I bought an 80GB iPod Classic a few days ago. I didn’t really want one, but my old third-generation iPod no longer worked, and getting the battery replaced would’ve cost me $70—plus I’d get a refurbished iPod, not my own, which I’ve taken extremely good care of over the years. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I just bought a new one.

The new iPods are nice, but I really like my old one better, because it’s a lot simpler to use. It just plays music, which is really all I want it to do. The new ones definitely have some nicer features, though, but they lack a few things I liked about the older ones.

For one thing, my old iPod connected to my Mac over Firewire; the new ones only use USB 2.0. This isn’t a big deal except for one point. On Macs, Firewire ports are always powered, even when the computer is asleep, but USB ports are not powered when the Mac is sleeping. This means that my old iPod could be charged overnight, while my iBook was asleep, but my new iPod cannot be charged while my iBook is asleep.

Furthermore, my old iPod came with an AC adapter, but the new iPods lack an AC adapter. Apple sells them for $30, which I think is a rip-off, since you used to get one for free.

However, I realized last night that the 3G iPods and the new iPods both use the same dock connector, so you can use an older iPod’s Firewire cable to connect your iPod to your Mac. The new iPods will not sync with iTunes over Firewire, but you can still use the Firewire cable to charge the iPod while the computer is sleeping, or by using one of the old Firewire AC adapters.

Take that, Apple.