@Sebby glad you like the stream, the battery life on mine is quite astounding at the moment. it'll apparently handle podcasts though I've not tried yet, and it's easy enough to digitize cds, indeed even when I was using Itunes this is what I was doing with the Rnib stuff, (the chap I spoke to from humanware actually said it was quite common for people to do that). The stream will also handle m3u playlists too if you like that sort of thing as well, though I never cared about playlists myself and only used them in Itunes to make things play in order. The victor will handle some sorts of text files too though I never cared for reading in text anyway and never used Itunes for that.

in general I don't miss Itunes and am glad to be without it, much as I still like my Iphone for the games, aps etc. indeed I'm only keeping Itunes on my computer to backup my phone settings in case I decide to buy an Iphone six, sinse annoyingly apple killing the sidebars which buggered the tree view in Itunes 12 doesn't affect that as the sinking and backup options are available from the main file menu. To be honest I'd rather not even use Itunes for this, just give me a simple backup program, or better still, just let me copy the relevant files and back them up properly on my external harddrive, though at least this is a miner annoyence as compared to the torturous streight jacket of trying to get Itunes to work with media.

The sooner Apple stop with this stupid itunes mallarchy and just give people the freedom to use their devices how they want the better, and if apple don't, (as seems likely), well I'll just do my own thing regardless.

Will I cloud backup work streight from the phone? if it will that is definitely a preferable option, then I can ditch Itunes entirely which is just what I want.

Regarding podcasts, to be honest I juse usually either download the hole lot if it is something I want to keep, or simply stream it through winamp if it is something I just want to listen to online.

Your "miss out on the convenience of having itunes do all the work" I just find a down right confusing statement, sinse I actually can't think of any bennifit from itunes at all other than phone data backups, and if that is possible another way, ---- awsome!

Well I can see sincing being a different matter if your on a mac or have multiple Ios devices that is true, though to be honest I can't really see a time I will be in that position unless I get a mac desktop which while conceivable in the future isn't something I'm considdering at the moment. I also don't personally see the point in having both an Iphone and an Ipad, not when your visually impared and using vo sinse the main function of the Ipad is the larger screen.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "key chain" but if the Icloud will backup my contacts and perchiced aps that will be enough for me, as you said it is just for either dire immergencies or if I upgrade my Iphone.

I don't personally treat the Victor's Sd card as a serious storage device, it's just there for me to bang on a selection of stuff to carry around for a while, and then change when I've either finished with them or want a new selection. One fact I do like is that unlike with my Iphone it is possible for me to use the Sd card as a transfer device, so when my brother visited last night and happened to want one of the books I had on my victor, it was easy enough to bang both the Victor and a memory stick into my Laptop and copy it across, something that wasn't possible with my Iphone, again, hurrah for freedom and simplicity.

With podcasts it depends upon if I think I'll listen to it again. I agree that Podcasts are basically just radio programs (indeed most of what I listen to are radio dramas or occasionally cerialized audiobooks), with an irregular release schedule, but if they're good enough that I think I'll hear them again later I'll usually download the lot and keep them, as opposed to either streaming them directly or downloading and chucking them. We're alive, Leviathan chronicles and Byron are all examples of things I thought good enough that I'd want to hear again so I grabbed the lot and added them to my mighty audio folder, indeed when I first heard we're alive I had to do the hole transfer of the files onto itunes (I suppose Itunes would've handled the podcast but the hole program is so stupid it was easier just to transfer), though of course when I listen to the series again now things will be far easier.

One slight issue with the Victor is that it won't recognize a folder containing both loose files and folders. I have a couple examples of these, for example Leviathan I have both the individual files of the special and folders for each series, (all numbered so as to play in order in winamp),  but this is only a miner niggle, justt like the fact that the Victor's tts voice can't be sped up or slowed down independently of the playback of your audio.

Again though, not a big issue when compared to the morass of utter stinking toxic putrid rotten rancid diseased poxy filthy dirty disgusting maggoty heap of complete and total absolute dreckage known as Itunes!

Again with the networking and shenanigans, it just doesn't seem worth it to me, not when it's easy enough just to copy things across to whatever satellite device. My pc has all my audio (with a backed up copy on an external drive which lives in a box under my bed most of the time), and anything I want on a satellite device I just copy across directly. I've been doing that first with my laptop, then (with annoyence from Itunes), with my Iphone, and now with the Victor. I can see networking as a point if you have lots of gadgits, my brother for example has a mac, an Iphone an Ipad and an Ipod, but for me this is just overkill. I have my central pc, and whatever satellite I use for media and games (at the moment it's a combination of my Iphone and victor) which I use either in my bedroom or if I'm away for short moments, then I have a laptop which sits at my parents and is a general stand in for my pc when I'm there, also if I am going anywhere for an extended period and need access to e-mail, web forums etc.

Buying a card reader might be something I'll do later, but to be honest the slower transfer didn't really bother me too much, I just watched an episode of buffy and by the time I'd finished 12 gb was copied across. It might be something I'll do in the future if the slower transfer really gets on my nurves, but it hasn't done so as yet. Then again I still remember the days when one 3 minute mp3 took 15 minutes to download.

