Having used computers for nearly 20 years, I guess I have a different take on this subject but I'm shocked that I haven't seen a string of replys pointing out the obvious problem here.
The ipod uses a hard drive. Hard drives aren't meant to be bumped around, shaken, jolted, etc. Not when they're turned off and certainly not when they're being used.
Surely there are some old-timers here who remember portable cassette players. Remember how much more you paid for players that could play consistantly while you ran? Why did you pay so much? Because the regular players couldn't keep a steady speed on the tape mechanism when the unit was getting tossed around.
Hard drives also have spinning parts that must spin at a constant speed to work properly. Not only does the media spin but the part of the machine that reads the data from the spinning media (think of it as the head of the tape player) also moves back and forth very fast and in very tiny increments and it's controlled by mangetic force, not a mechanical system. Shake it around and the platter speed of the hard drives goes out of spec and the heads get knocked out of place. Hit it hard enough and the heads can actually touch the platters.
In effect, carring a hard drive is quite similar to carrying a record player. I know it's not really that delicate but that's what a hard drive looks like if you open it up. When you're running, you alter the speed of the platters and knock the heads all over the place. The fact that the units aren't totally destroyed shows that they're pretty robust but this just isn't a design that can work properly in that environment.
If you want a music player that can handle the bumps and jolts of running, you can't have moving parts. Period. There's no getting around that. You can strap it to part of your body that doesn't move as much (arm, waist, etc.) but the bumps and jolts will eventually cause the device to fail prematurely. If you want a player that can play hours of music and last for years, get one that takes a CompactFlash card and get one of the 1 gig or 2 gig cards (NOT a MicroDrive!!!). There are quite a few players out there now that take SD/MMC cards but those cards are more expensive and aren't available in the gig+ sizes.
