Also Paul, those play counts might not be accurate. The iPod only remembers the most recently time a song was played. So if you were to listen to Hurt 5 times today then sync the playcount in iTunes will only go up by one.
Huh. Not with my nano - I think with the 4Gs they started keeping an extra DB field on the iPod itself, which was a counter for how many times a track was played
since the last sync, because I can listen to a song 10 times on my PC, listen to it five times on the iPod and 5 times on the PC, and when I sync again it sets the playcount to 20.
Also, iTunes has a "how random is the shuffle" slider, does anybody know if this setting translates over to (3G) iPods? Maybe I need to run the updater again.
I'm pretty sure the non-random shuffle doesn't do squat for anything but the nano and the 5G (video iPod). At least, it didn't do anything for my previous 4G iPod.
I don't think Apple really concerns themselves with updating the firmware for an iPod that is no longer in production or no longer the newest, even. For instance, the nano *could* play video, since it has the same dang chip that's in the 5G "video iPod" but do they update the firmware? No, because that may cannibalize some market away from the "big" iPod (although honestly who the hell wants to watch video on a screen that small? - but still, it would be nice to have the option).
Someone figured out how to play videos on the nano by putting Linux on it, but part of the
joie d'iPod is the interface.