zune has a $15 monthly subscription that you can get that lets you download as much as you want.

I also have a Sony walkman which doesn't require any proprietary software to use. So I am using that from now on.

lol, that is why I bought a mp3 player that just plays mp3s/wma. So, I have barely spent a dime on my music collection recently (granted I barely bought anything new). I just load up my mp3 player with all the songs I have on my computer already from ripping cds. I agree with you screw Apple and iTunes.

You know iPod's and iTunes can play all those formats too, right?

I 100% agree their DRM music is a giant pain in the ass and I can't wait for them to finally get rid of it, but iTunes and iPods aren't as bad as people say they are.  Yes, they have their problems but so does every piece of software and every piece of electronic equipment.

You simply hear more about iPods freezing and iTunes being retarded for the same reason you hear more about PC's breaking-- more people use them.

-edit-

And don't get me wrong, I despise Macs, one button mice, and most everything else Mac's (I do think my iPhone is one of the most amazing devices ever created though), just saying you hear about all these iPod problems because almost every MP3 player out there is an iPod.

ugh hate Apple

at school they force us to use iMacs and ugh I cant stand it, I hate everything abotu it, from the stupid 1 button mouse to the damn tabless web browser

@twestern, ah yea I kind of forget that you can upload iPods with mp3s/wma. Why do so many people buy DRM songs from iTunes then? I guess they didn't have luxury of ripping their own / friends cds to their computers to load on the player.

It's easy to buy from iTunes and you don't have to buy the entire CD.

The DRM music is a pain, but:

• It's easily stripped off either through the many programs that exist or simply burning it to a CD and then burning it back to MP3
• It's cheaper than buying the CD.  While a new CD can cost anywhere from, what, $14-20, an album on iTunes cost $7-10.
• I don't have to buy an entire album if I don't want to.  There are very many times when I don't want an entire album, I just want a song or two.  This saves me a few dollars since I don't have to bother with the other 10+ songs I don't want.
• iTunes lets you complete an album for a reduced price.  If I bought a few songs from an album and then later decide to buy that album, they deduct what you've already spent on that album from the album price.

Yeah, iTunes is a memory hog and the DRM sucks (which, again, is going away soon), but it's not as bad as people make it out to be.

Just download Floola and copy your music back off of your ipod.

It sucks that they try to make you use their own shitty software to transfer your music, but there are alternatives, like the afformentioned Floola.

I am not a fan of companies, only products. I don't buy a company, I buy a device.

That being said, the devices I am most impressed with, both for value and quality, are my Apple products.

In our home, we have 2 Mac laptops (a 17" Mac Book Pro, and a White Mac Book), two 3G iPhones, and iPod Nano, and a 5th Gen iPod.

All the devices have always worked flawlessly. The products, for what they are, are very cost effective. My MBP is coming up on 3 years old. The only other laptop at the time that could come close to it's performance, was a Dell, and it cost $600 more. The only time I have messed with the OS is to upgrade Tiger to Leopard. I am a device geek, and have had no desire to upgrade my laptop. It runs as well today as it did the day I bought it. When Snow Leopard comes out, it will run even better. WHen do you ever see an OS go through two versions, only to preform better on three year old hardware.

It's akin to Windows 7 running better on older hardware then XP.

The iPhone has been an incredible device as well. Just the other day, I was looking for a Camera that will geoTag my pictures. The best solution I came across, was a $120 thing that you put the memory card into, and it add the geo locations to the images.

I got to thinking... my phone has GPS, I wounder if there is an app on the app store to do this. 3 minutes and 4 dollars later, I had it. WIth 30,000 apps all in one place, it's like nothing else on the market right now.

I have 5 pages of apps on my phone. Everything from weather with animated radar and video, to geotaging, to barcode readers, to twitter, Shazam, Pandora, music, movies, photos, sports information, file sharing app, a dozen games... the list goes on. It's an amazing appliance.

I also have 5 PC's, and for what I want them for, they are the best solution.