>>I feel like an army of one here ;-)
>>
>>Since I started this thread, I will say I do not like proprietary software (including Windows). I do like Apple hardware and I especially like the new models of the iMac and iPod. As soon as I can get an order in for a red iPod Nano it will be on its way. Sexy, sexy, sexy. That's the bottom line right there. You can find cheaper imitators but there is only one iPod, and now it's better and cheaper than ever. There is a reason it has 80+% market share in a field with many players. Even the after-market is thriving. The other day I was in Target and found half an aisle of devices that hold iPods and play them through speakers. (The coolest one I have seen is sold at Brookstone, something called a BoomBucket).
>>
>>The other part of today's announcement was that the price of iPhones will drop from $599 to $399. Apple has sold close to a million of them already but analysts say they have picked the low hanging fruit -- what an apt metaphor, for once -- and are running into the cutthroat realities of the cell phone business. Apple stock dropped about 5% following the announcements. Personally that doesn't concern me given that it's up 70% for the year.
>>
>>I love Apple and Apple products. So shoot me ;-) They just Do Things Right. Their products will be taught in college design classes if they aren't already.
>
>The thing is that I like to be able to simply copy mp3s to the device and listen. None of this being forced to mess with iTunes and all. I especially like the idea of devices that take sd or xd cards so you can expand the memory to whatever you might need.
>
>Since it spends most of its life hidden in my shirt pocket or a backpack, the colour and other costly pizazz designs really don't interest me.
>
>I'm looking for a good portable device that plays ogg files. I know they're out there, but I haven't spotted a good one yet.

Get yourself a windows mobile pocket pc.
A good example of one with cell phone is the new Mongul from Sprint (it's called the ppc 6800). There is a program for pocket pc called TCPMP - it plays pretty much every audio/video format there is...here's an imcomplete list:
- AVI (*.avi)
- Matroska (*.mkv, *.mka)
- MP4 (*.mp4, *.m4a)
- Ogg Media (*.ogg, *.ogm)
- ASF (*.asf) Supported audio codecs:
- Mpeg 1 Layer III
- Ogg Vorbis
- Musepack
- Windows Media Audio (on Windows Mobile devices)
- AC-3
- AMR
- Adpcm, uLaw Supported video codecs:
- DivX
- XviD
- MPEG4-SP (plus B-frame support)
- MPEG1
- M-JPEG
- Windows Media Video

>>>They're for people who like to be tied to proprietary software, I guess.
>>>
>>>>I don't see why people buy these things. I gotta PDA/cell phone that does 10 times a much AND it works as a cell phone too. Why waste $ on an iPod?
>>>>
>>>>>Introduced today ---
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/