Sony and apple have the best sounding headphones out there, but Apple edges ahead in terms of overall design.
The Sony mp3 players are cumbersome to use and not intuitive. Apple, with the scroll wheel, and reach anywhere in 3 clicks platform, made the best use of the small screen and big storage. it automatically increases the speed of scrolling if you are scrolling too much. Faced a problem on the first day when it wen blank and would not start, but was rectified in a visit to the center in the next hour. never faced another hardware issue.