I-pod for me every time. The battery issue seems to be with older models...saying that, Ive never had a problem.
I am a Mac user in general, but you can get non Mac versions and have access to i-tunes. However as a folk fan, there is little on itunes I want to download. I-pod though will play any version of mp3, m4a, etc that is available on any site.
The days of Macs being non compatible with PCs / Windows are now by and large gone

Cheers
LL