I've never had an ipod before and before it arrives there are a few questions I would like answers, (I'm getting the 3rd gen 10 Gb ipod):

1) What Firmware will it ship with (I've heard alo about it not having a dock so it's different from the 15 and 30GB versions) is it going to be 1.2 1.3 2.0 2.0.1 whats that all about?

2) I'm planning to use ephpod instead of the windows porgram that comes with it will that work fine with this pod?

3) I've read a bit about changing it to a windows format or using macopener, does any of this void the warenty and what would people recomend, is macopener ok?

4) I've encoded all my albums to 192bit mp3's but will the ipod recognise any genre names such as 80's pop, indie etc or does it just work with a simple set of defaults such as pop rock etc.

5) and finally do people think an update will become available which will allow it to work with mp4 (instead of m4a m4p) so i can use aac in windows, like a firmware update?

Any help with any of these would be great sorry is they've already been answered but I had a look around and couldn't find anything specific, thanks again.