the decision to buy one after doing my homework as I took what was important to me into consideration, contrary to your first post, 'ooh shiny' was at the bottom of the list but interface, practicality, sound, and hard drive player were at the top. I don't regret it even my battery did crap out.
Oh yeah we all know MP3 and AAC are gonna DIE just because Apple one day decides to pull a cruel prank on everyone and activate that self-destruct program that destroys all AAC, MP3, AIFF, and every Apple supported codec on every internet enabled computer which thereby results in causing your original source CDs to spontaneously combust into flames thereby burning down your house, and of course OGG and FLAC are immune to the program that targets all music files just because they're OGG and FLAC. Talk about the tinfoil hat. Apple may want to make money (as they should, especially when they have employees to pay, bills, and deals to make with other companies), but I really doubt that they and all other companies exist purely to cruelly screw everyone over.
Why should they introduce FLAC? Maybe they don't want to, maybe they think their codec is better, maybe Lossless is designed with their hardware in mind for optimal playback, or perhaps it's too much trouble for them, who cares, if I developed a jukebox program I have no obligation to take the time to support FLAC or OGG especially when the average consumer doesn't know what the fuck they are.
Sane criticism my ass, why aren't you bitching about other companies not supporting standard AAC on their portable players?
Oh I know because you're just another anti-corporation nut who thinks anybody who is trying to compete in the already unfair market place is out to steal your wallet.
If you're so bitter about not being able to play OGG files on your iPod then sell it and buy a player that does and quick before Jobs approaches you with a gun and forces you to buy more Apple products!
I use AIFF for songs that I had to convert from a format that won't play on the iPod (such as windows media) to reduce the amount of quality damage done from recompressing into an MP3 or AAC file.
I wish people like you would stfu with the damn OGG and FLAC, if you want the formats so badly then don't by an iPod dumbass, the codecs apple offers really aren't so god horrible that you can really complain that they don't support OGG and FLAC.
Except some people actually like cut-scenes. You can't really create the same effect in Metal Gear Solid without having them, the game is meant to have a cinematic feel to it. You can't have a cinematic feel to it if the camera angles are all optimized for game-play and all the music is loop music. If you don't like it than don't play it, the game designers are targeting the people who do like it, and obviously a lot of people do like it.
Some people need to learn to count (the right side). Those are only the games that Apple has listed, there are still many others.
Macs don't have nearly as many games available for them as PCs and usually doesn't get them released at the same time (some companies are starting to develop simultaneously), but they sure as hell have more than '6' games.
Also I think the idea of Apple developing something like that might encourage game developers to start developing for their hardware/OS more seriously.
The modern japanese 'alphabet' includes roman characters. Officially there are three character sets: hiragana, katakana, kanji. sound based characters for official japanese words, sound based characters for foreign words, chinese characters respectively. However if you go to any Japanese site you're likely to see roman characters somewhere, often used for modern terminology, titles of some things, and many times company or organizational names, ex. FTC.
That's because all the other benefits they get outweigh having to put their computer in a box that both gets delivered to them and sent from their doorstep for no charge and in most cases only having about 48 hours to go without their computer.
Also, the iBook is the only computer that has had the logic board problem.
A company is entitled to mistakes as long as they try to make up for it with reasonable compensation.
I know of problems that have afflicted IBM and Sony laptops, changing brands doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to run into problems. At least none of Apple's recent major problems are safety issues. That's more than I can say for some other hardware companies out there.
What 'cracks me up' is how people can ask how you can stick with Apple when they have "all these problems" when their favorite brands have had twice the problems within the past 5 years than Apple has had since the company was first founded.
Want a company that is worth dropping after experiencing their products, try Compaq.
Psst...guess what...Often when talking to AppleCare tech support and you get into the topic of upgrading your ram...
They suggest buying 3rd party and installing it yourself since it's cheeper and completely user accessible, in fact they put instructions on how to do it on the inside of the computer case.
I sent my iBook in for the logic board issue a year ago, it had 3rd Party RAM installed, they sent it back to me in working condition. No bitching, no delays, just a working iBook after a friendly call to AppleCare.
The Powerbook and towers are both designed to allow you to upgrade your hard drive, the tower is *designed* so you can upgrade pretty much anything compatible with Mac OS X. They even advertise it, the lack of cables running in every direction is for both aesthetic purposes and ease of upgrade.
If you're being rejected for service because you have a 3rd party disk drive then complain or, even better, put the old hardware back in the G5.
Of course if Apple set it up so both were the default browser then users would bitch about having two programs start and open windows to the same site every time they click on a damn link.
What do you want them to do? Choose the slower, no longer updated browser as the default one? "Illusion of choice" What the hell kind of argument is that?
