Having bought an iPod Shuffle, I soon found some nasty limitations. The iPod shuffle only allows you to synchronize audio files on it with one specific computer and you can only hear music on it, if it is copied from iTunes! If you need to transfer music files to it from another computer, you must first clear all music from it.
This is of course done to prevent copying music from one computer to another, but it is a ridiculous countermeasure, as you could easily put the audio files in the data section of the USB stick. In fact, you don’t even have to. If you search the folder structures on the USB stick, you can locate the MP3 files, just with obfuscated file names.
Oh, and I almost forgot: You can download a small app which allows you to move files to the iPod shuffle without iTunes from here: http://shuffle-db.sourceforge.net/
Apple is still desperately trying to promote their own QuickTime format. While their format as such technically is quite nice, their software player unfortunately isn’t.
My major annoyance is that their player is crippled - in fact you are not able to view to view fullscreen video in their free version! This is ‘pro’ feature, which will set you back $29.90. Another noteworthy ‘pro’ feature is the ability to save a link to a QuickTime movie from within a browser! (Notice that if the QuickTime browser plugin is not installed, the default action in the browser is to save the movie to disc!).
Even if you buy their Mac operating system, Mac OS X, the included QuickTime player is the free version, unable to play fullscreen video! Come on, Apple, this is just not acceptable.
Another concern is whether the player violates peoples private. It has recently been reported that iTunes keeps track of the users listening habits and transmits them to Apple, who uses them to make recomandations in their iTunes Music Store.