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With my iPod i'm subscribed to some more podcasts - but i only fetch new podcasts from time to time because i don't use the iPod every day. That's not a problem because i don't have any podcast with news in my list. As a result (after an update) i have several entries from one podcast source in my list. The iPod arranges all of this entries (from one podcast) on a single page. As example the jokes from a local radio station:

Now believe it or not, it's not possible to tell the iPod: "i want to hear all new entries from this podcast, in reverse order, oldest first". It's not even possible to just play all entries in a row. If you have finished one podcast you have to click on the next one. <sarcasm>That's user-friendly!</sarcasm>

For anyone who want's to tell me about playlists: no, thank you. I don't want to create a dozen playlists in advance in iTunes - one for each podcast. If i have the time and if i feel like i want to listen to a single podcast i just want to listen to all new entries from this one podcast. I surely don't want to plan that several days in advance. This should be possible - even with Apple software.

Just back from our vacation in the carribean. There we moved between different timezones and i noticed that the timezone support in Apples iPod is not worth the name. The toy contains a hardcoded list with some city names in different timezones, but you:

The iPod Touch is not only a mp3 player, you also have a calendar, adressbook and some more stuff onboard. The latest update even added some more "hot" features, but i don't need them. Yesterday i used the iPod calendar for a note to myself, added an alarm and thought, the toy will remind me in the evening (at the alarm time). Sure, it did ...

In the settings you can configure, where you want to hear system sounds, the usual acknowledge click as example which appears almost everywhere. Since i don't like to disturb my environment i configured the system sound to only use the earplugs. Now Apple surprised me (or not, maybe "i should have expected") by also using this setting for the alarm clock. So my reminder was visible on the display for some seconds and the sound was played at the earplugs ... very effective!

At least an extra setting for the alarm should be available. The current behaviour is just plain stupid: either you nerve the people around you with all the system sounds or you don't get the alarm.

Earlier this month Apple released an update for the iPod touch. In detail it seemed that this update consists of two updates: one which brings all the bugfixes and one which brings the new software (mail, google maps ect.) stuff. At least the iTunes software installed one update without asking for my credic card and is bugging me really hard to buy the other one.

So everytime i start iTunes and connect the iPod, the iTunes software contacts the shop and looks for new updates. Not only that this step takes some minutes (i blogged about the slowness before), my decision "Remind me later" only works until i restart iTunes the next time. Then the update question is presented again to me. What if i don't want this update? What if i don't read my mails on the iPod? What if i don't need Google Maps on my iPod? What if i don't care about my stock options because i don't trade at all? What if i just want to hear musik and watch some news videos?

Where is the "No, thank you" option?

Update (2008-01-23): i just synced my iPod and now there is a "No, thank you" option. Earlier the annoying update page only had 2 options, now 3.

Will Apple fix more problems if i post them here?

Update 2 (2008-01-25): it seems, the "No, thank you" option only works until the next iTunes restart. Every time i click this button i get an error message that some obscure error on the store has occured (maybe because i don't have an account?) and the "buy the update" option appears again. Annoying ...

The iPod contains Wi-fi access so i can hook into our wireless network (with WPA encryption) at home. This worked fine ... for some days. After then the iPod told me, connection to the network is not possible. Reentering the (correct) passphrase does not help, resetting network settings neither.

It helps to change the SSID, after the change the iPod can reconnect ... but after some days things stopped working again. I don't plan to change my SSID every 2 or 3 days.

The usual hints from the Apple forum (it seems, more people have this problem) seems not to help, not in my case and not for many other people. But just to be clear a list of things i already checked or tried:

Given the long list of Apple forum users having similar problems, the fact that some other laptops (windows or linux based) work without problems in our wireless network and the surprise that a new SSID made the iPod working again, this clearly seems to be a software bug in the iPod.

Apple: time to wake up and release a bugfix!

The iPod Touch i got today will not work with linux. Thanks to Apple for producing such a censored hardware. The iPod does not even show up as a drive in windows neither in Linux so there's no way around iTunes.

What a stupid mess ...