That drag and drop junk is for people with plenty of time and plus with the size of todays ipods you do not have to be limited by what you bring. You want drag and drop make a new play list drag and drop in there and sync with your ipod done deal. It is not image they are selling it is quality.

That is not exactly correct. Say iPod 8GB (whatever version) is 199 then a year later is is 99 and they release iPod 16GB for 199. They have not really lowered the price, but adjusted the price for what the acceptable market value is. It looks great for Apple when they do this in a bunch or group, but it hurts them when companies periodically lower prices throughout the year for the gradual market value.

Apple does make some extra pennies with this method and can definitely show it off more, but it has come to hurt them now since people can track the lifespan of their devices and see that after X time it is a bad buy. I can tell you there are plenty of people who get near point X and will hold back from buying until the new device which hurts Apple and there overall sales.

All I know is man it has been 8 years they are still going strong. Every company makes new stuff every year or 2. You arguing this is like arguing about buying a computer and in 5 months there is a better one out for the same price. All companies do that it is just how tech. evolves.

So do I have, I have been using Apple products since the Apple II. I bought the original iPod, I almost bought a Macbook Pro 13" a few months ago, but Apple cannot control their quality still. The past few years have been horrible for them with overheating MBP, bad drives that turn 3.0Gbps SATA drives into 1.5Gps SATA drives. Apple's QC/QA has gone down hill, and might or will soon bite them in the *** if they do not work it out. They are doing great in selling more, but as they increase their sales more issues arrive that would not have been found when they were in the <5% market share.

Really, you have taken a new iPod touch apart, odd because I have photos of the current gen iPod touch with a camera in it. Here:

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....eal-rm-eng.jpg

Clear proof that the current iPod touch could have a camera and Apple clearly withheld it so as to release it a year later to get re-buyers.

So you are telling me that my 8GB iPod nano is big enough to hold my 16GB of music? Sorry, but drag/drop is easier no matter what way. Though people see an interface and think, oh simple = better. Plenty of time, clearly dragging my music and waiting a few minutes is slower than loading a bloated program (15 seconds to load on a very very good system) then waiting for iTunes to find the iPod, then selecting the music I want to sync, making sure it does not delete the other things I already have on it.

You can quickly, select what you want to delete, drag over new music all through My explorer on windows and be done in a few minutes. No extra time loading programs, no extra time waiting for iTunes to verify things.

LOL I love how people when they are losing a battle bring up the market shares. That dose not mean much to me and yes I have heard of a few problems from there HD's. But that just goes to show you allow your products to use parts form other companies and problems appear. Honestly we can argue about this until the end of time. I swear by apple and there great products. Never showed me a problem, almost every stereo or car has the ability to integrate the ipod to there stereo. You can not tell me those pie charts showing apple having control of over 70% of the market is not worth something and than over 90% of tehe music store. They mean a lot in my eye.

Except Apple is a step behind in how tech evolves, that is the problem. Up until 1.5 years ago there laptops were many times three months late when they first hit the market. The iPod line was starting to show its age while others were already in the solid state game or having touchscreens. Apple jumped into the game with a solid move (iPhone), but put it out of the reach for the average consumer. The iPod touch helped realize that a bit, but by the time the iPod touch hit the market people were expecting more. Many to most reviews I read about the first gen iPod touch was, it is a iPhone but lacking X/Y/Z features and needs A/B/C features others already have.

When you have a big library like me I like to be able to plug it in dock the new songs and play lists and go. Not go threw every song and be like I like that and than one. Na that is what play lists are for.

I quote market share as a point of reference and data, you have so far only showed me your opinion on what you think of Apple.
Actually, the USB was first integrated into car audio and then they had to add a separate connection because Apple created their own 30-pin connection. I agree that Apple has done great for themselves in getting the majority share, but if you take a step back and look how they did it and what they have done for the market as a whole it is pretty bad. Apple has shaped the portable music industry but at the same time hurt some major selling points for many people, music quality, feature list, user interface. All lost because Apple choose a certain route and now people view it as a standard when in fact it is just one companies view.

The reason the market was down was because the main CEO was out for some time. Getting a transplant. That is why they were low.

Thanks for picking out certain points and not looking at the entire picture of Apple/iPods/iTunes.
Playlists are great for people use them, but I do not. Nor do a lot of people, many people like to have their music as they want it, but iTunes really limits this ability.

Funny thing is I never said I took the ipod touch or iphone apart but the nanos I have. Do not twist my words.

Which for a company is the worst, I mean the worst excuse ever. So what happens when Steve Jobs retires in a few years? Is the company going to survive for five years and then die? Apple limped along with Steven Jobs gone, Bill Gates has been gone for almost a year now and Microsoft is doing even better this year (I sort of am on the fence that Gates should have left two years ago).

Not rely, if you are truly into music you know what you want and can sort by what you want there is no real limit on what you can do in itunes.

I know, I did a presentation for it in my MKTing class in college.

I bet you don't know why iPod's were originally white?
The designers wanted to relate it to the Space Odyssey 2000 movie, and the futuristic theme of that movie.