Got an iPod as a christmas present and since this iPod (the "Touch" version) is not supported by the usual Linux tools, i had to get a Windows machine at hand and install iTunes. Now it seems that this software is not what you expect to be "stable" ... despite the fact that it is running on windows.
I installed iTunes on the first machine: the software keeps crashing when i connect the iPod. Sometimes the first time i connected the iPod, sometimes the second time but never could connect the iPod more than 3 times without a crash of the Apple Mobile Helper which in consequence crashed the whole iTunes software. So i moved iTunes to another windows pc, rarely used, only Firefox and an ssh client on it. Things keep crashing, no chance.
So if i want to sync the iPod i have to wait until all downloads are finished or i have a good chance that i can restart all of them. This sucks.
But beside all this problems with beta software: iTunes is slow. Really slow. If i want to search for a new podcast or just surf in the store, the software sometimes needs 2 or 3 minutes just to open the connection. We have DSL at home, so speed should not be the cause of the problem.
Every webserver is able to return results in no time (speak: some seconds), but watching the iTunes network traffic you can see, that the software is sending the requests, the packets pass the border router and 30 seconds up to 2 or 3 minutes later the answer packets arrive. Not just one time, every times. What's wrong here? Just because you are market leader you can have slow hardware?