I have an iPod Nano and I use Rockbox. Am I happy with it? In a word, yes. But it's not a perfect solution. There are definitely tradeoffs. If you're unfamiliar with Rockbox, it's an alternative operating system that you can load onto your iPod and various other mp3 devices. There are some people who use it just to be different. But, Rockbox adds some interesting features to the iPod, which is the main reason I use it.
With Rockbox, I can free myself from using iTunes. Actually, iTunes has a nice interface and is easy to use. Unfortunately it's somewhat of a resource hog and uses a lot of memory. It also seems to always be running in the background and occupying some memory even when you're not using it. This is unacceptable for me. Also, in my opinion there are other applications out there that organize music much better than iTunes. I use Media Monkey. In the past few years Media Monkey has become quite popular and rightfully so. They offer a free version and a "pro" version that has a few more features. I highly recommend trying it out. So, with Rockbox I can use pretty much any software I want to synchronize my music. This is because my iPod behaves just like USB memory with Rockbox loaded. I can drag and drop music onto the iPod with Windows Explorer. Any music you want to put on your iPod, you can just copy it over and it'll play just fine.
The only reason this doesn't work with the stock iPod is because Apple has purposely crippled the device in the name of thwarting illegal copying of music. Unfortunately this is a burden that they callously lay on the consumer. With the stock iPod, if you want to move songs from one computer to another, or use your device as a backup of the music you have in case your computer crashes, well then you are out of luck. Music on the iPod cannot be retrieved. There is no technical reason for this, it's just purposely crippled. There are workarounds to this and if you do a quick search on the net, you'll find several solutions. With Rockbox you can definitely access the music on the device as if they were files on a hard drive.
There are a few other things you can do with Rockbox . There are a bunch of "skins" available that you can load to customize the look and feel of your iPod. These skins can alter the display and show information not normally available on the iPod. The skin I'm using shows the battery meter as a percentage as well as an estimate of how many hours are left. There's also a caption showing the next song to be played. Rockbox includes bass and treble controls, as well as a graphics equalizer. There are plugin modules that can extend the capabilities of your iPod. By default, it comes with a whole bunch of games, some of which are somewhat fun to play - Breakout, and Tetris clones to name a few. There's also a stopwatch function and a whole bunch of other plugins.
A couple of downsides include the occasional crash while using the iPod. But, it's nothing a reset can't fix. Also, battery life suffers a little bit, and sometimes when I disconnect the USB cable, I have to reset the device. The initial installation of Rockbox might be a little daunting for some who aren't computer savvy. You're basically messing with the firmware of the iPod which probably voids the warranty too. But once you get it set up, upgrades to newer versions of Rockbox are a cinch. It's just the first time, that you have to worry about.
All in all, there are pros and cons, but for me it's a good alternative and I can live with the minor annoyances of resetting once in a while. My Ipod Nano (first generation) is a great device, and with Rockbox, I can use it the way I want.
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