I had an iPod 3G which was great, and it lasted pretty well, especially considering that I left it in my car in ranges from 0F - 110F. Yep, I abused it :) The HD (and battery) died after 4 years of heavy use.

Now I have a 5G video, which is a fine replacement. The screen is better, it's thinner (which isn't necessarily good), and it has a lot more space to store music.

There was something about the 3G's form, fit, and function that in their limitations were perfect. I don't like how the 5G's buttons physically click.

Do I have ipod envy? Nah. It's an appliance that will eventually wear out from use.
The ipods get smaller, which isn't necessarily good, and they get larger capacities, which isn't necessarily good either.**

These incremental changes are fun to follow, and if I were a teen or in my young 20s I'd be following them with baited breath. But now that I'm MWC, and the essence of the device has been perfected, the changes just don't matter.

** If Apple offered playback of non-apple-lossless, and had huge hard drives to accommodate ~500 MB album, that would be great academically, but I still can't tell the difference between 192Kbps and higher encodings unless I'm in the most controlled of listening environments. So this point is sort of a fantasy wish list.

Rob, I'm holding off on the Touch until it gets hacked -- I need the memopad and I need the iCal to be editable so'z to make this a suitable replacement for my aging Clie PDA.

I'd also love bluetooth on it so it'll work with an external keyboard, but that's probably for the inevitable next gen Touch.

OR, I'll keep holding out hope for a 7-10" (with keyboard!) minilappie.. my dearly anticipated eMate replacement.

If you want to upgrade your iPod, sell your old used or broken one for cash on www.buymybrokenipod.com

I currently own a 5G video ipod. the main reason that i would be interested in getting the touch is for the wifi access in a small package. I'm not too keen on smart phones and the inevitable phone and data plans that come with them. Basically, I just want to be able to check my email and do simple web stuff when I am occasionally away from home without having to lug around the laptop (I use Gmail, so the lack of an email program is fine). So in some sense, I would use it as an ultra small laptop, since the only thing I really do with my laptop on a regular basis is websurf and email. The fact that it carries my music collection as well would just be an added bonus.

All that said, I don't plan on getting the touch anytime soon. i have only had my video ipod for a year (i know, a lifetime in the tech industry). plus, the capacity of the touch is a little on the small side for me. perhaps in a few years when my current ipod breaks/wears out the touch will be worth a shot.

I love the touch. I thought that the I phone was a nice idea, but my cell service is not compatable. I don't wat to change just for the Iphone. Then along comes the touch. Has everthing I wanted from the iphone and a little more. All without another monthly phone bill! I was a little cautious at first about jumping on one. I wish that someone had hacked it first. But, history has taught us, it will be hacked very soon. Probably right after the first mass realease in October.

And how did the buyer go into the Apple Store and walk out with a touch?

I own a 2G iPod (yes, my friends marvel that I can still manage to carry its "excessive weight" and "absurdly large size"), and like Gman, I have abused it from day 1 by leaving it in my car in the wide range of temps the Midwest produces. Despite this, it has carried on happily for more years than I can figure.

Fortunately, when I bought it, I selected the 10GB model, though at the time, my iMac (G3 or G4, can't remember which) only had a 9.5 GB hard drive. I never could imagine outgrowing the iPod.

Fast forward a few years -- I have. But none of the new models have tempted me yet, though the iTouch comes close. What I *really* want doesn't exist -- yet -- and I'm hoping my 'Pod, which is showing ever more signs of its age, can hold on until it does.

What do I want? An iPhone with at least 16 GB capacity (though more would be better) and ability to run on the 3G network. Oh, and a reasonable price, of course. ESPECIALLY in light of the $599 debacle.

My husband inherited my refurbed open-item 40GB iPod (the generation with the red glowy touch buttons along the top). He's been delighted with it until he got his new PC without a Firewire connection.

We haven't decided if the problem lies with Vista, the lack of Firewire, or both... but my poor little iPod has been retired and replaced.

So far he LOVES the iPod Classic he got, while I'm just annoyed that none of the old accessories - that came WITH the old one I might add - work with the new.

My 60 gig video is working just fine and won't be replaced until breaks, which i hope is never.

I've had a 5G 30GB for about 2 years and had no interest in upgrading since it works great for me. However, I watch a lot of video on the train to and from school so I thought maybe the bigger screen of the Touch would be better. But after playing with it in the Apple store for a long time, my enthusiasm disappeared. I have 17GB of music so I'd have to constantly swap songs out to fit videos and the extras it offered weren't all that appealing for $400.

I actually ended up with an 80GB iPod Classic instead since my girlfriend suddenly offered to buy my old one. The Classic has a nicer screen than the 5G, a better interface, more than double the storage and excellent battery life for a reasonable price. I could have easily lived with my 5G for another couple of years without complaining, but I'm pretty sure I would have become annoyed with the Touch pretty fast because of its shortcomings for a lot more money.

I've managed to hold out against *ever* having an iPod of any description. For the last year or so I've been very happy with an iRiver Clix, which has FM radio, radio recording and support for a whole lot more file formats than iPods. The new ones look even sweeter but I can wait a while longer to upgrade till my current one gets lost or broken. I think the former is more likely as I've dropped it many times without any hint of damage.

If Apple stopped suppressing WMA in firmware then I might rethink, but I'm not going through lengthy lossy conversions every time I want to synch.

This is in regard to the macbook and eyesight. you can selected a magnified screen and that works very well. sometimes you have to resize it to see a fixed screen on a particular site, but it's easy and fast.
i'm 66 and nearsighted but the new screens have very high resolution and are much easier to see than the old ibook g4, which i also have.

