Friday five.

(Today's Friday five is dedicated to the folks at Apple.)

Dear iPod/iTunes developers,
I'd like to request a couple features of you. They seem like no-brainers to me, though I really don't know what it is that you all do, exactly, so bear with me.

1. Please add the ability to listen to radio stations through the iPod, just like one can stream radio stations through iTunes. (OK, that one might be a big request.)

2. You know how iTunes shows how many songs and how many hours/days of music there are on any given playlist? (Like, I have 17 days of music in the main area of iTunes right now, my "roadtrip" playlist has 15 hours of music, etc.?) How about adding that for just the checked songs, so I know how many hours/days of music I've checked to know if I have enough space to auto-sync my iPod? I hate, hate, HATE having to do it manually. And I want the ability to hear all songs through iTunes, but just the ones I've checked on my iPod. And I'm royally lazy about all of this. So just make it simple, k?

3. Make a battery that actually lasts a long time, both in hours of play and in years of life. Please? My fully-charged five-year-old iPod shouldn't die after two hours of continuous play (not even switching around menus or forwarding through all shuffles, which I understand take more power than continuous play).

4. When I do fully charge the thing, remember that I want text in English, that I had the shuffle set to "on" and that I want the time in the title. Must I reset that every single time the battery dies and I recharge? Don't you know how royally lazy I am about all this?

5. These things? They SUCK. (OK... that's not really a request, just an observation.)

All that said, good job on the construction of the thing. I've dropped mine at least 60 times onto the cold hard concrete, and it's still ticking. Perhaps you've already implemented all this stuff in newer versions. I wouldn't know - not only am I lazy, I'm also one of the cheapest iPod fans you will ever meet.

Thanks for your time,
Jen(n)