Jupiter: iPod is the worst player on the market except...

Michael Gartenberg posts at the Jupiter Analyst Weblogs about some recent debate by other bloggers "about the merits of the iPod and iTunes." Gartenberg points to recent posts from Dave Winer, Paul Thurrott and Les Posen that discuss the iTunes experience, metadata and the loss of data. Gartenberg notes that despite all the talk, both positive and negative, from tech, early adopter types:

The market, clearly is voting with Apple though. I tend to agree (at the risk of sounding like an Apple apologist). I've used many different MP3 players, those that were on the market long before Apple and those that came on the scene post iPod. I've waited for Sony and others to challenge Cupertino and I've seen some good efforts extending functionality into video but when it comes to music as a primary feature, I have to paraphrase Winston Churchill. The iPod is the worst player on the market except all those other players I have tried over the years. I'd love to see someone create a better music player than the iPod. I'd also like a better OS than Windows or OS X and a better search engine than Google.

There's no doubt though, this debate is not going away. At CES, Apple will once again likely be the focus of many companies as the industry tries to wrestle control from Apple. Then Steve Jobs will once again have the stage all to himself the week after at Macworld, with a few surprises of his own I'm sure. It's going to be a fun two weeks.

Knock on wood, but I've never had a problem using iTunes or losing data. My 10 year-old son can navigate it pretty easily so it has to be user friendly to some extent. Then again, my teenager niece has had issues several times so I guess it's just YMMV (your mileage may vary).....