I suckered in and bought a refurbed iPod from store.apple.com yesterday. I was weak, and I was getting tired of not being able to listen to music away from my laptop. That, and it was $70 off.

Say what you will about Apple, they know how to package products. This is our second iPod (I got my wife the original 5 GB model shortly after they were released), and I was deeply impressed with the packaging and Apple’s general attention to detail two years ago. The new model is even more refined the the original. The new dock is perfectly weighted, the package itself is a work of art, the remote is cool looking. Heck, even the hold switch on the new iPod looks perfect.

They’re expensive, but somehow it all seems worth it once it’s in your hand. It doesn’t feel cheap like so many products do these days. Frankly, that’s one of the reasons that Apple is still around after all of these years. More then any other computer company, they care about little details, and it shows.

Now if they could only make Safari faster and keep it from crashing once or twice per week.