All we need now are people to suggest that OS developers include every single browser developed for the OS from the beginning so users have a 'choice' Despite the fact that that's a waste of time.
I'm not pro Microsoft or anything but people need to stfu and realize that NOTHING they do will make everyone happy, even if they announced they were closing up their business, demolished their HQ and donated all their money to charities people would be bitching about the fact that they no longer have support on their software products.
Doesn't use the right mouse button? I can right click in iTunes on both Mac OS and Windows XP and I get a context menu.
Unresponsive during iPod updates? I don't know about that, I know in OS X that isn't a problem, I don't use my windows machine to update my iPod, as it would as you say make me delete everything before putting something on it (that's to discourage people from downloading music from other people's collections onto their iPods since the RIAA would probably get on Apple's ass if they allowed it.
Want to make a new playlist, there's a + button on the lower left corner of the window, you don't need menus, you can also use a keyboard combination.
Hourglass? Well I've seen it but it's rare because the program can multitask. For example I've imported songs while playing another and browsing the music store at the same time. I've also updated my iPod while listening to my library while creating a playlist.
Oh btw, my windows Machine is a PII 400, 256 megs of ram running XP and several other tasks at the same time (home file server, bitorrent downloads, etc.) Makes me wonder what the hell is wrong with your computer to make iTunes so bad. I do know people (running windows, who have tried just about every other program out there) who now use iTunes exclusively.
It's Advanced > Check for Purchased Music
and
It only works if you haven't already downloaded that song before (meaning you purchased it and didn't download it). Go ahead and try it, it'll say all the music for that account has been downloaded. I even tried it on my other machine to see if it mean't that all the music that you own is already in your library but nope, still the same message.
Better back up your own files.
I personally like iTunes. It's a great media jukebox even for those who don't purchase from the store. I don't buy music off the internet because I don't listen to the music offered in the store, for a copy that can actually be copied to any computer but only simultaneously used on three, which can be played off the computer I bought them on in the first place (why would I need to transfer them to a linux box, just to be cool?, which will play on my very well designed iPod or on any CD player using the iTunes built in CD writing features, and I did want to use $400 on a product that hold all my MP3s, acts as a backup hard drive for all my major files, and even has enough space left over to edit home movies off of.
That said, I have to agree wholeheartedly with your comment about the head unit. I think it would be safer to have the info on the head unit, as a portable player (like an MP3-CD Player) can shift around and you don't know exactly where to look at it for 2 seconds as you make sure of what the current song is titled, etc. Fortunately the iPod is becoming more and more popular and gaining all kinds of new 3rd party features. Plus, I like the UI. The same with all Apple UIs. The things Apple makes that I like without a single caveat is their large widescreen LCD displays, powerbooks, towers, iPod, Airport with airtunes, even their consumer level products like iMac and iBook are very nice with the kind of pre-packaged software included (*coughwhenlogicboardisn'tfriedcough*) They are still the most beautiful pieces of technology I've ever seen.
I'm not poor, though I'm not rich. I just think it's a waste of money to repeatedly buy crappy players made by companies like Sony. I only paid $2000 for my current laptop because it's fast enough for what I do with it (music, coding, graphic editing, writing, IM, net browsing, email, divx fansub watching, reading slashdot, sometimes a game, often i have multiple things going on at once). Plus I found that, including the modem and network interfaces (broadband is good), it is compatible with Linux. Oh, and it has one big easy to hit no matter where your hand is on the track pad button is vital to how I use a computer. It allows me to just thumb down the moment I'm over my target and if I need that context menu then I just control click and use my arrow keys to scroll through anyway. I usually have another hand on the keyboard anyway so ctrl click is no big deal. And guess what when I'm home I can plug in a 5 or even a 50 button mouse for all my multi-button mouse needs. You can have your x86 products, but they're too much of a hassle in compatibility and efficiency for someone who wants to get different kinds of stuff done like me. I'll have my Windows box around for when I feel like fighting a virus or something but that's all, it'll never be my primary machine for work. If the iPod was more "reasonably" (in quotes because it's reasonable to me) priced, It would probably be that Sony player that was recently announced.
I know someone who has gone 140 in a 35 mph zone, not everyone obeys speed limits you know...Some car fanatics will even triple it.
I can't stop laughing after reading this!
Sony makes a lot of things that cost more than they're worth. Just pick up a sony brand pair of portable headphones and another brand around the same price (maybe Koss), see which one has the better specs.
The only Sony products I own now are my PS2 and it's accessories.
I hope for your sake that the laptop you want to use as an oversized MP3 player doesn't overheat and catch on fire.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure on Macs it's controlled by the OS, at least while the OS is running (it may turn control over to OS X once it's booted). I closed the lid once when the OS froze and it didn't put itself to sleep. I should try opening the Open Firmware prompt and closing the lid to see if it goes to sleep.
