My initial thoughts
well... tried it in the Apple Store - very snappy. Sales associates running EVERYWHERE with those round diaper wipe containers - wiping down the backs of all the iPods - they had about 4 out for playing around with.
I picked one up & it had the firewire icon up - was mounted. You can't do anything while it's mounted... but control through the iTunes 2.0.1 interface. very snappy.
one thing i thought you would be able to do is create playlist folders on the iPod itself... seems like it does this when you bring em over (based on identifying data about the songs) - i am transfering mp3s right now - so maybe i'm wrong about this
bought it. took it home. the packaging is incredible! maybe less beautiful and bring the price down?
came with a decent charge on it already. plug it in 1st time and you can name it.
opened it up after it mounted on the desktop: comes with iTunes for 9 & OSX. And a pdf. Came with a CD too - don't even know whats on that yet... maybe utilitiy software in case whatever OS is running on it needs repaired.
this thing is SWEET! music PLUS i don't need to use multiple zip disks to bring stuff home to work on from work.
when you select a song, it takes about a sec or 2 to start playing it - only drawback i've noticed so far
also that middle button... i keep wanting to hit the menu button. maybe they could have switched those around (menu = middle button, select = top button)... or at least be able to configure them through a little menu.
KICK ASS APPLE. headphone things kinda suck - will replace them, but overall this thing is def. amazing. and while i balked at the price, i figured a 5G Firewire Drive in my pocket aint bad... no need for VST...