You know, the funny thing is that I like the root of the iPod concept; the original iPod got away with having practically no user interface by explicitly being an extension of your PC, rather than a computer unto itself. And that's the way I used it, too -- I loved being able to listen to a podcast or something on my desktop machine, then grab the iPod and continue listening to it while driving somewhere in the car, and when I got back, just push the thing back into its dock and continue listening on the desktop again, seamlessly. My iPod was indeed just another piece of my PC.

But Apple has kind of lost its way since then. The iPod didn't have anything more than a handful of navigation buttons on the front because it didn't need anything more than that; it was, unashamedly, not a general-purpose computer. The iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad are, on the other hand, intended as general-purpose devices, and trying to shoehorn them into the highly restricted iPod paradigm is, in my opinion, just flat out nuts.

Make no mistake, I love my little N900; if I'm going to have a desktop PC experience in a hand-held form-factor, it has the OS and UI I want for the job. I just wish there was somebody out there with the guts to design an open "pod"-like device, some little thing specifically made to be tethered to a PC (but without being tied to Apple hardware and software).