Forget Apple It's The Mario-Phone

Well, you can agree what you like. But the facts are not with you. While the best product is often not the number one product, where serious compeititors exist, the worst product never is.

i didn't claim it was the worst product or even that it was "s**t" as u put it, i said ipods (in my opinion) are unreliable!... & if they take the same approach to the phone, then i'm not interested....

The problem is that you're assuming *everyone* is on a contract that is expensive enough to include a new phone. I expect that there are at least as many people who cannot afford a contract are on a pay-as-you-go tariff, potentially the weight could tip in favour of the pay-as-you-go tariffs, although I don't have figures.

But reliability is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of record. If the iPod is unreliable, and other MP3 players are not, then the iPod is worse than them. If an MP3 player is unreliable it is, in my opinion, s**t.

I am not saying that you are lying, or that you are mistaken. I accept that you have found the iPod to be unreliable. But I think your experience is anomalous.

If everyone shared your experience, the iPod would not be the number one selling MP3 player.

Apple has a good (not faultless) record for reliability and customer service. They do f**k up, but they usually put things right.

Fair point. And my bad.

Though I guess there are plenty on contractors selling their phones on eBay after 12 months to keep non-contractors supplied.

if u look about on the internet reviews are mixed & in my experience talking to people that's pretty much the consensuses. I think most people just take it that there ipod freezes or the battery dies really quick or that the ipod has no idea how much charge it's holding, because in most peoples mind mp3 players are new technology & most people are still on there 1st players (which 9 times outta 10 will be an ipod) so in time maybe people will shop around & realize not all mp3 plays behave in this way.... or maybe ipods will get better, i only have an ipod mini, maybe apple have ironed out all the creases in the new nano's?

I think Minis were the most trouble prone iPod. I never had one, but I knew people who did, and they did have some problems. And Apple did discontinue them pretty damned quick.

Nanos, as far as I can tell, are pretty close to faultless.

As for iPod's locking - they do occassionally, but in my experience, a scroll-wheel reset solves thing. In the few occassions I have experienced where it doesn't, a restore from the updater software fixes things.