The iPod Classis is still the way to go imo. The huge disk capacity that lets me take my entire music and movie collection with me is what I really enjoy about the large capacity iPods. Add a $15 AV cable and I can connect my iPod to any TV and watch my shows - its perfect.

Wi-Fi like in the touch is nice, but Apple is not hitting on all counts with a lot of its new products. OS X and the iPod (Classic now) are pretty much the only truly great Apple offerings - everything else seems to fall short in some critical way that keeps me from buying.

I had an original 1G 5GB iPod that finally died a few months ago.

I had already replaced it with a 5G 60GB iPod video, which is what I use now. My wife had been using the 1G, but when it died we got a Nano to replace it. Space-wise, the 30GB would have been enough (I don't do much video), but the 60GB had longer battery life, so.

I'm thinking of an iPhone. I have a cheap phone I got for free with contract renewal about 4 years ago, and I have a very cheap monthly fee that AT&T doesn't even offer anymore, so it'd be quite a step up, but I don't know if I really want to do that yet. The iPhone couldn't replace my iPod until they get a lot more memory in there, but it'd be great for other reasons.

How right you are - Bush (not related)!..When will Apple see sense and produce that '7-10" (with keyboard!) minilappie'.

My 5.5 gen is 1yr old this month and it's only 30gb. I'm really tempted to trek to the local apple store to get a 6th gen 80gb which would hold my entire itunes library, and then some. I played with the ipod touch last week at the apple store. Although impressed, I really don't see the need to go 'touch' at this point. I like controlling my current ipod from my pocket, within it's protective sleeve, etc to the point that I'm better suited for the ipod classic. I would only get the ipod touch for the wifi (safari) capabilities.

I have the 30gig video Ipod for about the last two years. It's great. I'm no where near filling it, right under 8gigs of music. I'm not much of a video guy, the screen is too small and my battery could use replacing (lasts only about 7-10hrs of music play). Despite all this, I'm not really compelled to upgrade. I carry it with me everywhere. It's hooked up to my car (don't listen to radio anymore), at work, on the subway, etc. I think I'll wait until it dies or breaks (like my 4G photo Ipod) to upgrade.

The last iPod I had bought was the first generation of the Mini -- no color, no cool graphics, just ... blah. I have been waiting several years for "something like" the Touch. As soon as the iPhone came out, I knew it was only a matter of time before a non-phone version would follow.

I don't need another cellphone -- I have two at home (don't ask), one work cell, plus an EVDO card for my laptop. I'm happy with Verizon too, so another phone or network would have been superfluous. (And I don't need yet another camera or cameraphone either.)

My Touch arrived in the mail last week (about two weeks before they had said it would!), and I can't put it down. Cover Flow is AMAZING. And as most people have pointed out, using Safari with WiFi is unreal -- in a lot of respects, it's even more fun to surf the Web that way than with a full-fledged PC.

Rob, you mentioned zooming in and out on pages by pinching two fingers together or apart. But what is at least as useful (and cool) is that you can double tap on a column from a multi-column Web page or on a photo and it will zoom to the perfect width for easy viewing. Images and text are incredibly crisp. Casual flicks of the finger make scrolling through a page a breeze, and fun. Then you can double-tap again to see the whole page, or switch between portrait and landscape depending on the page or image.

This is the first handheld device of any kind that I have actually used for photos. Cover Flow makes it fun to view them, zoom in and out, or pan around, and the images are crystal-clear.

The Touch is a great music player, but for me, the device is so useful that music is almost an afterthought. (I won't even mention how great videos look on it, and how ingeniously YouTube has been integrated.)

So far I don't find the lack of a physical volume control an issue. I rarely futz with the volume once I find the level I want anyway.

Many of Rob's other complaints might (hopefully) someday be fixed with firmware updates. But I do think the current lack of games is a serious oversight. I've lately become addicted to Solitaire and FreeCell yet again on PC, and I can't imagine a better device than the Touch for dragging and dropping virtual playing cards.

Puhleeeeeze...

I've got you all beat, still using my first-generation 10GB iPod, that's right, from 2001! Runs great. Battery is weaker but can still hold a charge for a couple of hours. Still a great back-up disc as well.

After my first-gen iPod died shortly before the first nano, I decided on getting the nano and purhcased one the day they were released. It was a great decision then, and that hasn't changed just because newer versions have been released. It was well worth the money and has lasted me until now.

I had actually ordered a Touch to replace my 2G (20 GB) iPod. I cancelled the order because out of the blue (and contrary to the introductory Keynote) iCal on the Touch became 'read-only'. I do not count on hacking because that makes Apple software-upgrades hazardous. So I'll just have to wait for Apple to correct this design-flaw with a software update or an iPod touch 2G with 'full iCal".
It's a pity...

I'm waiting for the capacity to go up to at least 30GB. I currently have a 5G video with 30GB and have about 22GB of music and video on it. I could get the Touch and trim back the program listing to only those that I listen to regularly but sometimes it's nice to put it into random mode and catch one of those long lost songs I forgot I had.

I've owned a 40 GB, 4 Gen iPod. It's gotten cranky, and I've had to send it out for repair. Never-the-less, I love it.

I've got Science Friday and other NPR stuff on it. I have my music collection on it and lots of books.

I can't see any point to watching a movie on a 3X5 screen.

I walk with it, drive with it and have even used it to put me to sleep.

I've left the hi-tech rat race on this utility long ago.