I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but anybody looking for a alternative to the on-board software on an IPOD should look at ROCKBOX.ORG, which is basically open source community created software.

It was created to run on a number of audio devices giving them relatively equal capabilities. There are customizations of the software for individual devices (such as some video capability on the iPods) but that is not its stated goal.

That being said, there are some capabilties in the rockbox software that may be very important to people (unlimited bookmarks, games, great search database, lots of codec support, very cool skins, etc). Everybody on this forum should check it out.

Oh yeah, you decide whether to boot the Rockbox or the Apple firmware. Cool.