Is an IPOD hi-fi?

I've been living with an iPod too, and with a variety of headphones (including Grado 60's). While the iPod is quite listenable, I don't see it as approaching hifi. I see it more like a portable CD player (i.e. walkman type) with a hard drive source. I don't think it was ever intended to be more than that, though I hope for the day when it is (i.e. USB out for streaming music to a decent DAC).

It is truly amazing to have 6,000+ songs in the palm of your hand; I couldn't imagine not having an iPod for portable access to music. I also can't understand why people here are so overly critical of iPods but with 70+ million units sold in a relatively short amount of time the market has spoken. While an iPod doesn't sound great through my high end SET system, my iTunes lossless database through a usb dac does. Internet radio with 128k streams also sound decent through my usb dac, possibly better than lossless through my iPod out to my stereo. My rambling point is that iTunes sets up the infrastructure for a computer based audio system that then supports an airport express, a squeezebox, usb dac, iPod etc.

A future generation iPod with a digital out would be another story.

No. It is not.

And Steve Jobs thanks you so very much. I am sure he is doing hand springs all the way to the bank, uttering the phrase of P.T. Barnum.(Nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence or taste of the American public.)

Ferrari, I do realize now that you are much more intelligent than most of us here and Audiogon.....heck forget Audiogon...you are more intelligent than the American public! Simply by displaying the pride of non-ownership of an iPod.
Way to go man, because this is what I call intelligence.