Recently Geeked Out On: iPod Touch
Information:
- iPod Touch 16Gb
- From Sydney Airport Duty Free
I’ve wanted one of these ever since the product announcement back in September. So, combining the opportunity of a short business trip to Aussie with the excuse of it being close-ish to Christmas, I scored one on my way back through duty free. The price I got was the equivalent of $100 off over the New Zealand price, not enough to make it cheap, or even reasonable, but enough for this Apple Fanboy.
I’ve had it for a week now, and I love it. It’s an experience to use, slim, black, tactile and glossy. It plays movies. It displays your photos (it even knows how you are holding it – portrait or landscape – and alters its display accordingly). It surfs the ‘net, and if you find a wireless hotspot to connect to there’s another world of other stuff you can do on it. It even plays music. Yep.
It’s not without its faults though, and some of these are annoying.
- the headphone socket is on the bottom, preventing the (rather inadequate) stand from working while the Touch is sitting in portrait position – but putting the Touch into landscape position to free up the headphone socket causes the music display to change to Coverflow mode – and while it’s like this there are no volume controls. Often I listen to music while working… and if I need to change the volume for any reason I have to physically pick up the device, rotate it 90 degrees, and manipulate the touch screen appropriately. Clumsy and irritating.
- only 16Gb? That’s not really enough for a decent music collection and a few movies and TV shows. I had to ditch some songs from iTunes.
- no FireWire connectivity, only slow USB 2.0.
- for some reason the Touch won’t “remember” any wireless connection that has a hidden SSID. For probably bogus “security” reasons my home wireless network is hidden from immediate view and has to be connected to by name. Until I altered this setting and started to publicly broadcast the network’s name, the Touch required me to enter the network name and passphrase every time I needed to connect.
- it appears that the Touch has trouble connecting to weak wireless networks – it will appear to connect happily, but then not allow any connection to websites (some sort of DNS issue). This seems to happen a lot in town on CaféNet, but only at what I suspect are the edges of hotspots. Other times (such as very close to cafés) it works just fine.
- I have a feeling that the music sound quality is just slightly not quite as good as my third generation iPod… but I have no way of quantitatively measuring this (although I am not the only person to have issues with the sound). The sound seems slightly less “spaced out” and clear, although there does seem to be adequate frequency response across the range. I tested both using my reasonably good set of Sennheiser PXC-100s, so it’s not the ‘phones…
Despite all this though, there’s no going back. Among the many things I love:
- watching the IT Crowd on the bus to work. Using a program called ffmpegX I was able to convert episodes thoughtfully provided by American friends to a format that plays well on the Touch
- having my favourite movies, ripped from my own DVDs (thanks, Handbrake) on call – I’m working through LotR, the entire series of Firefly, and Nick Cave’s The Proposition at the moment.
- the sheer geeky coolness of surfing on the thing; the Vulcan nerve pinch interface
- today’s new additions to the useful apps – in particular the astounding Google Maps app is very impressive. And let’s not forget the web apps and the way these can now be turned into widgets on the home screen.
- the all round coolness of the thing.
I can’t leave it alone, despite its imperfections. Get one if you can.
Heck
17 January 2008, 00:55 #
Thanks for the review. Speaking for myself, I might eventually get it; toyed to my heart’s content with one at Ginza’s Apple store the other day.
But.
I was really, really, really hoping for a 32 GB iPod Touch at Macworld yesterday… As you say 16 GB is not enough. For me, simply useless. I make a daily backup of stuff in my current iPod that would fill that by itself, not to mention the music collection (currently dumbed down to AAC at only 256 it still fills about 25 GB, and I refuse to make it even lower quality or give up listening to half of it) and then videos…
Sigh.
Alan
17 January 2008, 07:48 #
I agree – 32Gb would be brilliant. I’m starting to wonder now though if a 3G 32Gb iPhone might be better – not for the mobile phone part necessarily, but just to ensure that internet connectivity is always there. The Google Maps app is absolute magic.
Still, the Touch is at generation 1. Heck, given your troubled relationship with Apple products, wouldn’t you be better to wait for the next or subsequent generation?
Mike Riversdale
17 January 2008, 07:54 #
All the fun of the iPhone without the phone – very cool. But, it’s all getting there and I think 5 years time I will be finally free of a “PC” and be able to do all my malarkey wherever I want (no, I don’t think it’s good enough for me just yet)
stephen
17 January 2008, 16:43 #
One of my colleagues has one, and the boss just returned from the US with an iPhone. I suggested that they attach strings to them and test their prowess with a game of conkers, but neither seemed keen…
Alan
17 January 2008, 17:17 #
You are a cruel man, Stephen.
These gadgets really are just a cheaper-than-a-Maserati way to express a male mid-life crisis. So asking their owners to treat these objects like a child’s playthings is indeed, deeply wounding.
Heck
17 January 2008, 21:01 #
I am waiting, Alan. The iPod is a music device mainly (for me at least). So I wait… Eyeing Cowons and Archos players.
But, I’m tired of the digital camera + phone + media player combination and want that damned convergence device as well in my pocket, whoever makes it first. If the iPhone (and the Touch just a step behind) is trying to move into that space, I’m glad. My Symbian smartphone pretty much covers all bases right now, but I’d be more than happy to replace it with something better. And in that regard, I borrow Mike’s words: not good enough for me just yet.
Just give me the 32 GB already, that’d make me happy today. (:
Stephen Judd
18 January 2008, 19:39 #
Said colleague is a young woman barely 30, so I’m afraid that ruins your theory.
I must admit I love the scrolling interface. It’s great fun to sssSLIDE! your finger down and watch the list whoosh past with a little pseudo-momentum afterwards.
Heck
18 January 2008, 19:59 #
Ah, but doesn’t “30” for a woman mean a crisis ? ( Am I the cruel one now ? )
jon
19 January 2008, 21:20 #
Yes, I love my Touch too. I even paid for the new update to have notes, email and google maps!
I look forward to further advancements (like third party apps starting at the end of Feb).
Hope you’re feeling better!
Alan
26 January 2008, 22:30 #
Sad, aren’t we Jon.
It seems the solution to my aforementioned connectivity issues with the iPod Touch is to set one’s own DNS server manually.
Sonja
28 February 2008, 15:50 #
There is a 32gb ipod touch on its way. i have jsut come back from europe and its already available there, so i assume it will be available in nz and aus soon enough, there was quite a price jump tho.