Good information, Nyororin... if you remember the name let me know.

this may be a stupid question, but does the iStore only support Apple products, or can I load iTunes songs onto any device?

I hope you don`t mind - I moved your edit down into your post. :D

As far as I know, Apple is pretty strict when it comes to that so I am quite sure it`s a no. But we still buy from iTunes anyway - just burn a copy and then import it for the other devices. We have to burn a CD anyway in order to import it into the car system (it will only import from audio cds and won`t allow us to copy ready-made mp3s or the like to it) so usually burn the CD, import it again to the PC, then take it out to the car. You can only make so many copies, if I recall correctly, but I have yet to need to make more than one.
In the past, I have burned virtual copies on a virtual drive from inside iTunes and then imported that to avoid wasting a CD.

I agree with Nyororin. There are other players that better than iPod. I have a friend who's a fan of iPod's and for the past 2 years he broke two after simple drop on the ground and his third one doesn't look like it will last long.
So, if you want a player that'll last longer than it's guaranty, then iPod isn't a best choice.

Care to share any suggestions?

I was mistaken about the 12GB - turns out that he went with an 8GB version that was 2000 cheaper. This; [ Welcome to cowon.com ]
Apparently you can find it now for around 6000 yen in shops.

He also swears by the Gigabeat U408 and still uses it pretty regularly. Apparently the Cowon one is great for using as a USB drive, so it gets that duty more than that of a music player.

With both of them the battery lasts forever. The Toshiba he uses it daily but only charges maybe once a week. He has dropped it countless times, and even once walked his bicycle over it by accident - but there is no real damage other than some scratches. He prefers to use it while on his bicycle because it`s already scratched.
He hasn`t dropped the Cowon much, but when he forgot the Toshiba charger on a trip to Tokyo he used it for 2 weeks without charging and was still able to listen to it on the trip home.

Pretty much directly from my husband;
iPodの容量が多くていいと思って使ってたけど、実際入� �てみると音楽そんなに持ってないし、落とせばすぐに� �れてしまう。しかも高い。電池すぐわるくなるし、電� �交換もありえないぐらいお金取られる･･･もう買う� �はないでしょう～

The HD Zune is sick. My old high school friend had one, and I messed with it a lot. However, Apple's App Store rapes Zune's.


I still think the iPod Touch is the best.

Yes, ipods do support several types of text including japanese, korean, and others.

But ipod does suck, as far as suggestions, no offense but F the zune. cowon iaudio players.

iTunes is a program, not an audio file format. So by "can I load iTunes songs onto any device" do you mean "can I use iTunes to load songs onto any device", or do you mean "can I load songs bought on the iStore onto any device"?

If it's the former, I have no idea.

If it's the latter, the answer is "yes", but it might take some work.

Songs from Apple's iStore is in a format called AAC. SOME media players support this format, some do not. So if yours does not, you would need to convert it to a format your media player understands. There are tons of programs that do this.

Even more complicated, Apple used to encrypt their AAC files in a format called FairPlay. No other media player besides Apple's can (legally) play these. For these, you can either use (illegal in the USA, not sure about Japan) software to break the encryption, or you can burn the file to a CD and then rip it to your favorite format (e.g. mp3, ogg, ACC, whatever).

One more note. Most digital audio file format supports the ability to include text within the audio file. [Note the title or the song name, but arbitrary text.] iPods are able to display this text. I can confirm that US iPods can display Chinese text, I haven't tried Japanese, but I assume it could.

Thanks for the help.

So what I am hearing is that iPods are not that great, but are the easiest way to listen to music purchased at the iTunes store.