What else is better for under $5? Anything?
It's free..not sure what people expect..
Couldn't be any worse than what's included with a Sansa Clip...
I wonder if it's even possible to get good sound for under $5 with an IEM.

Samsung ones are better for a start lol - JVC marshmellows etc.
There are options out there, you just have to look.

Why are people calling these iems and comparing them to iem's?
They're earbuds, and you shouldn't expect to get any isolation with them. The iBuds certainly do sound pretty grainy but they're are great sounding earbuds on the market and that have been made in the past. My old 80's sony's blow them out of the water and products from yuin and more recently Final Audio among others do as well. Earbuds aren't totally inferior to iems in sound quality as some might believe.
Because earbuds are small and open it is often easy to forget that your wearing one; ie as if the sound isn't coming from a tiny speaker (great earbud like the Yuin PK1/OK1/Senn MX980/etc can do this)
I sometimes forget I'm wearing my MDR-E434 under the right genre.

Well - what I could compare it to, was some low-end IEM's
I do understand the difference, but I personally don't see the point in earbuds, when you can get IEM's

Honestly the apple earbuds are pretty good for earbuds...they're better than a lot of the other earbuds out there. Some people just prefer earbuds to IEMs...they just don't like the idea of wedging something so far into their ears. Their loss I guess, but there are quite a few people who won't use IEMs...I wouldn't bash on these that hard though, they really do have redeeming values. The bass for one is better than any other earbuds I've ever used (not many)...it's impressive considering these come free with any iPod.

These are dramatically underrated.. I prefer these to the Hisound PAA-1 ($20) and even the Hisound Live ($99). They also have beaten every other cheap IEM and earphone I've had. If you bother to seat them properly, the sound is actually really quite nice.

Sure, it may be bass light, but props to Apple for doing that rather than going overboard on bass as everyone else does. I don't like Apple very much, but I actually think that these are fairly decent backup buds for use in a quiet setting only.

Well, if you guys love them so much, why not (if not already done) write a review about them :)?

I personally dislike them, and hate them to all extent, last time I got my iPod touch 3rd gen - (around 2yrs ago) I didn't even OPEN let alone use the buds that were inside.

They also made me go slightly deaf due to the fact I was pushing them into my ears all the time (when i first bought an iPod 5th gen) - I realise the mistake and the "pain" i went through after trying on some shure's from a friend (who is the one that brought audio quality to my attention)