After couple days using this I think I know how the IPOD does its skip free deal.
The music is originally stored on a hard-drive and then loaded into its buffer memory. That’s why it appears to be ‘skip-free’. Most other Mp3 players are all buffer memory. It’s actually stored in the memory so its really skip-free but with current technology there is no way to get Gigs worth of music into buffer memory and keep the physical size down.
The apples site says that it has a 20-minute of memory, which I think is an accurate statement. When you skip forward a couple tracks you get 1/2 a second lag, cause that song isn’t in the memory so its being loaded into the buffer from the hard-drive and then being loaded.
So unless you’re going to be launching this back and forth for 20 min without stopping it’s going to be skip-free.