Just opened up my 15Gb - WOOHOO! Anyways, I was surprised to see little stretchy black earbud covers in a pouch. I've never seen an iPod user with these on . . . so what's the general consensus? Do people use these things? My music is syncing now, and I'm getting psyched . . .

I have put them on the earphones. In my opinion, it's a bit more comfortable.

They always fall off .

I don't use the included iPod earbuds because they have bad sound, and the cord is way too long. If I did use them, i would not use the covers.

I do use the covers because they are much more comfortable. Although, after a few weeks the covers riped. Now, I use it without them because I don't know if I can get more of them.

Could you please tell me why you are using the included apple earphones. They are horrible and dont do the iPod justice. Do yourself a favor and go buy yourself some ER-4S.

They sound good, but are quite uncomfortable to these ears. I use the covers when I use them, though.

i like to wear my headphones to sleep, and when I woke up the pads were gone. Because of that, I stopped using them.

breakdown: they're still inside your ears. Fish 'em out!

Not that I often use the iPod headphones, but the earpads accomplish two things for me.

1) They improve the fit; they slide out of my ears if the pads aren't on.

2) They improve bass response.

More comfortable with, but imo sound is better w/o.

they slide off really easily :P they're a little big for the headphones themselves
i think about the 5th time i was caught walking around with the black cover stuck in one of my ears not to mention the pain of wearing them for a long time made me bite the bullet and get some sony 70EX thingies. the apple ones had nice sound quality tho. and im loathe to get those expensive etymotic headphones when i could use the money to get another ipod and hold both onto my face to cool down on a hot day

The cord of that included earphones were stripped off and loose within a week, so I said to hell with those, and was happy to order Shure E2's.

I put them on right away... Mine have never slid off. They feel comfortable.

I use the ipod earbuds with the covers as well. I guess it's just that I haven't heard anything better, or perhaps my hearing isn't quite as sensitive as others around here, but they sound fine to me.

Without the covers, the earbuds feel far too lose. With the covers on, they're nice and snug.

They do come off once in a while though, but I've never lost one yet.