I don’t have usb2. my older g4 mac works fine still so i’m not about to upgrade it for a USB port.

The transfer speeds with USB1 are a joke.

I never had a problem getting my 5G Ipod charged and synced using usb 1.1 on PCs or Macs(Beige G3). Though usb 1.1 is SLOW for syncing, it charged my ipod just fine.

Apple was still selling USB 1.1 based Macs in Summer 2003, two years later they introduced the iPod video 5G and removed Firewire support. A two year old Mac still supported by AppleCare (with another year of covered support left!) doesn’t support the latest iPods and no upgrade path was offered from Apple.

This issue affected a lot of people, and I’m really surprised at how Apple handled the whole thing. Apple was one of the last vendors to ship all their computers with USB2, if not THE last.

Much love Firewire.

Yea, that charger was pretty handy. I guess its all about those little things that please the user and make them think of you again next time their looking to buy something. “Oh I remember, that iPod was pretty good. Apple might have that thing I need this time…”

The other thing I wish Apple would have kept up was the reliability and sturdiness of their 2G iPods. You could hit that 2G iPod with a hammer and it would still be playing away its music happily. You drop a 3G and over iPod more than 5 - 10 cm above your desk? Gone. And as for bugs and resets and what not? I have never had to restore my iPod’s software or even reset it with the button combo for the 5 or so years I’ve had the thing. But everyone I know who has a new iPod have some pretty big issues with this.

I think its probably just a combination of trying to push out more iPods to more users, which really means making the package cheaper and faster to produce and ship. That means less accessories and lesser quality production. Apple is also interested in revenue and market share, if it doesn’t cater for PC users it wont keep its place as No. 1.

I’ll note my experience directly. I bought a 60G iPod Photo on Feb. 13, 2005 for CA$769.99. Within a week Apple had dropped the price to CA$609.99. The primary difference was the removal of the accessories. The difference for me was CA$160.00, which I’d call a substantial price drop. I will note this was at a time when Apple was exagerating the exchange rate. The current top end is CA$399 vs US$349.

Referencing the Wikipedia article it looks like you’re accurate on the low end but not on the high. The low end has dropped from 399 (g1, 5GB) to 299 (g5,30GB), while the high end from 499 (g1,10GB) to 349 (g5,80GB). The price per gig on the top end has improved far more than on the low. (check out: How Much Cheaper Is the iPod Going to Get?)

That said I’d still rather not have Apple ship me anything other than the base device and let me decide what other bits I want. I have boxes of unused cables and bits that shipped with various bits of hardware I’ve bought over the years.

With regard to the iPod, every computer shipped in the last few years has USB 2.0, it’s perfectly reasonable to standardize on that. As for the case that shipped with it, I don’t know anybody who got one who used it. Same with the power adaptor, the majority of the users don’t use it. When the majority don’t use something it’s perfectly reasonable to make it an add-on.

Introduced in July 2004, the 4G 20GB iPod cost $299 and included the FireWire cable.
Updated in June 2005, the 20GB iPod didn’t include a FireWire cable and the price was … $299. Neither of those included an AC adapter, which was included with the 3G models, which you could get for … $299.

Substantial price drops, indeed!

In fact, I would go a step further and ask why this isn’t required of manufacturers. It’s a small thing that could eradicate a lot of confusion in the market.

As for the power adaptor, I have a 5G now and I rarely miss the adaptor. It has more than enough battery for a few days, at night it charges on my laptop and when I travel it’s typically in my car with my FM transmittor/charger.

So by taking those things out Apple gave me the chance to spend the money on the add-ons I could use rather than the ones they thought I could use.

Nor do I worry about the lack of charger. Got plenty of those from the past.

What I do miss, is the “Hold Menu to toggle Backlight” option of the older iPods. The Video iPod doesnt have this feature. WTF? If I wanna go back to the top menu, I would be more than happy happy to press Menu 3 or 5 times.

And BTW — one cheap way to get an iPod charger is to buy a powered USB hub. Some of them are darn small, come with a power supply, and will provide power even when not attached to a Mac. And to boot, they cost about a 3rd less than Apple’s charger.

Maybe I got one of yours

And while your ranting and raving about removed features, you should talk about all of the ADDED features, such as volume limit and multiple clocks.

I set my 3G iPod to always auto-sleep after 60 minutes, and having to turn it back on (and thus knowing every morning how much longer ’til my train arrived at Grand Central Station) was a small price to pay for the guarantee that I’d never be surprised by an empty battery.

Now I have to go into the clock settings each time to get the same effect.

But of course, not knowing why this was seemingly unnecessary change was enacted is even more frustrating than the change itself.

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