What can is say - i reckon the iPod is one of the best bit of kits i've ever bought - and that's saying something. I couldn't believe how well finished the product was (well the hardware anyway, the jury is still out on the software). And my hats odd to Apple tech-support, i had one small problem with the wired remote control that ships with the 30G box and they replaced it without the fights and hair pulling i'm used to with other companies.

Anyway - on to the subject - the hopeless software! Okay, maybe thats a bit strong - i still use myPod all day every day without too many hastles. But it could just be so much better if it actually did everything it was meant to - even without adding all these nice extra features i would like to see ... so here's my ideal myPod:

-- Alarm Clock
Enough said else where - just one that works like it's suppoed to would be nice. A quote from apples website:
"And with the iPod?s new alarm clock, you can choose either an alarm tone or your favorite music to wake you up."
Maybe the trade descriptions folk should get involved `cause the pod i bought can't do this (and i checked MM as well as ephpod). Still i'll wait for the next software update and see how things go.

-- Multiple "On-the-go" Playlists
How about letting me create a stack of playlists such as "myMusic", "theWifes", "theGrilFriends", "deleteThis", "recodeThis", and "crackerSong" that i can add (and remove) songs to as and when i feel like it. You caould add another 'screen' after the five-stars in the now-playing subset to allow be to select a playlist and add/remove the track or if i had a track selected, holding the select button will bring up a list of playlists instead of just automatically selecting the on-the-go list. That way i can do lots of tune schuffling and also mark songs for deletion or select songs which need recoded or songs which have dodgy tags that need redone.

-- Screen Lock
I'd love to use myPod at parties, but i'd spend all night guarding it from people who like to hog music or want to see what weird stuff i've got on. It's easy enough with a scroll wheel, you just do it like the combination lock you used to have for your bike as a kid. Three numbers you can 'wheel' round and select to get the right combination. Resetting the iPod could reset the lock (it's not meant for great security - just to keep annoying people from playing with it).

-- Hot Keys
It's really annoying having to shuffle through the menu to do things like turning shuffle on and off (if i'm listening to a track on shuffle-songs i really like i'll flip to shuffle-album to hear more then back to shuffle-songs when the albums done). In the same place that i can select what appears on the main menu you could add a feature that will allow me to assign some features to certain key combinations (such as holding down << or >> on their own). That way i can assign shuffle and repeat to these keys (or anything else i fancy).

Well - i could go on but this is my first post so i'll stop here.
Let me know what you think.