Regarding podcasts, well to be honest I still like the manual control I have on the website, particularly if I just copy the rss into Winamp for streaming, though mostly with podcasts I tend to just find a couple I like and go with them, I don't tend to hunt them down much.

I'll look at Icloud backups on the phone sinse it definitely would be nice to chuck Itunes completely, oh, and all my passwords are memorable.

With the victor batteries, they last a hell! of a long time, a good 15 hours or so. I actually tried to run my batteries down last week, but utterly failed. Though of course the batteries are only needed when your actually out, for listening to my victor at night I can plug the thing in.

Well if you've already setup your media to go through Itunes I can see that as a problem, though even two years ago when I bought my Iphone the opposite is true ffor me. Indeed, I prefer to have streight out file access than go through the apple streight jacket, and the ease of transfer to the victor shows why.

Indeed why should I! be trying to make my collection work with Apple's silly programs anyway? isn't it their job to satisfy me! as the customer?

And anyway, couldn't the advantages of Itunes, the sincing, libraries, instant playback of podcasts or whatever exist in a more free form program?

I'm glad to be rid of the thing.

To be honest I don't think it's a difference in approach so much as me having a slightly different attitude to technology. I am happy with what I have, therefore expect anything new to add to what I currently have, not merely exchanging it for another completely different system and expecting me to work for that exchange.

I actually wish more people had this attitude rather than chasing the big shiny upgrade just because someone says it's a big shiny upgrade.

I don't really get what you mean about vertical intigration and startrek, (what does vertical intigration mean anyway?. Startrek was basically a database of shared common files with voice control and social interaction, nothing that scifi really, indeed if I had a voice interaction unit for my pc I could already say "play Harry potter and the goblet of fire" and have that done, and I can already tell Siri "phone my brother" and it'll do that. It strikes me a lot of the bennifits of the Apple network system like having all your stuff on a central cloud location and access from any smaller device really aren't worth much in a world where data storage is so easy, heck, if I bought a 4 tb passport drive I could have the contents of my pc anywhere I wanted. Unfortunately, Apple's advertising has conned people into believing that Apple's centralization policy is far more inervative than it actually is, and discouraged people from manual operation as you said, even though the manual operation really isn't that difficult. This is why I call Apple's intigration system a streight jacket, and why i find it rather hard to consider any real advantages to the system that compensate for the enslavement to one program, one organization method and one company, ---- indeed Huxley seems looming with that sort of thinking especially with the rather worrying tendency I've seen in some social quarters to Deyify Apple.

As to playback sinking, well the victor is great at holding position in multiple playing items which is one thing I like, and I don't see the point in sincronized playback across multiple devices when i can carry one small one around with me, ---- heck, even if I did! for example want to continue listening to the same audio file on my desktop and victor it'd be easy enough to just hit ctrl j in Winamp and input the time, ---- indeed this is what I mean about centralization, why go through all the hassle of having all that sincing nonsense and being forced to bow to Apple when jumping to a particular time in a playing file takes exactly 7 key strokes, (ctrl j, four numbers separated by a colon and enter).

For the remote business, well as I said, why should I bother trying to access my computer remotely when I can just copy stuff across? centralized access seems like a solution for a problem that hasn't existed sinse the early 2000's. Heck, I could even just buy a 4 tb passport drivewith everything on it  and bung it into the Victor's usb connector if I wished (it'd kill the battery but it certainly would be possible).

What exactly is air play?

I doubt apple will ever allow free access to files because then you know, people might be playing things they haven't bought from Apple! which to be honest is actually partly why I suspect the Itunes system is as closed as it is, and why it's so hard to intigrate with anything else. Indeed this is sort of what bothers me for the Apple worship sinse while people in the past used to be very quick on accusing Microsoft of attempting a monopoly people are far less quick as levelling the same accusations at Apple even though Apple are actually approaching being worse, (although microsoft's recent direction with the windows store etc isn't exactly an improvement either).

As to speakers on the Victor, well I do the same as I did when I was using my Iphone. If I am listening to music or audio drama, my Sanheisa earbuds are the thing, (though when I'm in my flat I'll use my Sanheisa momentum headphones sinse sound quality wise they're awsome even if a bit large and expensive to carry aroujd the country). However if it's just an audio book, ie, just a voice the victor speaker like the Iphone before it serves fine as sound quality in that case doesn't bother me too much so long as the words and tone are audible.

I have been known to fall asleep wearing headphones or earbuds, though generally a life time of listening to audio books insures that I can't sleep with audio running so I don't tend to worry. it'd be easy enough however to pick up a reasonable set of speakers for the Victor if you wanted to. I personally am more a fan of headphones than speakers. I have some pretty good logitech 5.1 ones attached to my computer for general background in my flat or to play to friends, but for something as personal as listening to music or audio dramas on the victor I much prefer headphones, and as good headphones as possible.