When it tries to synchronize with another instance ...
Strengths:Mechanically it is hard to imagine something built more sturdily. Like most Apple products, this is the sort of thing that can be used in textbooks on how to design consumer hardware.
Weaknesses:It is designed for only one person to use it. If you load it with songs and someone else connects it to their computer, it wants to synchronize and will destroy the contents
Posted May 9, 2005 - When it tries to synchronize with another instance of iTunes you have two choices: (1) do not synchronize or (2) lose all the music currently stored on the iPod. Also, iTunes would not allow me to store other things I was able to play on the iMac in iTunes (MP3 files located elsewhere on my house network). I don't know that it is impossible to get the songs loaded, but it is certainly not obvious how to do so. I was able to load music from some CDs I had (both purchased and burned collections of songs I have).
Overall, the hardware is awesome looking, but I found the supporting software on the Mac and PC to be very disappointing. I have been a Mac (and PC) user since the Lisa came out and found the software weaknesses particularly irritating given what I have come to expect from the Macintosh platform. I suppose my problem is that I do not give much weight to what admittedly is some seriously cool packaging. I also found menu navigation a bit painful, although the basic controls (skip forward/backward, play/pause, etc.) were very simple and efficient, and as these are likely to be 90% of the access for a typical user, I think the time and energy on the user interface went into the right part.
To be fair, if you take this fresh out of the box and only use it for yourself, I would probably rate this at least 'satisfactory'.
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