Mog is really nice and it's pricing will make it very competitive, but Lala has the best interface by far, better social networking features, and a better selection in my experience. I hope Lala/Apple get into the subscription game sooner rather than later.

I can't wait to see what Monster Cable tries to sell us now... Monster Air?

@DPolsky

I consider CivRevolutions, Zenonia, Monkey Island, Robocalypse (a $30 game that goes for $5 on the app store), Gangstar, Meteor Blitz, Modern Combat: Sandstorm, and Real Racing for example, to be first-rate games - high production value titles with average play time well over 10 hours. Notice how most of those have been released in the last two months; developers are only starting to push out the more development-intensive titles. I'm also intentionally omitting the torrent of first rate casual apps (puzzle games, word games, pinball, stripped-down sports) that won't appeal to hard-core gamers but are exactly what busy adults are looking for from a portable system.

@alex - anyone that likes listening to music and surfing the internet on a pocketable device and doesn't want to carry around something separate for gaming?

Thanks for the comparison - those headphones do look fantastic.

Apps and the more advanced Apple software aren't completely irrelevant to the core functionality of an mp3/video player. Downloading or streaming podcasts directly from the player is very convenient. Purchasing music directly from the itouch from any wi-fi zone is incredibly useful. Apps like Pandora, the TV.com and internet radio apps (not to mention scores of even more advanced apps in development - Hulu.com and Lala.com have teams working on a/v apps) open up even more high quality content. The fact that reviews criticize the Sony browser (http://whathifi.com/Review/Sony-NWZ-X1060B/) are also worrying because a lot of web content (espn.com highlights, for example) streams beautifully from the Touch.

Audio and video consumption revolve around the internet in 2009. I don't think you can shrug off the Apple's software advantage as "meh, who needs games and fart apps anyway".

The news is not that Amazon is making Kindle books available on cell-phones - the news is that Amazon is creating a way for users to read a given book across several devices, depending on what's at hand. That's indeed news.

As someone who's a little too in love with both my Kindle and iPhone, I think it sounds like a great marriage. I read some fairly long news articles on the iPhone every day, so being able to catch a chapter or two in the doctor's office without dragging my Kindle with me everywhere sounds more than doable.

What would really catch my attention would be if Amazon brought their text-to-speech technology to the iPhone - I'd certainly buy more books if I knew I could easily alternate between reading (at home) and listening (on the way to work or out on a bike ride).

Now I just hope Whispersync is Kindle 1 compatible. It seems to be more of a cloud/network technology than a device/hardware technology, so I'm optimistic.

Note to commenters above; you are on a consumer electronics blog. At times, this might entail reading articles pertaining to such frivoloties as "games" and products made by a company called "Apple". If you can't handle that, perhaps "Linux Sys Adm" or "Oatmeal Enthusiast" would make more fruitful blog reading.

Wow, immediately after launching the updated FB app, my iphone completely crashed and is requiring me to restore it (i.e. wipe it clean). Nothing like this has ever happened to me since owning the iPhone.

Unless cell phone plans become cheap enough for most kids to buy, there will always be room for dedicated portable consoles. That said, as phones become more capable, they will certainly cannibalize some portable system sales.

There's already an audience of millions with iPhones and Touches, and trust me, there are a lot of good developers working on interesting titles for such an audience (who also prefer publishing via iTunes and the App Store to the pains of licensing and navigating publishers and retail channels). Full-featured games like War, Inc and Hero of Sparta convince me that there are game studios that want to make serious games for the iPhone.