Those four things alone still cannot make a guided missile. Even then, are you suggesting that Palms and GPSes be banned due to their potential to be used in guided missile? Ridiculous, why not ban electricity and the wires that carry it because they can be used to shock people and light stuff on fire? Or water because it can be used with a high powered hose to kill people.
While the OS that runs game is on every disc that you buy, there still have been several updates for the PS2's built in abilities since it's first release. Examples: Upgraded DVD player software which improves performance and usually fixes problems playing specific discs. Also when you buy the HDD for PS2 you get an upgrade with it that lets you configure keyboard and mouse settings without a disc. Also the new upgrades allow you to use the HDD as the system lets you.
Another addition you'll find with the HDD/FFXI package is that you can get the MAC address of your network adapter through the configuration menus. There may be some other things I forgot but software updates on modern consoles not only already exist but they also have a purpose. Also "the hardware NEVER changes" as I already mentioned the HDD and Network Adapter for the PS2, also if Sony decided to suddenly make a 16 meg memory card that would require a firmware upgrade.
Of course to get these upgrades you have to buy whatever they come with (DVD Player Remote or the $99 HDD/Final Fantasy XI package).
Problem is that if a company owns up to a failure they better have someone to point a finger to unless they want to take the blame. If it is in fact the battery itself, then they could point to Sanyo but then they'd also lose whatever business deal they had with them where as it'd probably be easier to give Sanyo a chance to correct their part of the product, without doing anything to screw up whatever discount they have and simply hope it fades out rather than being stuck with another, "Apple sucks because"
I'm not sure what they're doing about it but I'm sure they're trying to handle it in a way that's best for business rather than what might necessarily be right. The average consumer doesn't realize that the iPod battery is not manufactured by Apple itself, so Apple takes all the fire for this and I doubt Sanyo is going to come out and say, "Sorry we screwed up." Apple pointing the finger to Sanyo would only cause whatever discount they get on buying the batteries from them to go down the drain.
Anyway, I guess I don't have whatever fault you had in your iPod, the only time I feel any heat on my iPod is after I've transfered a large amount of data to or from it (hard drive motor heat).
As I said though, the way hardware is produced today makes it difficult to never have a faulty batch or model, however it would be nice if responsible companies would own up to what they screwed up on.
Maybe, but everyone I know who has an iPod has never had any problems with the battery (about 5 people) and most of them have had theirs longer than I have. Maybe it is Sanyo brand, however by three hours do you mean of inactvity after taking it off the charger or 3 hours of continuous use? Either way is bad but the continuous use isn't nearly as horrible as you make it sound.
I have yet to find out what my iPod's battery life actually is.
Faulty batteries or owner abusing batteries? Batteries don't last long if you let them run till their death after every charge, only charge partially, etc... It's really simple, I haven't noticed a drop in my iPod battery performance, I use my iPod all the time but when I'm at home or in the car it's connected to a charger.
The only reason you hear every little problem about Apple is because their iPods are so popular and they don't have as large a variation in product line models (They have 2 models of laptop, 2 models of tower, and 2 models of all in one machines, and recently 2 models of portable media devices). I can't tell you how many other portable audio players I've had that had shitter quality that you never hear anything about, even if they're made by companies like Sony. I don't hear as many people bitching about the problem with Sony's PS2 failing to read games after a certain amount of time or the early versions failing to work properly after installing the HDD. (You did hear about some catching on fire though). I also remember certain non-apple laptops having problems with screens being destroyed by the joy-stick mouse they put in the keyboard.
There is no company today that can truly claim that everything they build will be flawless, it's something you have to accept knowing that these things are manufactured in mass quantities, some flaws don't show up till you have a few hundred thousand on the market.
So really it's pretty idiotic to act like Apple is being a fuckoff in quality control while ignoring the fact that it happens with all companies with mass produced consumer products.
It's related to Apple, therefore they have to try finding something bad to say about it.
AC is right! All those damn windows machines overloading the power grid.
Hell I've run iTunes on a 400 Mhz P2 and the performance isn't nearly as bad as some people say. Sure visualizations arn't super smooth like on macs or higher end PCs, scrolling through the list is a little jerky, and the launching time is longer than normal, but those are the only things I've noticed and they don't bother me, I've seen much worse performance in media players (such as MusicMatch).
I thought I read somewhere that the OS X Core, Darwin is actually based off of the mach kernal from NeXT with FreeBSD as an extension to it. I read this from a Cocoa programming book in the part discussing the structure of OS X. However I might be wrong.