Apple just can't do anything right. "No FireWire", "The screen isn't as good as the iPod Touch".... I don't give a rat's a** about FireWire unless I'm using it to boot a PPC Mac or transfer data from a video camera. USB 2 has worked great for me for general storage and data transfer and, my iPhone's screen is awesome despite being lower pixel density as the Touch.

I prefer firewire but some folks need to face the fact that it's strictly a niche interface at this point; it's used for transferring video data or for booting your Mac. For general consumer use, USB2 is far, far more ubiquitous and about as fast as Firewire. What's the big deal?

That being said, I'm glad I kept my AC power supply from my now-dead 4th gen iPod. It uses a Firewire cable to attach the iPod to the AC unit. Very useful!

(I also wish iTunes would allow me to use the Firewire cable, if I wish, to attach my iPod to the computer. As things are now, it only sees it as an external drive and doesn't allow me to do any iTunes-iPod functions when connected with the FW cable)

Who cares about Firewire? Now you have 16gb of data - and still no search. Why do I have to jailbreak the phone to get search?

FireWire is the superior interface for storage devices. USB2 is good for mice and keyboards. Too bad Apple dropped it to "play nice" with the Pee Sea drones of the world.

As for 3G, there are 2 things I've read about on the horizon... 1.) there are smaller, lower power 3G chipsets in the pipeline somewhere. 2.) there are compact low power 4G chipsets soon to be released.

My feeling, as a long time Mac user/Apple follower, is that Apple will wait a bit long, skip 3G altogether and break NEW ground (Apple NEVER does THAT) by shipping iPhone 2.0 with 4G and 32GB.

You never know...

"Still" no FireWire? Apple removed FireWire from iPods ages ago, in no small part because it alienated PC users. You might not have an iPod to complain about if Apple hadn't compromised for the mainstream market.

No, Apple removed Firewire because it wanted to save the extra 50 cents it cost to put it in there. My 5G iPod has firewire and USB.

Well, I noticed that the 8 GB, 16 GB and 32GB models are all $100 apart. Interesting how spending an extra $100 only gets you an extra 8GB, but another $100 gets you 16 GB more. Methinks Apple is getting screwed on component pricing.

The inability to store files on the iPod Touch and iPhone are deal breakers for me. The iPod Classic has always allowed one to do that. It is highly useful for carrying files around.

Actually, many of us were waiting for more capacity because the iPhone is supposed to take the place of a phone AND iPod. IPods are meant to hold all of your music, and until they come out with an iPhone that does, I'd find it hard to justify the purchase of one, despite the cool internet access and such. My library is sitting right around 20GBs in the music category, not even thinking about 100s of GBs of movies (from DVD collection). I personally would like to have space for growth in my music collection and a few videos in terms of a player's capacity.

Until that option is out there, I'll be content with my 3rd Gen iPod like I was with my 2nd Gen until it ran out of room.

I'm pretty sure that was just a move to bridge people over.

testudo... 5G ipods can not sync with Firewire, but they can be charged with firewire.

No, Apple removed Firewire because it wanted to save the extra 50 cents it cost to put it in there. My 5G iPod has firewire and USB.

Maybe they were annoyed by the draconian licensing terms for firewire,

oh wait a second they would have had to license it off of Apple. Way to promote your own technology Apple.

BTW 50 c * 50 million iPods = $25 million per year saving - somebody probably got themselves some nice stock options for that stroke of genius...

Amazing how, on an iTouch an extra 16GB costs $100 and yet (if you're dumb enough) to add 3GB or RAM to a MacBook direct from Apple (to bring it up to 4GB) it'll cost an extra $850!!!! A full 4GB from Macsales or Crucial doesn't cost more than $200. I still can't believe it, I thought it was a misprint plus RAM from Apple only carries the same one year parts & labour warranty as the laptop whereas pretty much all OEM memory sellers now provide a lifetime warranty!

feathers, while I'm not chucking rocks at your overall point, you are comparing flash storage against RAM. Of course, many folks make the same misconnection with hard drives...saying, "my computer has 160 GB of 'memory'."

...having said that, the press releases themselves use the phrase "memory," adding to the popular confusion between "memory" and "storage."

This is what happens when you purposefully loose money on products like the XBox 360 just to keep the vapor position of "dominant player," even though they still rank third in sales, no matter how you put it.

Did any of us notice that the 118 million is for the entire previous year, not just the quarters Apple was selling in. Perhaps the numbers for those quarters are low enough to push Apple up to the 28%, and MacNN with its sorry excuse for editors, didn't make this clear.

Don't have time to check the originating site, so I'll let someone else check this out.

testudo... 5G ipods can not sync with Firewire, but they can be charged with firewire.

Then I guess I have a 4G iPod. I would know for sure, but Apple has this absurd policy of not naming any of their devices with actual names or numbers (they don't even use 5G, that's just what everyone calls them so we can differentiate them).

It's as stupid as trying to figure out whether my PowerMac G5 is a "late 2004" model, an "april 2005" model, or a "late 2005" model.

The inability to store files on the iPod Touch and iPhone are deal breakers for me. The iPod Classic has always allowed one to do that. It is highly useful for carrying files around.

c***, thanks for reminding me! I was thinking of a touch, but not being able to store files on it sucks (my iPod saved me when the drive on my G5 bit the big one).

My feeling, as a long time Mac user/Apple follower, is that Apple will wait a bit long, skip 3G altogether and break NEW ground (Apple NEVER does THAT) by shipping iPhone 2.0 with 4G and 32GB.

Yeah, that sounds like something Apple would do. Offer up a feature that people will have to wait a couple of years to even use, by which time they'll want you to upgrade to a newer device.

[The inability to store files on the iPod Touch and iPhone]

That dog was fed some time ago. Solution here:

http://www.ecamm.com/mac/iphonedrive/

jerryfrit, I do know the difference between types of "memory" and storage methodologies. Thankfully though, your point actually adds further fuel to the fire given that flash ram is significantly more expensive than dynamic ram. I wonder are the guys in the Applestore back-room wearing balaclavas as they take the orders, most thieves prefer to conceal their identity!

That's a solution for a problem that shouldn't exist at all...

So I wait for MacWorld to make sure I don't spend $400 on a phone that will be upgraded in a short time and that's exactly what happens. Why didn't they upgrade the phones at MW??

3G will only happen if they can get it the chipsets to draw less current than the current ones. With the current 3G chipsets, the iPhone battery life will decrease by at 40-50%.