Are you of the belief that your iTunes store music purchases or CD ripped content is somehow locked away inside iTunes and impossoble ot access any other way? If so, then I understand you anger, however it is born of ignorance. If not, then this is merely a baseless straw-man argument filled with intentional intellectual dishonesty…

And it must do all of that while keeping track of which models of iPod/iPhone support which features. All of this must be tested with each release as well. Why is it incumbent upon Apple to open up their software to other companies *for free*? Shouldn’t those companies be expected to invest in their own software design? Write their own music/podcast/audiobook organization and syncing apps?

I really don’t undertand this something for nothing mentality people seem to have with no-cost software, it’s as if getting it for free isn’t good enough.

Also, apple has all the right in the world to kick palm out of their app. iTunes syncing is a reason to buy the pre, and a reason to buy the pre is a reason not to buy an iphone. In a perfect world with flowers, unicorns and other cute stuff they might be able to share but no company is going to allow competitors to use their own software without a licenseing deal. Consumers like yourself have to start realize Apple doesnt make products to please the world, their number one responsibility is to their shareholders.

With netbook portability, not everyone uses a sit-down method of getting places. Walking might be a weird concept to some people but the size of a netbook makes a hell of a lot of difference when you walk around all day instead of sitting in a car. That and the battery life is to me more improtant than the price.

Out of curiosity, do you mean that your writing schedule is unstructured, or that you’ve not created a structured plan for the plot and characters? I’d recommend being structured in both areas!

Syncing of a music library like this is a simple copy operation. This is not something than can be abused. Just let us work the way we need to work, and don’t block the ability to do so. That’s all I’m asking.

As for iTunes, do you really think it’s a good idea for Apple to let Palm dictate what hardware iTunes should support? Untested features inevitably fail in succeeding versions. This is why software goes through so much quality assurance before it’s released. (Even then, bugs still escape.) In order to guarantee that Palm Pre syncing continued to work from version to version, Apple would have had to have continually tested iTunes against it (the way I’m sure they do with iPods and iPhones). Why is it worth it for Apple to spend the time and money to support a competing product that iTunes isn’t even designed to work with?

I know, your argument is that Apple could have simply looked the other way. Since it happened to work, it could simply keep working rather than shutting it down. My point is that no feature in software simply keeps working in the face of revisions. If Apple hadn’t instituted more accurate checks for their own hardware, unpredictable behavior syncing against a Pre was inevitable as iTunes continued to be developed.

Here’s my story: I use Rhapsody’s ToGo service, where for $15/month I can download all I want. I was using the service with my HTC Fuze. Now that I’ve been assimilated (grin) to iPhone, I didn’t want to give that up. So, I found a program called SoundTaxi that allows me to un-DRM my Rhapsody music to put it on my iPhone. This way, I was able to take all my already downloaded music to my iPhone and will be able to continue to do so. Keep in mind that I don’t like piracy (I think it’s unfair to those that create the music) so I’ll keep paying for my Rhapsody account. If I ever get to the point that I don’t want to use the Rhapsody service any longer (doubtful!), I’ll delete these files because they won’t be “mine” any longer. SoundTaxi has a trial version where it will convert 30 seconds or so of a file so you can try it out to see if your iTunes purchases can come over without having to pony up more money for Apple’s un-DRM’ed files.

Genuinely useful CPU’s:
AMD Athon X2 @ 1.6GHz
Intel C2D ULV @ 1.2GHz
Potentially the Via Nano at 1.6GHz

Genuinely useful GPU’s:
AMD 780G
nVidia Ion
Potentially the Intel GS4500

Genuinely useful resolution:
1366×768
1280×800

Genuinely useful netbooks will arrive when someone produces someone uses an 11.6″ screen along with Congo or Ion in a chassis with a flush-fitting six cell battery.

nb i own a Lenovo S10e

The OS was not really a factor in this decision, most of my work is in the cloud. The Mac does make it easier to do audio or video content creation, though, so perhaps that was in the back of my mind.