I use iTunes on my Mac and find it pretty reliable. The only real issue I have is sorting on compilations but as I rarely buy compilation albums it's not really a worry. I do wish there was a manual search for cover art though as that can be a bit hit or miss.

There is: google image search. :)

Yeah that's what I try if the art isn't in their database.

Decent HD space and the fact that I can get decent Wi-Fi and addictive games was the reason I bought my iPod touch primarily and for some reason it seems to find full episodes of documentaries easier via the inbuilt YouTube app than the site itself which is a boon for me in the evening whilst the usual crap is on T.V.

On the downside there is obviously iTunes, the godawful headphones that come with it (ditched them after day one) and the equalizer presets for music are crap too. Surely we can have manual equalizers? Not everyone is tone deaf! I turn the equalizer off.

Little things like internet banking, email, ebay and weather apps are genuinely useful and more compact and concise than the full grade options a lot of the time and easily accessible.

Home sharing is handy too so I can access my full collection on my iPod while I am at home without having to copy the songs onto my iPod.

When you download a mp3 from iTunes how do you know what version you're getting?

If you search a particular song title it will list all the versions with artist and album. If you are looking for a particular version you can click on the album to read more about it or listen to a preview of the song. Is that what you mean?

I also find iTunes a useful way to discover new songs/ artists by following the "people also bought" links. If I feel like exploring a particular artist's catalogue the previews are handy for working out which albums might be more to my liking.

That seems to make sense. But then I thought; Isn't that just a tiny iPad then, or an iPhone without the Phone bit?

I've already pointed this out before but that's one of the things I hate about the iPod. It's expensive, it can do a lot and I know apple built in some pretty decent soundcards in their iMacs and such. But the iPod, compared to other 'decent' mp3 players like Creatives, Logitech, Philips or whatever, sounds... not good at all. And I mean connected to an audio rig, not based on the sound of the (indeed godawful) headphones. It's a pity. They sort of missed the point. It can do so much, but in the end as a music player it's not that brilliant in comparison.
Ghehe, makes me think of the Samsung Galaxy S. I'm not sure what it's like overthere, but overhere these phones sound awful. When someone with a galaxy S calls me, I have a hard time hearing what they say. It runs a nice OS, it has a pretty good camera, it's got a brilliant screen but for ****s' sake it's a friggin' phone! How can it do ANYTHING except being a decent phone? I just don't get it.

I honestly wish there were better music player options than itunes for Mac users and occasionally I'll go on web excursions seeking them out, but to no avail. I have Songbird, which is decent, but you would think that someone would develop a third party piece of software as a strong, viable alternative to iTunes. The room for improvement is immense.

VLC Mplayer works on a mac, doesn't it?
It's simple, but at least it's not sluggish :)