I got a new iPod touch today and boy is it a sweet piece of tech..
Now the number one question that I expect to answer is this: “Why didn’t you get an iPhone dude?”
Well the answer is complicated. I have a a corporate phone from work and they’re unsurprisingly, not supporting them. For one, AT&T is holding up transfers of corporate work accounts from ‘personal’ phones like the iPhone (weird eh?) plus there’s no real MS Exchange server support for it either. This would mean that all I’d be carrying around in my pocket would be a cellular web browser to get my Outlook email and appointments. Not that smart, when really, my Blackjack does a very competent job of that.
For anyone that has a corporate email phone like the Blackberry, the iPhone just doesn’t quite handle it all that well. For everyone else, it’s bloody amazing.
Now, this leaves me with two possible iPhone routes: hack one OR get one and take myself off the corporate plan. And while I’m happy to give throw money at Apple, I’m less excited at giving money to AT&T again.
And hacking the iPhone is just too fraught with danger since there is now an established cat and mouse game between Apple and the hacking community to one-up each other.
While I could potentially live with a hacked iPod touch that didn’t work every now and, I couldn’t live with a temperamental cellphone. It’s just plain irresponsible of me to have an dodgy iPhone just because I wanted one so bad.
So the iPod touch it was for me.
Tragically for me, only a few weeks ago I was the happy owner of a recent, fully functioning iPod nano 8gb. It was black, tiny, and very easy to lose. Which is exactly what I did coming back from New York in the back of a cab leaving La Guardia. And not only that, I managed to lose in the same little bundle my pair of kick ass in-ear headphones by Shure which I got custom fitted ear molds. Ugh.
Clearly, losing two iPods in less that four months is not funny, so I have to be super vigilant with this one. Having your car broken into is not anyone fault, per se, but forgetting stuff in the back of a cab is.
I’ll give a better report of my findings as I learn them.
Incidentally, I bought this today and it came preloaded with the 1.1.1 firmware update.
How goes the wifi web-surfing with the Touch? If it would allow me to get my web “fix” without sitting in front of a home computer and without feeling detached from a the “regular” internet I would be compelled to get one myself.
Comment by Nate — October 17, 2007 @ 10:56 am
The web browsing is actually disappointing. I’m still better off just using a real pc. The browsing is very slow and I think it might just have to do with mobile safari and the amount of ram that might be in the device. The ‘real internet’ on the Touch isn’t that much fun.
plus, there’s still no support for flash.
Comment by est1976 — October 17, 2007 @ 6:12 pm
Well, that’s a buzzkill.
Comment by Nate — October 18, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
yeah, I know. sorry. and you know what, would it have killed them to give me a couple of other real buttons? I have to look down to advance tracks, adjust volume… anything. Very distracting all for a freaking multi-touch screen.
Comment by est1976 — October 19, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
Well I am no tech guy. I have an OLD Compac that is slow as can be. So, I’ve dreaming of a Dell 14 ” laptop, or a Toshiba 13 “, or an Asus 7″ Eee PC, or the 4″ Nokia N810 or an IPod Touch 3.5″.
In fact, I think that I have lised these in a declining order of functionality! The Dell would be a great upgrade for my Compac (Core 2) as the Compac struggles with my IP’s security buzz. The Tosh (Core Duo) would be a bit warm. The Asus would be like a tablet. The Nokia might strain the eyes a bit.
Look, I love the idea of the iTouch.
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I am ticked a bit by its iTunes shackles. It seems you can’t save any old file in its memory, and I am not sure if it saves web files.
Even so, it is a marvel nnd I will probably get it and upload a few books for the wife. It was able to compute a Google Maps “From - To Route”. That sold me, but; I do not want to write Google “Trip Tickets” by hand ! so it better save them !
Actually, I have to get one just to keep up with all “mobile chat” !
Comment by Howie — October 26, 2007 @ 6:21 pm