iPod Before I take a hammer to this I-Mac....

..I thought I'd have one last go at trying to simply get a Nano to talk to it. After wasting an hour or so trying with the pathetic instruction set, it turns out that because I have 10.4.7 my Nano won't work. Of course I had to find that out for my self by searching on forums like this.
OK so I try to update the software but I get an error message saying I can't connect to the update server (internet connection is just fine). I try my local Apple store who say that the only way to get the update is to connect to the server. That's in the chocolate teapot category of help I feel. Or I could buy a whole new OS for more than the cost of the Nano. Yeah right.
I google "download 10.4.8" and get some links to the Apple site but the click throughs from Apple's own site don't work. This is now way past amateur hour.

Does anyone have anything that might help.

I know this is heresy but if I connected my nano to PC it would work a treat, but it's my son's nano and his I-mac so that's not an option and i have my own I-tunes on there any way.

I thought these things were supposed to by easy to use?

Thanks for your suggestions. I just downloaded the combo update and after about 6 hours (I connect through GPRS) it finished downloading, I clicked 'open' and it produced an error message saying file does not exist or it has changed name since download.

I cannot tell you how unbelievably frustrating I find this whole process.

Please help!

I don't have a choice of how to download at home, something that Apple seem unable to comprehend. My son is away for a few days so I thought I'd surprise him by getting the thing to work for when he got back, it was already a disappointment that his birthday present has been useless from the moment he unwrapped it, because I haven't had hours to spare to try to get it working. I thought it might be something I could do whilst getting on with a few other things around the house, not burn a whole day getting nowhere.

I have asked a colleague to download the update and burn it to disc and I'll try it when I get home.

But why should I have to go through all this pain simply to get £120 worth of Nano to talk to a high end piece of kit like an I-Mac that probably cost about five times as much as a cheap PC that could do this without even blinking?

Every part of this experience in terms of hardware, software and support has been user-unfriendly, frustrating and time consuming. Thank you for the constructive comments here which have been in contrast to the useless product and service experience from Apple itself.

I have a 3g connection but this can drop to low dial-up rates for any number of reasons beyond my control. But that isn't actually the problem it just makes the existing problem more tiresome to solve.

The Genius might have recognised the problem but the only solution they offer is to try to sell me a whole new OS for not far off the cost of the Nano! Some solution.......

Lug a big computer around just so I can connect an I-pod? I was hoping for something a little more convenient....what about all that "works straight out of the box" stuff?

Like I say the internet connection isn't the issue, it's just making the problem harder to solve. The problem would have been a whole lot easier if...

a) An error message of some sort was displayed when the nano failed to show-up as a source
b) I could connect to the software update server
c) There was a quick download taking me from 10.4.7 to 10.4.8 rather than a 312mb file size and which didn't require me to download third party software to make it easier/more convenient
d) If I can't connect to the server then at least give me troubleshooting options not just a "quit" button
e) having downloaded the software update it didn't fail to recognise it

These are the problems, none of which are to do with the speed of my connection aside from e) being longer a process than it might otherwise be.

Thanks for the constructive comments. It's an Intel I-Mac

on B) it simply won't connect at all to the update server, running diagnostics simply tells me my internet connection is OK and that's as far as diagnostics goes....

Hopefully the download from my colleague will do the trick

Thanks but that download requires a more recent OS than I have at present. I'm on 10.4.7.

They don't make easy do they!

I think this is what I need,
http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/macosx1048updateintel.html

but without the nano in front of me I'd swear the leaflet that comes with it says it needs 10.4.8 but the link above seems to suggest 10.4.9