the fact is you need ephpod (or other 3rd party apps), even to load mp3, not only aac files, to play music files.
vs
ihp that can drop and play inside any OSes that can see the external drive via the native explorer.
yes, the iriver fanboys do get the idea that the ipod can be used as an external harddrive, can load ephpod through it and can play mp3 files. that, has been shoved into our heads by the ipod fanboys.
how about the ipod fanboys looking at what ihp can do, instead of always denying the constraints on the ipod? is it that difficult for ephpod/ipod fanboys to see that the probability of ephpod not running on Longhorn is greater than Longhorn not supporting ums devices? (therefore the 'not compatible' arguments). that may not be so apparent now, but chances of the future version of OSes not supporting ums devices is far smaller than ephpod not working on those OSes. that is what i like and feel assured about the 'transfer and play features via ums' of the ihp. and my point here is only about the transferring the music and playing it, not managing, which the ipod wins.
also, not only apple, creative and rio also do not allow downloading and uploading of music files via the native file explorer. that, i believe, is to comply with SDMI. and the iriver is one of the few major manufacturers that do not subscribe to the SDMI crap. that alone, gets my respect for iriver.
your argument of 'apple not wanting world dominance' is incorrect, my dear. that would means that apple is pushing people to use its itunes software, and eventually, the itunes store, which they hope will become dominant in the business of music downloads. i'm pretty sure that was part of the agenda when they came up with itunes. apple runs a business, not some 'hippie open-source freeware' company. it would be naive to think that they do not want a foothold of some sort in other areas, which they have done with the dominant ipods.
so what, are we advocating SDMI and becoming RIAA-believers now? looks like apple has done a pretty good job of bringing across the message of 'SDMI good, consumer rights bad'.